"This is what we mean when say not just that (of course) there are neo-colonial data practices, but that we are entering a new phase of colonialism, data colonialism. This is, for sure, part of the evolution of colonialism as a concept, but much more than a continuation of the original colonialism with slight variation. Now colonialism has a completely new type of asset to take and appropriate."

Data is becoming more central in the development of new technologies because all new technologies rely on data to function. The rise of artificial intelligence increased the value of data, so colonialist mindset rushed to data as they rushed to the land of foreign countries’ land during the historical colonialism period, which is somehow alive today. Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias offered a concept to understand technological companies’ behaviours that there is a connection between colonialism and capitalistic tendencies of ‘data colonialism’ in their book named ‘the Cost of Connection (2019).’ The discussion around data colonialism has an ethical standpoint which is an anti-colonial critique of massive technological companies. Therefore, we reflected on data colonialism with Nick Couldry and his responses to our questions are below.

You make a very strong connection between historical colonialism and data colonialism, but can we claim that data colonialism is an extension of historical colonialism? Can we claim that colonialism is just evolving as much everything else? 

We need here to distinguish two ways in which we might connect data practices with colonialism. One would be to say that data practices are affected by the continuation of neo-colonial power relations (which of course continue, as the legacy of historical colonialism), but this would not be say anything very specific about the relationship between data and colonialism, for exactly the same is true today of (neo-colonial) financial or political practices. The other stronger claim, which Ulises and I make, is to say that what is happening today with the appropriate of data from the stream of human life across the planet is an event, a transformation, of world-historical significance which can be compared in importance with the original landgrab of historical colonialism, because it changes entirely the power relations regarding the world’s resources. This is what we mean when say not just that (of course) there are neo-colonial data practices, but that we are entering a new phase of colonialism, data colonialism. This is, for sure, part of the evolution of colonialism as a concept, but much more than a continuation of the original colonialism with slight variation. Now colonialism has a completely new type of asset to take and appropriate.

How successful is decolonialisation when we consider the rise of data colonialism?

We are only at the beginning of considering data practices from a de-colonial perspective: it is only in the past 5-10 years that the colonial aspects of data practices have begun to be discussed. There are many issues apart from the fundamentally colonial nature of the landgrab of human life in the form of data: inequalities in the races and ethnicities represented within Big Tech, inequalities in how algorithmic decision-making is applied on different populations. We are only just at the beginning of addressing these issues, and it will be a long struggle.

Data is praised as a common good to enhance social order and improve the life quality, but can establishing social order through data undermine democracy?

Ulises and I argue that treating the lives of human beings as targets for corporate and government resource extraction is a fundamental disrespect of human autonomy and freedom. Data colonialism therefore disrupts the basic respect on which the very idea of democracy is built. The actual impacts on particular democracies will take a long time to unfold, but we already see in areas such as facial recognition technologies and algorithmic injustices that data practices are generating problems for existing democracies.

What is the role of the state in data colonialism? How we can evaluate the relationship between states and the market?

This is very complicated. Just as with historical colonialism, the relations between states and market institutions are varied. The main actors in seizing data resources are corporate, although often as in China supported by national governments, whether actively or (through the lack of regulation) passively. In addition, governments and states stand to benefit hugely from access to the vast data collection of corporations: this is complicating the balance of negotiating power between states and corporations. Various countries exhibit complicated forms of this relationship, for example, India, Brazil, South Africa.

With all these similarities between historical colonialism and data colonialism, do we experience a capitalist or postcapitalist era?

In our view, we are definitely still in a capitalist era: a postcapitalist era will only come when either capitalism collapses (no signs of that yet), or an alternative mode of social and economic organization is developed: again, this hasn’t happened.

Is there a possibility to resist data colonialism? How we can resist data colonialism?

The final chapter of our book is devoted to this. We are optimistic about the possibility of resistance, provided that we are not misled by false solutions. One-track regulatory or personal responses won’t help us dismantle what is a new social and economic order, involving everyone’s actions. Instead, the only starting-point is imagination – imagining through ideas (but also remembering how things were only a few decades ago) a world that does not proceed along the path of intensifying data colonialism and starting to imagine collectively the practical steps that might begin to take us in the direction of relying less on data-extracting platforms for the conduct of our daily lives. But because what we are opposing is large (a social order), any resistance to have a chance of being effective must be collective, an act of emerging solidarity.

Features that are provided by technology such as easiness, speed and connectivity, are dependent on data gathering and we are aware that people love these features, so can increasing the responsibilities of states be a solution to data colonialism by itself? What are responsibilities of the individuals and society?

Again, since what we are talking about is a social order – reinforced and simulated for sure by values such as convenience and speed – it cannot be dismantled, just by fiat of a nation-state. It can only be dismantled through multiple actions by all sorts of actors, including individuals and civil society organization, working together towards an imagined common goal of finding better, less exploitative forms of social connection

What do you think about our role in data colonialism, for example we have certain feelings when we use technology, and we don’t care about the harm of data?

Again, social order stimulates many feelings – we all want to be included in something bigger, for our lives to be less chaotic, and to remain connected to the others we love. We are all implicated and, in part, complicit in the order being built. So, we have to reflect on that entanglement, and start to have a debate about whether the costs outweigh the benefits. That involves confronting the actual power relations that benefiting from our entanglement, which, given their complexity, requires a collective act of imagination itself.

What is the role of emotions and demands in making data colonialism ubiquitous, something unavoidable? Why we are emotionally attached to technology that makes difficult to abandon some technologies although we are aware of their consequences?  

As I have said, we are attached to order (life is not possible without some order), we like our anxieties to be assuaged, we enjoy particular aspects of technologies. That is all familiar and to be expected. But that doesn’t mean we are, as citizens of the world, unable to review whether overall we are served well or badly by the new order. Our book is intended to help start that wider debate.

What is the future of data colonialism? Is there any room for optimism?

We cannot say yet, as data colonialism will continue to grow on itself, acquiring yet more assets, using them in every more integrated ways, with side-effects that cannot at this point be entirely predicted. However, our book does at least try to get very clear on the direction of travel. But we remain optimistic, since that direction is not yet entirely fixed, and it depends on our consent. We can refuse that consent. We can choose another direction. We wrote the book to be part of that debate about alternative pathways for human life

What is the role of scholars for creating awareness and resistance towards data colonialism?

These ideas are not of purely academic interest. We are discussing potentially fundamental damage to the living conditions of humanity, with particular targeted populations, suffering particularly badly. It would be irresponsible of us therefore as authors to only write for other academics. We want to reach out to wider audiences and introduce our ideas to them. That is why we have become involved in two initiatives: the Tierra Comun network for scholars and activists with particular connections to Latin America (https://www.tierracomun.net/) and the Non-aligned Technology Movement (NATM) that aims to build alternative frameworks for technology and data policy beyond the sterile alternatives of Silicon Valley or China (https://nonalignedtech.net/index.php?title=Main_Page).