is the Internet really an accomplishment by Silicon Valley and its startups? Well, look at Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and reddit. These are "Silicon Va

is the Internet really an accomplishment by Silicon Valley and its startups? Well, look at Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and reddit. These are "Silicon Valley startups". They are tools that empower minorities to do things. Here's a video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBeNfSoMqjY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBeNfSoMqjY ) of someone who started @EverydaySexism on Twitter, talking about how that project has empowered her and lots of other women with compating low level sexism. A "trivial" website like twitter is fighting sexism (while also have lots of cat pics and memes). The big game changer with the internet isn't so much the technology, but the fact that so many mundane average people are on it. For that we can thank Silicon Valley's push for "growth" and "user count", the end result is people (incl. marginalized groups) having access to the tool. It's not the technical superiority of the tools, but the widespread availability of the tools, that is the game changer.