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Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back de Ulises A. Mejias

Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back

Autor Ulises A. Mejias, Nick Couldry
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 14 mar 2024

În peisajul academic actual al sociologiei digitale și al studiilor politice, ne aflăm în fața unei lucrări care propune o paradigmă radicală pentru înțelegerea puterii tehnologice contemporane. Suntem de părere că Data Grab nu este doar o critică a supravegherii digitale, ci o reîncadrare istorică necesară a modului în care giganți precum Meta sau Alphabet operează la nivel global. Considerăm că autorii reușesc să demonstreze cum practicile extractive de astăzi nu sunt simple anomalii ale pieței, ci reprezintă o continuare directă a colonialismului istoric.

Lucrarea extinde cadrul teoretic propus anterior de Nick Couldry în The Costs of Connection cu date noi și o analiză aprofundată a modului în care inteligența artificială acționează ca motor al acestei noi „misiuni de civilizare”. Structura volumului este riguros organizată, pornind de la o introducere ce face tranziția de la acapararea terenurilor la cea a datelor, urmată de capitole ce analizează noile teritorii digitale și „clasa colonială” emergentă. Această progresie logică permite cititorului să înțeleagă cum algoritmii, departe de a fi neutri, încorporează constructe culturale și economice care adâncesc inegalitatea între Nordul Global și restul lumii.

Spre deosebire de Resisting Big Tech, care se concentrează pe impactul algoritmilor asupra vieții cotidiene (precum Google Maps), Data Grab adoptă o perspectivă macro-istorică, oferind totodată un ghid pentru rezistență. Analiza nu se oprește la diagnosticarea problemelor de confidențialitate, ci explorează modul în care extracția de date duce la precaritatea muncii și degradarea mediului, oferind o viziune holistică asupra noii ordini sociale. Este o lectură densă, dar accesibilă, esențială pentru cei care doresc să înțeleagă mecanismele de putere din spatele interfețelor prietenoase ale aplicațiilor pe care le folosim zilnic.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780226832302
ISBN-10: 0226832309
Pagini: 224
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.54 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press

De ce să citești această carte

Recomandăm această carte oricui este interesat de intersecția dintre tehnologie și dreptate socială. Veți câștiga o perspectivă critică asupra modului în care datele dumneavoastră personale sunt transformate în profit corporativ fără consimțământ real. Este un instrument teoretic prețios pentru studenții de la sociologie și științe politice, oferind argumente solide pentru necesitatea unei reglementări etice a inteligenței artificiale și a platformelor digitale.

Despre autor

Nick Couldry este profesor de media, comunicații și teorie socială la London School of Economics, fiind recunoscut la nivel internațional pentru cercetările sale asupra impactului social al mediilor digitale. Ulises A. Mejias este profesor de studii media la SUNY Oswego, specializat în teoria rețelelor și colonialismul datelor. Împreună, cei doi autori au definit conceptul de „colonialism al datelor”, colaborarea lor fiind esențială pentru dezvoltarea acestui nou domeniu de studiu care îmbină economia politică cu teoria post-colonială.

Descriere scurtă

A compelling argument that the extractive practices of today’s tech giants are the continuation of colonialism—and a crucial guide to collective resistance.
 
Large technology companies like Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet have unprecedented access to our daily lives, collecting information when we check our email, count our steps, shop online, and commute to and from work. Current events are concerning—both the changing owners (and names) of billion-dollar tech companies and regulatory concerns about artificial intelligence underscore the sweeping nature of Big Tech’s surveillance and the influence such companies hold over the people who use their apps and platforms.
 
As trusted tech experts Ulises A. Mejias and Nick Couldry show in this eye-opening and convincing book, this vast accumulation of data is not the accidental stockpile of a fast-growing industry. Just as nations stole territories for ill-gotten minerals and crops, wealth, and dominance, tech companies steal personal data important to our lives. It’s only within the framework of colonialism, Mejias and Couldry argue, that we can comprehend the full scope of this heist.
 
Like the land grabs of the past, today’s data grab converts our data into raw material for the generation of corporate profit against our own interests. Like historical colonialism, today’s tech corporations have engineered an extractive form of doing business that builds a new social and economic order, leads to job precarity, and degrades the environment. These methods deepen global inequality, consolidating corporate wealth in the Global North and engineering discriminatory algorithms. Promising convenience, connection, and scientific progress, tech companies enrich themselves by encouraging us to relinquish details about our personal interactions, our taste in movies or music, and even our health and medical records. Do we have any other choice?
 
Data Grab affirms that we do. To defy this new form of colonialism we will need to learn from previous forms of resistance and work together to imagine entirely new ones. Mejias and Couldry share the stories of voters, workers, activists, and marginalized communities who have successfully opposed unscrupulous tech practices. An incisive discussion of the digital media that’s transformed our world, Data Grab is a must-read for anyone concerned about privacy, self-determination, and justice in the internet age.

Notă biografică

Ulises A. Mejias is professor of communication studies at the State University of New York at Oswego. Nick Couldry is professor of media, communications, and social theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science and faculty associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Together, they are the coauthors of The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism. 

Cuprins

Acknowledgements

Introduction: From Landgrab to Data Grab
The Four X’s of Colonialism
Terms and Conditions
Raw Materials
Reading the Present through a Colonial Lens
Your Guide to the Book

1. A New Colonialism
No Capitalism without Colonialism
Data and the Continuation of Colonial Violence by Other Means
The Colonial Roots of AI
The Resilience of Colonialism
We Need Not Be Passive Victims

2. Data Territories
When Society Becomes the Territory
New Data Relations Mean New Power Relations
Data, AI and the Environment 76
There’s a Data Grab Happening (Very) Near You
Data Territories and the Transformation of Work
Global Inequality, Redux

3. Data’s New Civilising Mission
The Emperor’s New ‘Civilising’ Clothes
Civilising Narrative #1: Everyone Wants an Easier Life (aka Data Extraction as Convenience)
Civilising Narrative #2: This Is How We Connect!
Civilising Narrative #3: AI Is Smarter than Humans
Why Civilisational Stories Work

4. The New Colonial Class
The Social Quantification Sector
The Big Data Harvesters
The Wider Colonial Class
Serving the Algorithmic State
Data’s Lone Adventurers
We the Consumers

5. Voices of Defiance
Colonialism’s Witnesses
No Modernity without Colonialism
Warnings from an Earlier Computer Age
Imagining the Battle to Come
Resources for Resistance?

6. A Playbook for Resistance
Resistance Is Already Here, and Nothing Can Stop It
Radically Reimagining How We Use Data
Introducing the Playbook
Play #1: Working within the System
Play #2: Working against the System
Play #3: Working beyond the System

Conclusion: And If We Don’t Resist?

Notes
Further Reading Suggestions
Index

Recenzii

“Data Grab is a great resource for professors, researchers, advocates, and others interested in the political economy of the major technology platforms. . . . Mejias and Couldry offer a very readable and powerful account of Big Tech companies’ extractive practices and how they build on colonial extraction. They end on a hopeful note, with ideas for bottom-up resistance, including the example of Hiku Media, a data-driven project through which Maori people took the lead in preserving their own language, knowledge, and tradition, recording and defining them on their own terms instead of allowing the companies to define their culture by recording a distorted view of it.”

“ . . . The authors dramatically point out the powerlessness and other negative consequences of people unwittingly giving up their personal data to large corporations. . . . Going beyond description, their analysis outlines individual and collective tools to rectify the situation. The discussion gives meaning to fears about artificial intelligence and has the potential to guide policymakers as they come to grips with the existence of Big Data.”
 

“Drawing on the chilling lessons of historical colonialism, Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back highlights the exploitative role Big Tech plays in colonizing and capitalizing on human experiences through the continuous extraction of data by digital means. The book emphasizes that the consequences of this colonial-like undertaking are diffused in all levels of society but are most profound in previously affected areas such as the Global South. To this end, Mejias and Couldry voice the struggles and efforts of people who fight to decolonize data and question the future that is in store if human freedom and autonomy are lost. . . . Moreover, the format of the book makes it an accessible and thorough read for anyone who is concerned by the injustices amplified by automated systems of data extraction—workers, activists, indigenous and marginalized communities, civil servants, those in local or national governments, or students.”

“There are books that inform, books that diagnose, and books that challenge us. But there are others—much rarer—that succeed in unlocking our understanding of the present to such a degree that they enable us to outline an ontology of the now. These works open up new categories of thought, allowing us to question what had previously seemed inevitable or taken for granted. Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back belongs to this exceptional category. . . . Data Grab not only exposes the mechanisms of data colonialism; it offers a roadmap towards the decolonization of our digital lives. It is an essential work for all those who understand that the struggle for the future is waged not only in physical territories, but also—and above all—in the control of information, in the sovereignty of knowledge, and in the collective capacity to imagine and construct alternative digital worlds.”

“Data Grab is essential reading, as it reframes digital infrastructures through the lens of colonial history, offering a critical framework to analyze contemporary colonial power dynamics. . . . By linking historical colonialism’s legacy to modern digital exploitation, the book offers a vital perspective for the scholars, policymakers, journalists, technologists, and socially engaged readers who would like a better understanding the cultural and communicative dimensions of inequality in the digital age.”

“An extremely useful, well-rounded whole that connects all actors participating in the data chain, the strategies they use and the consequences of their actions.” 

“A compelling critique of the digital economy.” 

“I wish that Data Grab was required reading when I was a graduate student working in the field of AI. Perspectives like these are crucial if we are to break the colonial paradigm that pervades computing disciplines.”

“In this essential and original work, Mejias and Couldry lay out a powerful and persuasive analysis of the logical continuity between modern colonialism and the extraction of data by Big Tech and its platforms. Their call to resist data colonialism could not be more urgent or more timely.”

“Mejias and Couldry have long been at the forefront of revealing the hidden power structures at play in our data-fueled digital era. With their new book Data Grab, they once again deliver their much-needed incisive analysis. They gift us with the vocabulary to understand—and thus resist—the extractive forces turning our bodies and lives into objects of datafication. Their words arrive right on time as we begin to navigate the latest wave of artificial intelligence.”

“Data Grab offers a fascinating and accessible exploration of how our colonial history drives today’s data landscape. It not only puts current data injustices and cruelties into context, it charts a path for how we might resist.”

“Data Grab is a remarkable text; moving far beyond disabling alarmism or rhetoric that overly catastrophizes the world of Big Tech, it helps us understand the historical and ongoing relations of power and extraction that have now proceeded to the realm of data, as a new raw material that supports neocolonial interests and amplifies inequalities. Far from merely tracing these important connections, Mejias and Couldry place us on a path to recognize ongoing patterns and how to resist and challenge them.” 

“This elegant, lucid work distills the common themes linking data colonialism to previous forms of colonialism, while also provocatively cataloguing differences. Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the political economy of Big Tech, Big Data, Big Compute, and (the coming) Big AI.”

“Mejias and Couldry provide a terrifying and well researched account of how our personal data are being extracted and exploited for corporate profit. This data grab concentrates wealth and power in the Global North, encages us all in consumer bubbles, and erodes our privacy. More than a compelling read, Data Grab is also a call to arms for how we can reclaim our humanity and resist becoming ground up as grist for the data mills.”

“As in their previous work, Mejias and Couldry show how important it is to take the perspective of the colonized, not the colonizer, in explaining how the digital world is governed. Data Grab offers important insights into how we should analyze power and counter-power in terms of data control. I particularly recommend this book for providing examples of local and vocal initiatives across various continents. A true eye-opener.”

“A blistering, vital exposure of the predatory world of data colonialism. In this vivid and passionately written book, Mejias and Couldry urge us to wake up to the invasive and extractive world of today’s Big Tech.”

“A brilliant account both of colonialism and Big Tech, and a bold and provocative argument that the latter is a version of the former because of the way it dispossesses people of what should be theirs: data about their lives. It is furiously precise about the crimes of the European colonial system, and illuminating on how opaque and unaccountable tech industries shape our world.”