The Threat of Data Colonialism w/ Ulises A. Mejias & Nick Couldry

Paris Marx is joined by Ulises A. Mejias and Nick Couldry to discuss how Silicon Valley's extractive data collection regime and the power it grants them resembles a much older form of exploitation: colonialism.

Ulises A. Mejias is a professor of Communication Studies at SUNY Oswego and Nick Couldry is a professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics. They are the co-authors of Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back and among the co-founders of the network Tierra Común.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Read an excerpt • of Ulises and Nick’s book. • Ulises has helped advance the Non-Aligned Technologies Movement • . • The World Economic Forum and Accenture published a report on governance of AI • . • Geoffrey Hinton was one of the winners • of the Nobel Prize for Physics. Paris wrote about why we shouldn’t trust • his assessment of AI. • Google told the UK Labour government it will be left behind in the AI race • if it doesn’t do what the company demands. • Data centers use 21% of electricity in Ireland • , and number that could jump to 31% within the next three years. • Home building in West London could be restricted until 2035 • because data centers have used up the available energy. • Kenya is being drafted • into the US’s anti-China tech alliance, which includes building data centers while ignoring the poor working conditions of data labelers and content moderators.

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