This panel is about the many ways in which modern internet
adoption and use mirrors the development of agrarian
sharecropping in the South following the Civil War- whereby
African Americans provided massive amounts of labor to make
other people rich, but could never move beyond basic subsistence
living. According to the Pew Internet& American Life Project,as
of May 2011, 25% of online African Americans now use Twitter,
compared with 9% of such whites. African-American and Latino
internet users are each significantly more likely than whites to
be Twitter adopters. One out of ten African-American internet
users now visit Twitter on a typical day—that is double the rate
for Latinos and nearly four times the rate for whites. Pew
research has also indicated that Blacks and Latinos are
significantly more likely to use mobile devices to text message,
use social networking sites, use the internet, watch and record
videos, make charitable donation, use email, play games, listen
to music, instant message and post multi