digital colonialism

Via Superpunch, we learn about the unintended consequences of walled-gardens and the democratic outreach of the internet to places that have the infrastructure but not the monetary means to join the broader online community.
Magnanimously, some social media sites and one public resource have granted Angola (a former Portuguese colony and a place bigger than western Europe but does not seem to register much)—as they have done for other places in the developing world, access to a tier of web pages and applications at no cost to subscribers’ data-plans. Some would argue that this underprivileged glimpse askance of the open internet is not more beneficial than none at all, saying either you have to play by our rules or giving the disadvantaged a manipulative taste that builds brand loyalty.  In order to use the internet as it was intended, pirates in these places have transformed the network into secret coves and hidden harbours to distribute movies, music and television programmes—much to the concern and frustration of those that have extended these free but closed services, which can be mistook as the internet itself.