Giving by taking away: big tech, data colonialism and the reconfiguration of social good

João Viera Magalhães and Nick Couldry

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Big Tech companies have recently led and financed projects that claim to use datafication for the “social good.” This article explores what kind of social good it is that this sort of datafication engenders. Drawing mostly on the analysis of corporate public communications and patent applications, it finds that these initiatives hinge on the reconfiguration of social good as datafied, probabilistic, and profitable. These features, the article argues, are better understood within the framework of data colonialism. Rethinking “doing good” as a facet of data colonialism illuminates the inherent harm to freedom these projects produce and why, to “give,” Big Tech must often take away.

Keywords: datafication; social good; Big Tech; data colonialism; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big and nep-ppm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in International Journal of Communication, 2021, 15, pp. 343 - 362. ISSN: 1932-8036

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:107516

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