Suggested Readings

Key Terms

Data Colonialism: According to Couldry and Mejias (2019, 2024), data colonialism is an emerging social order for the continuous extraction of data from human life for the purpose of generating profit.

Decolonizing Data: The process of replacing digital technologies controlled by Big Tech with technologies that communities can control.

Fediverse: The decentralised, federated network of online social networks that avoids Big Tech oligopolies is called the Fediverse. Any server using any software package (such as Mastodon) compatible with the ActivityPub protocol can be linked in to the Fediverse. Local communities choose policies of moderation and which other servers to connect to or block.

Non-Extractive or Non-Aligned Technologies: free software, which has the four fundamental software freedoms: freedom in using the software, freedom to modify it, freedom to distribute it, and freedom to distribute modified copies. This wiki is itself running on free software. This software empowers the non-aligned community and neither GAFAM (US) nor BATX (PRChina) can prevent this.

Non-Aligned Community: The non-aligned online community consists of communities running servers on the Internet that are federated rather than centralised, and beyond the control of GAFAM and BATX. As of September 2020, lists of these existing communities include:

• https://switching.software – for ordinary citizens – how to shift from existing colonial software hosters to community based networks
• https://reverseeagle.org – for software developers wishing to decolonialise

Readings

Ali, Syed Mustafa

1. Prolegomenon to the Decolonization of Internet Governance (2018)
2. A Brief Introduction to Decolonial Computing

Avila, Renata

1. Digital Sovereignty or Digital Colonialism (July 2018)

Butt, Danny

1. New International Information Order (NIIO) Revisited: Global Algorithmic Governance and Neocolonialism. The Fibreculture Journal 27 (March 8, 2016). (this article contains a useful summary of what happened to the original non aligned movement with regards to information and communication technologies)

Couldry, Nick & Mejias, Ulises

1. The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism (2019)
2. Data Colonialism: Rethinking Big Data’s Relation to the Contemporary Subject (Sept 2018)
3. Data Grab: The new Colonialism of Big Tech and how to fight back. US, UK.

Kwet, Michael

1. Digital colonialism is threatening the Global South (March 2019)

Mejias, Ulises

1. Why the Global South should nationalise its data (December 2019)
2. To fight data colonialism, we need a Non-Aligned Tech Movement (September 2020)

Milan, Stefania & Treré, Emiliano

1. Big Data from the South(s): Beyond Data Universalism

Mohamed, Shakir & Png, Marie-Therese & Isaac, William

1. Decolonial AI: Decolonial Theory as Sociotechnical Foresight in Artificial Intelligence

Ortiz Freuler, Juan

1. The case for a digital non-aligned movement (June 2020)
2. TikTok, Trump and the need for a digital non-aligned movement (Aug 2020)
3. Impuestos a corporaciones digitales y la fragmentación de la web: ¿hacia un Movimiento de Países No Alineados? (Agosto 2020)
4. Trump, TikTok y el fin de la internet abierta: ¿hacia un movimiento de países no alineados? (Agosto 2020)

Ricaurte Quijano, Paola

1. Data Epistemologies, The Coloniality of Power, and Resistance (March 2019)