Social media and other internet platforms are more than just places to share pictures of pets and travels. The ways in which young people and adults alike use mobile devices and apps can be significant and meaningful. Tactical Tech’s 2020 report “Smartphone as Lifeline” explored how smartphone apps and tools provide people with access to essential services, noting “living in precarious, shifting and volatile contexts may even increase the value of such tools – acting as an indispensable means of communication for safety, coordination and survival.”²² With such great potential for power comes the inevitability of opportunists^{23, 24} who want to harness that power.

Digital tools are not ‘neutral.’ They are imbued with the incentives, political leanings and ideologies of their creators. As Brad Crofford noted, “social media (and, more broadly, the internet) can be used both to liberate and repress.”²⁵ This essay will touch on two examples that are often cited when talking about the advantageous role that technology has played in real-world access to information. But, with a closer look, these cases also show that there is a duality of information access online. These writings are not exhaustive, rather, intended to be used as a brief overview to provoke discussion surrounding digitized divides.

In the past decade, there have been some major technological breakthroughs²⁶ aimed at increasing accessibility for People with Disabilities and Disabled People,²⁷ who make up more than 16% of the global population.²⁸ According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 28% of the adult population in the United States have some type of disability²⁹ with a similar proportion in the European Union³⁰. Neurologists and biomedical engineers have returned the sense of touch to participants in clinical trials with state-of-the-art prosthetic limbs³¹. The mobile app Be My Eyes,³² which has over one million downloads,³³ connects sighted people with Blind or low-vision users to receive live audio descriptions on-the-go. In 2024, they partnered with Open AI to develop smart glasses that use AI pattern recognition to give live audio descriptions to the person wearing them.³⁴ Sesame Enable³⁵ makes mobile phones become hands-free and enables them to be controlled by head gestures, using AI gesture recognition – this is especially helpful to people with limited mobility and paralysis.

Some of the more significant accessibility breakthroughs are expensive or not yet rolled out en masse, but they do provide hope for many people – including the almost one billion people, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, who are in need of assistive products but lack access due to various barriers including affordability and inadequate options³⁶. The ‘social model of disability’, differing from the ‘medical model of disability’, identifies social and systemic barriers as restrictions that do not give equitable support to various populations of people, therefore holding them back from access and opportunities.³⁷ The persuasive and sometimes obscure designs of technology, like those found in physical smartphones (such as touch screens) and virtual apps (like data collection disclaimers that cannot be rejected and cookie notification pop-ups) play a part in perpetuating blockers and confusion, holding back People with Disabilities from confidently accessing and navigating technology - "technology is often presented as a source of liberation [...] this is not always the case"³⁸.

The intersection of technology and disability justice is also gendered. One study found that women with disabilities are the least likely across various groups and genders to own smartphones and least likely to use mobile internet. The ownership and usage gap for men is already quite large - stating that “disability is a significant predictor of mobile ownership and compounds the gender gap.”³⁹ Another study found that Swedish men with disabilities had more significant technological setbacks than their female counterparts. “In most of the disability groups, larger proportion of men than women reported that they do not feel digitally included.”⁴⁰

These examples illustrate how technology is actively being used both to help people and to hold people back. While the technology itself can have life-changing effects for people who have access to it, and can perhaps provide hope to those who don’t, this does not necessarily overwrite the reality of people with support needs navigating an ever-digitized world. Broadly speaking, ‘accessibility’ is an oft-cited benefit of technologies, without regard for those who fall in the digital divide and without contextualizing the rapidly digitized contexts in which people live. To meet the bare minimum requirements of accessibility to support people who are already independently navigating the world around them, is not enough. Those types of accessibility supports should be expected as a standard in a world where essential services are online and can only be accessed behind a screen.

Another significant case study that is often brought up to exemplify the power of technology and social media is that of the Arab Spring. Especially in 2011, young people across Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and beyond used social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to organize and document protests, publish dissenting viewpoints, and share solidarity with activists and political prisoners. Some movements gained quick and mass mobilization as a result of using these tools, oftentimes by leveraging hashtags to make their messages reach wide audiences.

However, a quite important piece that is often left out of discourse around the Arab Spring is that the information and organizing during that period also included efforts by authoritarian regimes to quash such dissent. As Jillian C. York noted in 2011: “Citizen-generated content adds a new dimension with its range of perspectives. But just as they can serve to challenge the mainstream forces, they can be tools of government propaganda, as seen most recently in Bahrain and Syria, where masses of Twitter and Facebook users have attempted to uphold state views by flooding services with pro-regime sentiment.”⁴¹ Freedom House’s 2011 report wrote, “Social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter played a strategic role in mobilizing citizens and disseminating news [...] authorities soon responded with intermittent blocks on access to such tools and to the websites of prominent independent newspapers. [...] A large number of bloggers and online activists were also detained during the protests.”⁴² They continued in their 2023 report: “Sophisticated surveillance systems rapidly trawl social media for signs of dissent, and massive datasets are paired with facial scans to identify and track prodemocracy protesters.”⁴³ It would be naive to look at the amplification of activist and opposition voices⁴⁴ and not recognize that those aiming to uphold the status quo or even further concentrating power would use the same means to do so.

Blake Hounshell reflected on social media’s role during the Arab Spring, writing, “I’m often asked: Is Twitter, or social media in general, a reliable source of information on these revolutions? That’s a lot like asking: Is television trustworthy? Are newspapers any good? It’s just a tool — it depends on how you use it.”⁴⁵ While things may have been different a decade ago, in the current context, I would push Hounshell’s argument further – in regard to technology, it not only depends on how you use it, it also depends on how it is built, who builds and owns it, and which voices they deem more or less valuable and trustworthy. Algorithms, inbuilt behind-the-scenes of social media are used to determine which information is prioritized and promoted⁴⁶, and content moderation - or the lack thereof - may result in critical voices, including those of on-the-ground journalists, being shadow-banned or blocked altogether^{47, 48}. Leaked internal documents from Facebook indicate that employees raised alarm bells about shadowbans of Palestinians who were documenting the 2021 Sheikh Jarrah eviction crisis⁴⁹. This quote encapsulates clearly the overarching attitude about demotion practices across Meta platforms, broadly speaking: “Facebook does not want to tell people what they can’t see [...] At the same time, Facebook also believes that the ecosystem will be healthier if certain types of content are less prevalent on the platform.”⁵⁰

The 2023 Freedom on the Net report found concerning data worldwide. “In a record 55 of the 70 countries covered by Freedom on the Net, people faced legal repercussions for expressing themselves online, while people were physically assaulted or killed for their online commentary in 41 countries.”⁵¹ Through social media, blogs, and other spaces, the internet has also been a helpful place for anyone to be able to express dissenting viewpoints regardless of where they live – but not without risk. “In a repressive country, tweeting may be a very brave act,” wrote Zeynep Tufekci⁵². And that’s the point here – social media and other online tools provide a way to reach more people; however, that does not necessarily decrease the very real physical risks posed by doing such high-profile work and that does not necessarily mean it will be possible to do the work without setbacks.

The examples in this essay illustrate how technology has been used as both a gateway and a barrier to accessing information for different groups of people from various vantage points and with key interests. In the cases highlighted, struggles for equity, access, liberation, as well as power, are issues that we (humanity) face time and again. Prevailing narratives often focus on how new technologies are providing access to information for a group of people, but ignore the fact that there are drawbacks for others. The promises that come with technology tend to be anchored in a reality where many people do not have access, and those who do have access and influence may aim to uphold the status quo,⁵³ serving a limited elite.

²² Hankey, Stephanie; et al. “Smartphone as Lifeline: Designing technology for a changing world.” Tactical Tech, 2020.

²³ Joyella, Mark. “Elon Musk Accused Of ‘Silencing His Critics’ As X Suspends Journalists.” Forbes, 2024.

²⁴ Access Now. “2024 elections and internet shutdowns watch.” 2024.

²⁵ Crofford, Blake. “Youth, Technology, and the Arab Spring: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Next?” The International Affairs Review, 2015.

²⁶ Aquino, Steve. “AI could be a game changer for people with disabilities.” Technology Review, 2024.

²⁷ Both person-first language and identity-first language are valid ways in which people refer to themselves, so out of respect, we’ve included both in this first mention. Throughout the rest of the text, for brevity and readability, we will use person-first language.

²⁸ World Health Organization. “Disability.” 2023.

²⁹ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Disability Impacts All of Us Infographic.” 2024.

³⁰ European Council. “Disability in the EU: facts and figures.” 2025.

³¹ Pelley, Scott. “Feel again: Advancements in prosthetics limb technology allow feeling, control.” CBS News, 2023.

³² Be My Eyes.

³³ Google Play Store Apps. “Be My Eyes.”

³⁴ Duffy, Clare. “‘We don’t want to leave people behind’: AI is helping disabled people in surprising new ways.” CNN, 2024.

³⁵ Sesame Enable.

³⁶ World Health Organization. “Global report on assistive technology.” 2022.

³⁷ Oliver, Michael. “Social Work with Disabled People.” Palgrave, 1983.

³⁸ Ellis, Katie; et al. “Disability and New Media.” Routledge, 2010.

³⁹ Aranda Jan, Clara; et al. “The digital divide at the intersection of gender and disability.” GSMA, 2020.

⁴⁰ Johansson, S.; et al. “Disability digital divide: the use of the internet, smartphones, computers and tablets among people with disabilities in Sweden.” Univ Access Inf Soc 20, 105–120 (2021).

⁴¹ York, Jillian C. “The Revolutionary Force of Facebook and Twitter.” Nieman Reports, 2011.

⁴² Freedom House. “Freedom on the Net 2011 - A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media.” (page 118) UNHCR, 2011.

⁴³ Funk, Allie; et al. “The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence.” Freedom House, 2023.

⁴⁴ FreeAlaa.net “About Alaa Abd El Fattah.”

⁴⁵ Hounshell, Blake. “The Revolution Will Be Tweeted.” Foreign Policy, 2011.

⁴⁶ Mosley, Tonya. “How social media algorithms 'flatten' our culture by making decisions for us.” NPR, 2024.

⁴⁷ Human Rights Watch. “Meta: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content.” 2023.

⁴⁸ Amnesty International. “Global: Social media companies must step up crisis response on Israel-Palestine as online hate and censorship proliferate.” 2023.

⁴⁹ Facebook Papers. “Issues with Restrictions/Demotions on Palestinian Content.” 2019. Published via Gizmodo “Read the Facebook Papers for Yourself.”

⁵⁰ Facebook Papers. “Downside Metrics: Viewer-Side Collateral Damage Measurements.” 2019. Published via Gizmodo “Read the Facebook Papers for Yourself.”

⁵¹ Funk, Allie; et al. “The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence.” Freedom House, 2023.

⁵² Tufekci, Zeynep. “Twitter and Teargas: How social media changed protest forever.” Wired, 2017.

⁵³ Gkritsi, Eliza. “Musk’s X suspends opposition accounts in Turkey amid civil unrest.” POLITICO, 2025.