Technology Colonialism

jrepin sends an editorial from Anjuan Simmons on how tech companies are behaving more and more in a manner that evokes colonialism. Quoting: Technology companies are increasingly being treated like sovereign nations. A nation with sovereignty has a right to conduct its internal affairs without interference from other nations. ... When technology companies are feted by foreign ministers and also refuse an invitation from the leader of their own country of origin, they exhibit the characteristics of a group that wants to be treated as a peer to heads of state. Technology companies understand the power they wield in the global economy. ... If Silicon Valley is allowed to become the central repository of information about people around the world, then there is a danger of setting up a form of imperialism based on personal data. Just as the royal powers of old reached far into the lives of distant colonized people, technology companies gain immense control with every terabyte of personal data they store and analyze.

Comments

Translation:

[Pseudonymous Powers]

"I want everyone to hate what I hate as much as I hate it, so here's some extremely shaky logic that attempts to conflate what I hate to something that most people already hate, because what I hate most of all is coming up with real, cogent arguments. Hate!"

Acting like != being

[gurps_npc]

Look, my 6 year old niece acts like a queen, that doesn't make her one.

Their are significant differences between corporations and countries.

Corporations care about money above all else - countries care about many things.

Corporations don't publicly arrest, imprison, or kill people, all countries do this, all the time, publicly, etc.

Corporations don't care about location, countries build it into their system

Some corporations agree to subordination, while all countries insist on superiority/equality (Countries always claim that they are in charge, not the corporations - even if in reality is the other way around).

I have seen no corporation coming anywhere close to claiming to have the powers of a country. It simply does not exist.

Re:Acting like != being

[penguinoid]

I have seen no corporation coming anywhere close to claiming to have the powers of a country.

Dutch East India Company
"It was a powerful company, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts,[5] negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies.[6]"

"By 1669, the VOC was the richest private company the world had ever seen, with over 150 merchant ships, 40 warships, 50,000 employees, a private army of 10,000 soldiers, and a dividend payment of 40% on the original investment.[28]"

Facebook delenda est

[mrchaotica]

This illustrates why the Free Software movement is so incredibly important. But it isn't just Free "Software" that we need; it's Free Protocols, standards and systems. It is intolerable to allow the Internet to be carved into centralized, single-company-controlled silos like Facebook, Twitter, and Google's various services because they abuse that control for their own ends, and will only expand the degree of that abuse in the future. It is inevitable that they will eventually use their privileged position to unduly control world events, if they aren't doing so already.

It is not enough to simply avoid using those things; they are already actively working to rape us of our privacy (through third parties) whether we participate or not. We have a moral imperative to both actively resist having anyone use them and to build decentralized, privacy-respecting replacements.

Of course, that's easy to say. With all the money and power vested in asserting totalitarian control over the world's information against us, how do we win?

Re:Voluntary colonialism

[mrchaotica]

American colonists famously bought Manhattan island from the natives for proverbial beads and trinkets. You may call that "voluntary," but it's still abusive.

Re:Why invent a new word?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's called fascism, folks.

No, it's not. It's also not called Colonialism.

When technology companies are feted by foreign ministers and also refuse an invitation from the leader of their own country of origin, they exhibit the characteristics of a group that wants to be treated as a peer to heads of state

So? Every Citizen in a Free Society ought to be treated as a Peer to Heads of State.

Corporations and Individuals should not have to "answer" to the Head of State, only to the Law. Quite the opposite in fact- it is the Heads of State who should be held accountable to the Citizens, and the Laws should hold only as much power as the Population grants them.

Re:Voluntary colonialism

[bhagwad]

Buying Manhattan by itself couldn't be called colonialism. The real problem with colonialism is the eventual suppression of human rights, murder etc. Without human rights violations, there would be no problem with colonialism.

Let me put in this way. I'm an Indian (as in India - the east. Not native American). The British were a problem only because there were human rights violations. Let's say the British instead had democratic elections and people freely chose a British national to govern instead of an Indian, I would have absolutely no problems with that. That would not be called colonialism.

As long as there are no human rights violations, there's no complaint. And tech companies are not engaging in that kind of thing.