Digital Security Threats Facing Indigenous Language Communities in West and East Africa
The Yorùbá language is one of the three most spoken languages in Nigeria, with over 40 million speakers all over the world—yet few digital security tools are available in this language. Yorùbá speakers face many challenges in upholding the sovereignty of their language online, which affects their privacy and digital security. This includes the lack of access to digital security resources and education in the language, which limits their awareness of digital security threats and prevents participation in many online spaces. These findings are documented in “Digital Safety Matters: A Case study of Yorùbá Language Speakers Online.” The research is part of a collaboration between Rising Voices and researchers from 18 unique indigenous language communities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to better understand the challenges and unmet needs of these communities in relation to digital security.
Adéṣínà Ghani Ayẹni, or Ọmọ Yoòbá, is the founder of the Yobamoodua Cultural Heritage, an organization that works to preserve and revitalize the Yorùbá socio-cultural heritage. He has been involved in numerous activities to rejuvenate the Yorùbá language. This includes the localization of websites, content creation, and the archiving of the oral literature of the Yorùbá people.
The Igbo Wikimedians User Group in Nigeria have also engaged in diverse efforts to make the Igbo language accessible in online environments. The group faces constant digital security and online safety challenges such as spamming and hacking. Due to the lack of digital safety and security resources in the Igbo language, the group’s knowledge on how to guard themselves is limited, despite possessing general knowledge about digital security.
In Ghana, the Twi Language Wikimedians Group works to increase the presence of the Twi language online. It is through their committed strategies of content creation and translation that there is Twi translation available on Wikipedia. They also face challenges around spamming, hacking, impersonation, identity theft, and data extraction.
Digital Security Threats Facing Indigenous Language Communities in Asia
In Pakistan, the team of researchers of Idara Baraye Taleem wa Taraqi (IBT) work to keep the Torwali language and culture alive. A language affected by the Pathan invasion, the Torwali language and culture was facing extinction; initiatives by IBT helped revitalize it. However, their activity created new challenges such as digital surveillance and threats. With the crackdown on NGOs in the country, IBT also faces forced disappearances, death threats, and the use of repressive laws to limit their freedom of expression.
In India, factors such as caste, gender, and economic strata contribute further to digital vulnerabilities among native Odia speakers. The Dalits—who are socially, economically and historically marginalized communities in the country—are structurally more limited in accessing and adopting technology compared to their dominant caste peers. They also tend to self-censor their advocacy so as not to invite more scrutiny. Women in India also face significant limited access to information due to low linguistic literacy and English fluency, limited access to mobile devices, and lack of knowledge of digital safety and security. These factors result in the digital exclusion of women and increased vulnerability to safety risks. This exclusion is compounded for women from low-income groups and Dalit women, who often rely on other companions to navigate the English-majority digital sphere. The lack of Odia representation online is reflected in the lack of digital content, translation, and interface localization. Odia internet users are more vulnerable to misleading advertisements, in addition to spam calls and text messages asking for banking and other sensitive information.
Creative Strategies to Localize Digital Security Resources
In the face of language intolerance, closing civic space, and the lack of language representation online, in-person and online language communities continue to innovate around sustaining the use, representation, and enjoyment of their respective languages.
The community empowerment approach of IBT to revive pride of the Torwali language, identity, and culture is proving effective. This approach uses diverse tools and strategies, such as language literacy training and the development and sharing of resources—especially through platforms like YouTube. Odia speakers in India have formed small groups of peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and share YouTube videos on digital safety and security. Dagbani Wikimedians and Twi language speakers use the same method to learn digital security, which is then disseminated and learned by others via verbal instructions and written texts. Since many members in indigenous language communities speak and understand their language, but struggle to read or write it, educational video resources on platforms such as YouTube have made learning more accessible.
These indigenous language advocates also engage in counter-strategies to ensure they are prepared against digital attacks. This can be seen in how Igbo Wikimedians advocate for the use of Telegram groups—instead of Whatsapp—for collaboration due to security and privacy reasons; how Gîkûyû language advocates use Virtual Private Networks to protect their identities; and how Yorùbá language promoters make an effort to implement two-step verification for their online accounts.
The Need for More Localized Digital Security Resources
Across all the language communities, there is a consensus on the need for more localization of digital security knowledge and capacity building, as well as inclusive technological design. This can start with greater recognition of indigenous languages in digital security conversations. To create a truly inclusive and equitable digital world, though, all stakeholders must work together to dismantle the digital oppressions that result in the exclusion of indigenous language communities online.
More about Rising Voices’ Digital Security + Language research study:
The project points to the power of participatory research in surfacing the complexity of linguistic rights-related questions in the digital safety and security field, as each researcher approached the topic from a unique starting point in relation to their own experiences and understandings.
This is the second blog post of a four-part series on Rising Voices’ Digital Security & Language research study that explored the intersection of digital security and linguistic rights in collaboration with 18 researchers, from 18 different language communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Read the rest of the series: