Axios

A raft of new evidence shows the rise of the internet itself may have boosted inequality, and that how people use internet access may be just as — or more — important than the access itself. Educated users with high incomes derive the most benefit from internet use, a 2016 study in Europe showed. The World Bank issued a 2014 report warning that providing internet access on its own would only deepen inequality within and among countries unless governments ensured competitive markets and provided better education.

An Axios/SurveyMonkey poll reveals that income strongly affects how Americans access the internet, and the divide cuts across geography. In both urban and rural areas, exactly half of the lower income population reported having broadband internet at home — the lowest percentage of any group.

The "homework gap" affects 12 million U.S. school-age kids. By the numbers:

High-speed broadband and mobile internet have created more opportunities to access free news and information than ever before. But they have also made it harder for quality news and information outlets, particularly ones in rural areas, to survive. Tech has disrupted the local media business model and pushed more journalism behind paywalls — and there's no end in sight. Experts worry that the deployment of 5G over the next few years will worsen the digital divide and have a lasting impact on how rural communities will be able to access quality news and information.

Some less-populated areas may technically have internet, but it's slower satellite, or DSL service delivered over old copper phone lines. So some towns have taken matters into their own hands, experimenting with novel solutions to connect unserved residents or give them new options to existing services:

Facebook Basics is an app and mobile site that provides free access to a tightly curated set of web content and, naturally, Facebook itself. Facebook promotes Free Basics as a bridge to the wider internet for consumers in developing nations. But in practice the subsidized content can simply become the internet. That's what happened in the Philippines. That particular kind of internet provided president Rodrigo Duterte with the perfect environment to wage a war of misinformation against his enemies and on behalf of his brutal drug war.

The federal government's efforts to provide ubiquitous internet access have had varying levels of success. The Federal Communications Commission says  that more than 24 million Americans still lack fixed service that meets the FCC's broadband speed benchmark (25 Mbps download/3 Mbps upload). About 14 million rural Americans lack mobile LTE broadband.

A look at four emerging forms of digital inequality: privacy, education, screen time and news. As ubiquitous as broadband connectivity may seem for those who live in cities or suburbs with comfortable incomes, here's the reality:

Facebook will release an early report on an audit of civil rights on its platform by the end of 2018, according to Color of Change, an advocacy organization that demanded the move in a meeting with COO Sheryl Sandberg. The social network hasn’t yet fulfilled any of the other requests made by the group, called Color Of Change, which has asked Facebook to: fire its top policy executive, a former Republican staffer, release data on voter suppression attempts on Facebook products, and release opposition research that a right-leaning consulting firm produced trying to link the civil rights group