Data colonialism still lacks a countermovement like the one that curbed industrial capitalism.

Evidence

Let’s return for a moment to Karl Polanyi’s vivid account of the social unfolding of industrial capitalism. Data colonialism, it is clear, still awaits its countermovement: there is as yet no major change in social thinking or government policy to challenge its cruelties, as those of industrial capitalism were challenged in the nineteenth century. Recent calls for more openness about data practice offer only the very start of this change. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 459

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the surveillance/attention school critique: both frames describe platform capitalism as extractive and unjust, but the Polanyi-countermovement framing offers a historical comparison the attention school lacks.