What's data got to do with it?
With the uprise of social media protest, exposure, and information sharing – I've been curious about how data and algorithms factor into conceptions of identity and race in digital spaces.
Kiera Tanksley discusses how digital media has become a "cyber plantation" for black users (8). I'm curious about how digital spaces reaffirm and recontextualize Eurocentric and colonial ideals in noncorporeal, technical spaces. If the ideals in the real world are intrinsically coded into the 1's and 0's of the Internet, are these digital spaces reaffirming racism and oppression?
Kotliar's article "Data Orientalism: On the Algorithmic Construction of the non-Western other," begins to unfold the answer to these questions. Particularly, Kotliar discusses "data colonialism" which acknowledges the similarities between former modes of imperial expansion and domination to the surveillant and ideologically-ridden "big data algorithms" (921). What is particularly interesting is the consideration of where the human user/subject fits into data colonialism. Kotliar suggests that "human beings are becoming raw material that can be transformed into value in ways that resonate with colonialism's long history of exploitation" (922). If humans are reconfigured to serve the needs of big data and our use supercedes the sense of desire and community that digital media supposedly has, are we not working and being exploited by big data? The answer to this question requires a consideration of accessibility, racial and gender dimensions among many others...
