The Pandemic and the New Socio-Digital Order in the Global South: The Case of São Paulo

What happens when the digital city encounters large-scale disasters and pandemics like COVID-19? This article analyzes the case of São Paulo, Brazil, to illustrate how the pandemic contributes to emphasize a broad spectrum of inequalities. In the largest metropolis in Latin America, the population lives with a strong disparity of socioeconomic and cultural conditions, at the same time marginalized groups in the city survive amid the greatest risks of the pandemic, with precarious conditions of access and use of the Internet. As a result, an “inequality virus” emerges out of the pandemic.