In my hometown, Darjeeling (India), Internet has been blocked since June 17, 2017 by the government to censor the citizens of the area. Media doesn't cover us well as its a small town. How do we Battle for the Internet? How can we drum up support?
It sounds as if you're from Darjeeling rather than based there now (since you obviously have internet access). I wonder what obstacles besides the obvious ones of poverty would prevent the creation of informal peer-based networking. It seems clear to me that networking needs to be fractal in order to function as an instrument of general liberation/empowerment, vs high-volume hierarchies that can be switched off as in your example.
Please do follow up with me on this. I can't devote a lot of time to it but you raise a critically important question that I want to include in my political calculus going forward.
I live in Darjeeling but at the foothills where the Internet hasn't been blocked. I have friends who have been suffering.
Banks can't function without internet.
Doctors cannot look up medicines without the internet.
Its a mess.
People are not tech savvy enough to use FireChat.
We have free voice calls on mobile(3G/4G). Where does one start to build a data on voice app?
Thank you for the support! Please spread the word :)
This seems like a textbook case of a problem that should be easily soluble by technical means but which is blocked by other factors. It's strange and unfortunate that Firechat doesn't work on desktop (allowing easy spread by USB keys), and also (AFAIK) that it's not practical to pper up to install it.
I have no idea about how to build a data-on-voice app (which would have the same bootstrapping problems as firechat), but if you have a printer and want to do some organizing you could establish phone trees with some friends, and then get people to travel by bus to your neighborhood, install firechat, and begin (slowly) lighting up the dark zone, maybe?
http://www.intermountainpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/P...
Please do submit an article on this. I think it's an important example of a collective action problem of the sort that people int he west have partly forgotten how to deal with.