Data colonialism is not a Western-only project but operates globally and within societies

Evidence

Data colonialism has a distinctive geography. Like historical colonialism, data colonialism is global in its ambitions, but unlike it, it penetrates the life conditions of individuals across all societies, wherever they are, that are being reshaped around digital infrastructures of connection. Data colonialism’s expansion is therefore both external (geographical) and internal (social). Given that the drive to appropriate data is fueling China as much as, if not more than, it is the West, it makes no sense to read data colonialism as exclusively a Western project. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 100

Data colonialism has a distinctive geography. Like historical colonialism, data colonialism is global in its ambitions, but unlike it, it penetrates the life conditions of individuals across all societies, wherever they are, that are being reshaped around digital infrastructures of connection. Data colonialism’s expansion is therefore both external (geographical) and internal (social). Given that the drive to appropriate data is fueling China as much as, if not more than, it is the West, it makes no sense to read data colonialism as exclusively a Western project. Seeing today’s transformations bifocally—through the lens of both capitalism and colonialism—is essential to understanding their complex global dynamics. We cannot clearly see the scale of capitalism’s current appropriation of human life without a colonial lens, and we cannot understand the force of this new colonial appropriation without understanding how capitalism operates through processes of social ordering. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 100

Categorization

• XREF: Bifocal capitalism-plus-colonialism lens maps onto discussion of platform/surveillance schools of thought and where data-colonialism diverges from attention-economy models. — connects to: Data colonialism exceeds any single scandal or company’s data practices. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 60; Cross-border data flows replicate colonial patterns and concentrate through the United States — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 332; China is rapidly displacing the West as a global data gatekeeper — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 332 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Precisely scopes data colonialism: both external-geographical and internal-social expansion, delinked from the West.
• SEED: Angle: the China dimension of data colonialism undermines ‘surveillance capitalism is a Western product’ narratives.
• QUESTION: How does the China point interact with the reader’s attention-economy sources, which largely theorize US/Western platform power?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 100