Data value depends on local negotiation and control rather than universal surveillance

Evidence

What is at stake when any of us try to refuse data colonialism? What would it mean to articulate a vision of how individuals, communities, and nations can know themselves other than through the tools of data colonialism? A vision that rejects a rationality that claims to bind all subjects into a universal grid of monitoring and categorization and instead views information and data as a resource whose value can be sustained only if locally negotiated, managed, and controlled. We might call this a socialism of data because of the primacy it gives to social choices over data, but this is not a vision for a global socialist data-state; we must certainly reject the vision of an integrative social order exemplified by the data-driven market socialism of China today. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 595

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘socialism of data’ concept that rejects China’s data-driven market socialism connects to debates on tech sovereignty and Chinese surveillance capitalism in the surveillance-studies school. — connects to: Seamless data flows breed opaque inequality and uncontrolled surveillance — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 607; Conflicting informational norms within one social situation create privacy conflicts — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 637; Perceived surveillance reliably reduces opportunism across everyday settings
• SEED: An essay contrasting ‘socialism of data’ with China’s model of data-driven market socialism as rival post-surveillance-capitalism visions.

Broader Connections

• Seamless data flows breed opaque inequality and uncontrolled surveillance #contradicts (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 607
• Conflicting informational norms within one social situation create privacy conflicts #complicates (0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 637
• Perceived surveillance reliably reduces opportunism across everyday settings #complicates (0.70)