Room: Stage 2Renata Avila, Joana Varon, Nanjira Sambuli, Alan MillsNever before a small sector had so much power over the entire World, to monitor the present and predict not only future behaviours of individuals but entire populations. The problem is more alarming when we consider how the two sectors are merging in joint ventures, in a quest of global domination, penetrating every government, every citizen movement, mediating every act of any connected person’s life.

Beyond tensions of privacy and security, the alarming tension whose emergence we are witnessing is the one between control and freedom, not only of the individual, but of entire populations and regions. And this is indeed affected by regional and global politics. Some criticise it as a form of “digital colonialism[1]” But very few countries, outside those who had to react in time to the threats out of necessity[2] or lack of alternatives, seem aware about this new form of dominance, which is very seemless, without exercising any violence at all, but at a deep and exponential increase we never ever witness.

Our talk will adress such concerns and offer a path to develop national and local Digital Sovereignty strategies. 

 

[1] Knowledge Commons. “Digital colonialism and the Internet as a tool of cultural hegemony” http://www.knowledgecommons.in/brasil/en/whats-wrong-with-current-internet-governance/digital-colonialism-the-internet-as-a-tool-of-cultural-hegemony/

[2] See Radhika Miller. Cuba rejects Windows, opts for technological sovereignty. Liberation. (2009) https://www.liberationnews.org/09-02-20-cuba-rejects-windows-opts-techn-html/

N.A. Influenced by restrictions imposed by the US embargo and language barriers. 

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