Criteria for the measurement of the impact of the internet in society
Measurement of physical and functional access to digital infrastructure
Speed
Advertised speeds (OECD, FCC)
Content delivery networks and web services
Download Speeds
Distributed client-side hardware: download and upload speed
Crowdsourcing
Price
Comparison of offers from all ISPs and countries
User-submitted information
Infrastructure location, size and routing
IP distribution
Domain allocation
Internet hosts
Number, size and relationships of autonomous systems (AS)
Network bandwidth estimates
Internet exchange location of traffic
Route identification and analysis
National network status
International pipe location, traffic and dependencies
Suggested Sources:
Akamai
Netfilx
Government partnerships
Samknows
Ookla
M-Lab
Ne-Index
Speedtest
Renesys
Arbor Networks
Qualitative and quantitative assessments of content control
Take-downs
Filtering
DDOS
Malware and other attacks
Legal restrictions
Non-technical controls
Self-censorship
Measurement of online activity (content and communities)
Tracking internet activity of citizens, companies and public agencies in relation to human development and well-being
Number of people engaging
Types and quantity of information production, assessement and sharing
Formation of civic organizations, professional groups and new media entities
Growth and scale of e-commerce and online business
Use of online resources for health, education and science
Impact on governance
Privation comparison to offline activities
Challenges
Overproduction of data
Online activity attributes (technology affordance vs migration and mirroring of political, economic and social transactions)
Raw number of users real activity
Government restrictions
Social practices constraints
Dept and dearth of content
Language locality
Approach
Consistent measures
Per case comparison of findings to non consistent measures
Measuring the incremental activity shift
Link between activity and impact measures
Questions
To what extend does access to the internet contribute to a better informed populace tha can effectively participate in public life and contribute to human development?
Do citizens have access to information that is accurate?
Do they know how to identify misinformation?
Does increasing engagement with digital media lead to better policy decisions?