Can Cooperatives Defeat Digital Coloniality?
On the Platform Cooperativism Consortium blog, T. O. Molefe introduces the concept of digital coloniality to bring into view the extractive and oppressive relations that fuel tech — and to consider what sorts of relations could be built instead.
Like the charter companies that served as tools of colonial conquest, digital multinationals like Meta, Uber and Airbnb have amplified the extractive, exploitative relationship that global elites have established with everyone else, and have also co-opted governments into their plans. The actions of these companies’ controlling shareholders are defining, and some would say corrupting, what it means to be human in a digital world and who can be human.