Page 343 - El État de los derechos humanos en las relaciones familiares

ÉTAT DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS EN LAS RELACIONES FAMILIARES

Unfortunately, the possible is not the same as the feasible, which in turn distinguishes itself
from the viable. The possibility of communication does not imply that it is a reality, as today

we see sectors of the population that remain uncommunicated, both because of the lack of

technological equipment and because of arbitrary access restrictions. There are many places

in the world that, due to geographic and economic conditions, lack physical and digital
communication channels, as well as other places where technology exists but the price

imposed on its use is outside the reach of important sectors of the population (as is the case

of Internet access via mobile telephony) [2].

In this context of inequality, digital information and communication technologies—whose
name I will hereinafter abbreviate as ‘digital technology’—were initially viewed with great

hope. An academic project (albeit financed for military purposes) of decentralized

communication which initially facilitated sharing and collaboration among millions of

students and academics, was the beginning of what we know today as the Internet [3], the
network of networks that conforms the nervous system of the so-called ‘global society’, which

has facilitated the development of a culture of sharing and collaboration, manifested in the

free software projects [4] that have given life to the World Wide Web [5], as well as
movements towards the generation of spaces for sharing all kinds of information—as have

been the cases of Napster and Bittorrent [6].

In the educational field we have also observed movements towards sharing and collaborating

that have offered educational content in an open and free way, such as Open Courseware,
Open Educational Resources [7] and Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org), and later have

offered educational processes that have been accessed by millions of users around the world,

345