Countering Digital Colonialism

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In a previous article for CCCBLab, I argued that the internet is more than a means of communication; it is a global system of governance and control, one with its own imperatives and its own structuring logic. It is not merely a bounded social field, but an expansionary regime – a force that shapes the contemporary world through extraction and consolidation. This shift in perspective has profound implications for how we understand our everyday interactions with digital infrastructures, since it foregrounds the internet’s specific needs at this stage of global capitalism: relentless accumulation, surveillance and expansion.

The core of the internet regime is digital extraction – a ceaseless process of appropriation in which data and raw materials are harvested, refined and converted into economic and political power. As with previous forms of extractive colonialism, its implications are far-reaching: economic dependency, deepening inequalities, cultural hegemony, environmental devastation and the erosion of political autonomy. This model has become so embedded in our daily lives that opposition often appears futile, while resistance is scattered.

When we look at the global landscape, the choices presented to us appear stark. On one side, we see the United States and its corporate technofeudalism, where power is concentrated in the hands of a few monopolistic firms, enforcing their dominance through intellectual property regimes. On the other, we see China’s model of industrialised digital authoritarianism, a system extending its influence through projects like the Digital Silk Road. Meanwhile, the European Union oscillates between attempts at regulation and subservience to American cloud services, unable to chart an independent course.

And yet, fractures are emerging. As this digital colonialism intensifies, so does the drive to resist it. Much like the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, a constellation of state and non-state actors – civil society groups, decentralised technology initiatives, digital commons movements – is attempting to forge alternatives. These movements seek to carve out spaces of autonomy and develop structures of self-governance to counteract the dominance of these digital empires.

Let us consider these two processes together. The following section maps out how digital colonialism operates on populations traditionally considered to be at the periphery of the modern world system. Afterwards, we will explore some of the alternatives emerging across this system.

Displacement under digital colonialism

In the harsh landscapes of the Canadian Arctic, fine-grained knowledge of the terrain is a requisite for survival. Here, the arrival of digital infrastructures has not merely introduced new ways of communicating – it has rewired the very conditions under which knowledge is produced, shared and legitimised. In a fascinating article published in the scholarly journal Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, geographer Jason C. Young describes how Inuit Qaujimaningit (IQ), a knowledge system rooted in lived experience, oral transmission and communal validation, is being displaced by the logics of digital platforms. The shift is most apparent in the severing of youth from the land, a rupture facilitated not through force, but through the seductive pull of screens.

Perhaps the most chilling example Young describes is the loss of experiential knowledge in favour of digital representations. Traditional skills like navigating the tundra, reading the behaviour of animals or interpreting the nuances of ice formations – once passed down through tactile, multi-sensory engagement – are now being replaced by GIS maps, satellite imagery and government-mandated data archives. These tools, ostensibly designed to “preserve” Indigenous knowledge, instead demand its reconfiguration into formats that suit bureaucratic and capitalist logics, stripping it of the context and social relations that make it meaningful. What was once acquired through deep, embodied apprenticeship with the land and elders is now a set of disembodied data points – knowledge without knowing, presence without place. The violence is not in the outright erasure of indigenous knowledge, but in its forced translation into an epistemic order that renders it unrecognisable, subjugated to the very colonial logics it once resisted.

The epistemic violence Jason C. Young describes in the displacement of Inuit knowledge by digital infrastructures takes on a new geopolitical urgency in light of recent statements by the President of the United States about annexing Canada and Greenland. While these remarks might seem outlandish at first glance, they betray a long-standing imperial logic: the Arctic is no longer a remote periphery but a strategic frontier, coveted for its untapped resources, shipping routes and geopolitical leverage. The digital colonisation of Inuit knowledge through state and corporate ICT infrastructures is not just a matter of cultural erosion – it is a form of soft annexation, a pre-emptive rewriting of land relations that transforms the Arctic from a lived, Indigenous space into a datafied, extractable resource legible to Western economic and military interests.

In this sense, digital colonialism does not simply displace colonised peoples in the dramatic fashion of territorial conquest, forced migration or direct dispossession. Instead, it operates primarily through a more insidious mechanism: it hollows out the epistemic, economic and infrastructural conditions that sustain Indigenous and subaltern sovereignty, ensuring that displacement occurs not only in physical space, but in the very frameworks through which people relate to land, labour and knowledge.

Sociologist Michael Kwet extends this logic beyond Indigenous communities to the global South, where digital colonialism transforms entire populations into data-producing subjects, trapped within an infrastructure they do not own. In South Africa today, colonialism does not arrive with soldiers, missionaries or trade monopolies, but with cloud services, proprietary software and algorithmic governance – each serving to deepen the country’s dependence on Western technological infrastructures.

Specifically, Kwet outlines how US tech monopolies, particularly Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook (Meta) and Apple (GAFAM), have embedded themselves into South African society, positioning their digital architectures as necessary tools for economic and educational progress. A prime example is Operation Phakisa in Education, a government initiative ostensibly designed to equip public schools with digital tools but, in reality, a project that hands over the country’s educational data sovereignty to US corporations. Through non-disclosure agreements, opaque decision-making and corporate-driven policy influence, the South African state is not building its own digital capabilities but outsourcing its technological future to Silicon Valley, locking schools into proprietary ecosystems that extract user data while reinforcing economic dependency.

This digital capture does not stop at education. Kwet describes a broader process of infrastructural colonisation in which key sectors of the economy – from finance to transportation – are gradually being absorbed into the platform capitalism of US firms. The rise of Uber in Johannesburg, for example, demonstrates how Western tech giants extract wealth without investment, exploiting local labour under the guise of innovation. South African drivers, initially lured in by the promise of flexible work, soon find themselves trapped in an economic model where they own nothing – not the platforms, not the pricing algorithms, not even their own labour conditions. Uber’s predatory business model allows it to undercut local taxi industries, extract 25 % commissions on every fare and repatriate profits to the United States, ensuring that the wealth generated in South Africa is never reinvested in the country’s economic growth. What emerges is a new kind of dependency, where digital infrastructures replicate the old colonial logics: extraction without redistribution, occupation without direct governance, dominance without accountability.

However, the West is not alone in its expansion. The unexpected arrival of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI system developed outside the constraints of Western intellectual property regimes, has posed a formidable challenge to Silicon Valley’s technological hegemony. Many have referred to its emergence as a “Sputnik moment” for AI, signalling a potential realignment that challenges the monopolistic grip of US tech giants. Yet DeepSeek’s impact also underscores a fundamental reality: intellectual property remains the frontline of digital sovereignty struggles. The dominance of a handful of Western firms in AI patents, datasets and foundational models has enclosed knowledge production within corporate structures, limiting access for much of the world. Whether DeepSeek will subvert or merely replicate these dynamics going forward remains an open question, but its decision to make its code open-source has already proven disruptive.

Indeed, in the aftermath of DeepSeek’s release, some eager pundits and influencers are framing China as a welcome challenger to Western digital monopolies. But the struggle for digital sovereignty is inextricable from broader geopolitical rivalries. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Digital Silk Road, the technological extension of China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative that seeks to reshape the global digital order. This Silk Road is not merely about laying fibre-optic cables or launching satellites. Ultimately, the Digital Silk Road is poised to generate infrastructural dependency. Chinese firms like Huawei, Alibaba and Tencent export a model of digital development that fuses market expansion with state control, embedding a distinct political economy of the internet into the data centres, cloud infrastructures and e-commerce platforms of the Global South.

Towards digital self-governance?

“To become ungovernable under digital colonialism, how should we be learning to self-govern?”

This is the central challenge of resistance to digital colonialism, posed by author and critical media scholar Nathan Schneider in the open-access journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. The platforms that mediate our daily interactions, Schneider argues, do not foster self-governance. They are optimised for engagement, not deliberation. While going viral may give one a fleeting sense of power, the architecture of these platforms remains extractive, consolidating control in the hands of distant corporate and state entities.

In response to this challenge, Schneider proposes the concept of a governable stack – a digital infrastructure of layered software and hardware components that is not just open and accessible but also meaningfully democratic. Unlike the dominant corporate-controlled platforms that dictate terms from above, a governable stack is designed to be participatory, allowing users to collectively shape its policies, features and evolution. This requires more than just transparency; it demands mechanisms for real democratic governance, where communities have a say in how the technology operates. By drawing inspiration from cooperative movements and democratic institutions, Schneider advocates for an internet where people – not just profit-driven entities – can steward the platforms they rely on. It is a vision of digital ecosystems as spaces of shared ownership and collective agency.

To achieve this, the stack must be modular and open-source, enabling communities to modify and adapt the technology to their needs rather than being locked into proprietary systems. It must also embrace federation and decentralisation, distributing power across networks rather than consolidating it in the hands of a single authority. Interoperability is another critical feature, ensuring that platforms and tools can function seamlessly together while allowing users to migrate without losing control of their data. Beyond the technical architecture, governance structures must be reinforced by legal and economic models that support participatory decision-making, such as platform cooperatives, digital commons and public-benefit frameworks. In essence, the governable stack is a blueprint for reclaiming digital autonomy, where technology serves communities rather than exploiting them.

Crucially, Schneider points out that exiting from extractive platforms is insufficient when their influence remains ubiquitous. Resistance demands confrontation and counterpowers, which can take many forms. For instance, some cities and states are explicitly pursuing digital sovereignty, imposing data localisation laws and regulatory frameworks to curb the dominance of foreign tech monopolies. Brazil and Mexico have introduced policies restricting foreign control over locally generated data, while the European Union has attempted to limit corporate monopolies through antitrust enforcement and data commons initiatives. In Africa, the African Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy aims to develop regional digital infrastructures that are not dependent on external actors. At the city level, projects like DECODE in Barcelona and Amsterdam have proposed innovative models of data governance based on decentralisation and collective ownership. Meanwhile, communities around the world are experimenting with cooperative digital economies, from blockchain-based commons to alternative cloud infrastructures, and civil society organisations are pushing back against digital enclosures, fostering grassroots networks and open-source AI models that prioritise user agency over extractive business models. Whether these scattered initiatives can converge into a robust non-aligned movement for digital sovereignty remains to be seen. Yet movements forged in the margins – through solidarity, experimentation and defiance – can lay the foundations of a more just future, where the digital commons are not just defended, but radically reimagined.