Digital society
Colonised by data – the hollowing out of digital society

Discussion | 11.06.2021, 7 pm.
Live at Goethe-Institut, Hanoi and at Deutsches Haus, Ho Chi Minh City
Registration at 6:30 p.m. | Start at 7 p.m.

Online via Zoom
Start at 6:45 p.m.

Zoom link to the discussion

Materials to prepare for participating in the lecture "Colonised by data - The hollowing of digital society"(PDF, 334 KB)

The current datafication of society not only brings about another iteration of capitalism, but also a new form of colonialism. We are witnessing the start of a new phase in human history that rivals in importance the emergence of historic colonialism: in short, the emergence of a new data colonialism, based on the appropriation of human life through data that will pave the way for a new capitalism that it is as yet too early to name. The lecture will discuss how a new social order is being created as the key means to stabilise and enforce these developments. This new order creates new dependencies on platforms through which data is extracted, and also produces new forms of social discrimination, based on a reinvention of social knowledge. The result is a hollowing out of the social world, which for corporate capitalism takes on the paradoxical form of an emerging new social domain available for endless exploitation and manipulation.