A Q&A with Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias
Earlier this month, Stanford University Press hosted an online discussion between Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias, authors of the recently released The Costs of Connection », and Safiya Umoja Noble, author of the bestselling Algorithms of Oppression. The Costs of Connection uncovers "data colonialism," and its designs for controlling our lives—our ways of knowing; our means of production; our political participation. Because attendees of the talk posed far more questions than could be answered in a short amount of time, we invited Nick and Ulises to continue the conversation here.
What do you think are the key/most concerning issues in the age of data colonisation and why?
At the core there are two issues. First, the capture of what in our book we call ‘the space of the subject,’ the basic protection from interference and monitoring that is essential to our integrity as individual selves. This affects all possible selves, even if detailed effects are, as we just said, deeply unequal. But then, second, there is data colonialism’s way of deepening and obscuring how inequality gets reproduced through automated algorithmic processing — the implications of this for social life in every country in the next decades will also be severe, all the more so, because much of that will be easy to hide from view.
Data colonialism might be free of violence, but only of the once applied in the former colonial times. I believe it is just a different time of physical violence, which is even more profitable. Digital platforms are clearly damaging brains, propelling sedentarism as well as social isolation. It is also pulling people into debt by promoting consumption in each website which in an more extreme way is pulling people into poverty, which in the long run shortens life expectation. Do you agree?
Absolutely. As we said in the webinar, the question of violence is complex. It would be wrong to even hint that the situation with data colonialism involves anything like the brutal and sustained physical violence that was at the core of historic colonialism. But for sure data colonialism is introducing a social order that relies on a lot of force and pressure. So if you are in a low-paid job, you won’t have the chance to negotiate whether or not you put on your phone the app that tells you where your next assignment is, even if it takes your data. When these sorts of pressures are overlaid with others (about debt, housing etc), then the net effect may well be physically violent. And then there’s the effect on people’s brains of their continued exposure to digital devices and the intense pressures this can bring, as noted in our last answer. Finally, there is the symbolic violence that lies at the core of how data colonialism categorises and orders everyday life. All of this is important to our reading of data colonialism, and justifies the statement, as you say, this is a time of a different type of violence, even if the apparent difference from the immediate brutality of historic colonialism must always be recognized.
Which professions are the less likely to be dependent on "connectivity". I feel exhausted to be glued to my device 24/7
Those who cannot work from home (because their work involves manual labor) are already more exposed to intensive data tracking (they are connected, rather than free to connect). There is a lucky minority who will be able to charge a premium for their face-to-face work and insist it remains untracked (including perhaps some elite teachers), but this will be rare. Data colonialism in some form therefore will be an issue for almost everyone.
The current pandemic fells like a transitional time period, resembling a "liminal moment" in a rite of passage, as studied by anthropologists. In such situations, the past is not a reliable predictor for the future, which may look quite different from the past. Is there an opportunity to overcome data colonialism and what would have to happen to achieve such a transformation?
Actually anthropology is more ambiguous on this. Yes, liminal periods are bad predictors of the future, but what precedes liminal periods often just continues (in spite of a sense in a liminal period that ‘everything has changed’). This time the liminal situation feels strange because it accelerates tendencies that were already under way, tendencies of enforced digital connection. However the opportunity is that forces of data colonialism get exposed in the process. To challenge this, we must be clear-sighted about the direction of change, because it has nothing to do with democracy.
Can Heidegger and Cesaire help us theorise the reflexive-absorption of both historically colonised and coloniser in the logic of coloniality?
Yes, and there are plenty of other thinkers from the Global South who have done important theorizing in this regard, not just through empirical studies, but also through art and literature. In the realm of psychology, the work of Frantz Fanon comes to mind, particularly as he tried to understand the effects of internalized colonial violence. Fanon suggested that the ‘reflexive absorption’ of colonialism, as you call it, creates a specific psycopathology in the colonized subject. We think we need to borrow a page from Fanon and begin cataloguing the new neuroses and pathologies that shape the subjects of data colonialism: addiction, loss of certain types of memory, pervasive feeling of being monitored, narcisism, FOMO, and exposure to bullying and harrasment, to name just a few.
Germany and the Scandinavian countries spend less time on social media, compared to Latin American and other undeveloped countries where people spend more time. Does this reflect the idea of data colonialism? How do we explain that the richest countries are not driven to the social platforms drive as much? Also, given that the populations/demographics of some of these social media sites, like Twitter or TikTok, are under 18, or around 18, how does that impact this reading of colonialism?
The marketing of addictive substances to certain populations is nothing new, unfortunately. Think of junk food, alcohol and tobacco, which are readily available to some groups more than others. Why is Mexico the largest consumer of sugary drinks, for instance? Covid-19 has reminded us again that health issues are not just biological, but political, and they do not impact populations equally. A heavier price is often paid by those who suffer from forms of discrimination with deep colonial roots. In this way, datafication is also like a virus or an addictive substance that can negatively impact the health of the colonized.
How can we begin to reconcile the advancement of accessibility technologies for people with disabilities enabled by data generated from walled gardens and the practice of data colonialism and the disproportionate exploitation of the disability community required to generate these technologies? In a crisis like the one we are experiencing now, the world of those with disabilities shrinks to an even more dramatic degree than that of the rest of us? Would you explore disability as a new dimension of data-colonial power?
Disability is an important aspect of how the costs of connection are unequally shared. We recognize absolutely that for disabled people digital platforms play a vital role in extending their possibilities for human connection in a very real sense, but that means they are exposed unfairly to the costs that flow with those platforms. This is all the more reason why everyone should be alert to those costs – otherwise we just end up reinforcing the social inequalities around disability in yet another way. The voices of disabled people are important to all future discussions about how we renegotiate the costs of connection.
It seems the path for LGBT liberation is threatened around the world, in what ways do the panelists think data colonialism and algorithmic oppression discriminate against LGBTQ+ communities?
Discrimination under colonialism has always been systemic and widespread, but also very focused, targetting specific groups. It’s always been a question of defining who has agency, and who is merely a subject. Our book does not explore how data colonialism impacts this or that specific minority, because we are attempting to lay out a broad framework in which such an analysis can be conducted. But this kind of work is being done by people within each of those communities, and we need to listen to their voices.
In what ways does data colonialism apply to the sphere of education? what are the expressions of data colonialism in education?
This is a deep and important point. There are a lot things going on related to data colonialism in the education field. First, the reorganization of teaching via platforms that continuously track, evaluate and archive student performance. Second, there are many specific proprietary tools doing and extending the datafication of students’ lives and activities, for example Google’s Suite of Education tools, the platforms of IBM, Pearson and others. Third, there is the more general process of colonizing the space and time of teaching and learning for the commercial goals of data extraction and data-driven management. No area of society is more important to the quality of its future development than education, and the formation of adult citizens, so it matters that data colonialism is visibly so active there.
How can the work towards an alternate path be made real for information science professional and professionals in training?
In the case of professionals in training, we need to decolonize the curriculum. Most STEM majors can graduate with, at best, a preliminary course on ethics. That is not enough. Students who design and implement technologies need to have a substantial knowledge of how technology has been used to oppress certain groups. Students need to push for this change, and not leave it to administrators. Professionals already working in the industry need to find like-minded people, and push for change from within, or from the bottom. It is encouraging to see people within Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft or Google publicly speak up and disagree with their superiors, even when there is a personal cost. At the same time, we need to be realistic, and recognize that corporations can only be changed so far without having to rethink the entire system in which they operate.
What organizations are doing interested work on these issues? If university students ask how they can get involved, even if this is not their field of expertise, where might we send them, beyond the usual advice of starting their own grassroots conversation locally?
There are many possibilities. There are important research centers such as Data and Society, and the AI Now Institute in NYC. There are also policy campaigners like Anita Gurumurthy of IT for Change in India and many others. And there are major campaigns for data justice, and critical data studies initiatives [e.g. Auditing Algorithms at Michigan U]. We are also ourselves currently setting up a network with Latin Americans scholars, activists and citizens interested in these issues called Tierra Comun (www.tierracomun.net): it is Spanish and English and we welcome anyone who cares about these issues to join.
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