Digital inclusion of the poor comes at the cost of predatory data profiling

Evidence

Second, there is a targeting of vulnerable social groups as part of the strategies of data colonialism. One thing that makes the Cloud Empire colonial is the approach of corporations and states to the oppressed. Under the Cloud Empire, everyone contributes as a raw input to capitalism, but as with old forms of colonialism, the poor (always a racialized and gendered category) continue to pay a heavier price. Here we allude to the work of authors such as Oscar Gandy, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, Virginia Eubanks, and Safiya Umoja Noble, who argue that when it comes to the poor and the vulnerable, digital “inclusion” comes at the cost of extensive data profiling, including practices that are predatory, discriminatory, exploitative, or simply degrading. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 242

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the rival data-colonialism school the reader is mapping; Virginia Eubanks and Safiya Umoja Noble situate this against algorithmic-fairness and surveillance-studies readings. — connects to: Privately controlled data extraction produces social classifications that entrench inequality — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 443; Inequality serves surveillance capitalism as a lever for extracting consent — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 800; Free digital tools are false generosity masking data exploitation — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 536
• SEED: Potential essay comparing ‘data inclusion as surveyable poverty’ across attention/surveillance versus colonialism framings.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 242

Broader Connections

• Privately controlled data extraction produces social classifications that entrench inequality #expands (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 443
• Inequality serves surveillance capitalism as a lever for extracting consent #corroborates (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 800