The subject of inclusion in tech is a rather polarizing one, while capitalism and politics were viewed as two parallel lines in time past we are beginning to see a shift in that perception as netizens are beginning to wake up to the fact that the internet may not be as global a villages as we want it to be without proper representation of all stakeholders.
BUSINESSES AREN'T POLITICAL PARTIES
Prior to a couple of weeks ago I held the opinion that businesses aren't political parties as such they should hire only the best and forget about representation because it's not so hard to create focus groups and the likes to study minorities. The issue of unionism at work also felt counterproductive for me because they create more room for office politics. Recently, I began asking myself questions that were borne out of the unequal access to the internet that people (like myself) in Sub-Saharan Africa have to endure.
POINTS OF CONFUSION
I began to ask questions like "Why does CAPTCHA ask me to identify a parking meter when I've never seen one in real life?", "Why does Twitter tell me that a video isn't available in my location when I click on the video attached to a foreign tweet?", "Do people outside Africa get told that videos in Africa aren't available in their location?". There are so many published reports that have questioned the unbiased nature of software. It has been established that a lot of software discriminates against minority groups and all of these are a result of the fact that there is little to no representation at the decision table. Without inclusion in this digital space, we call the internet, we will claim that everyone is equal when in reality some people are more equal than others by virtue of their geographical location.