The world is undergoing data colonialism
You should know this because technology is not neutral and shows the interests of those who lead it. The use of free software should be encouraged.
Sharing, talking, or downloading something on the net, -any action-, benefits big corporations, so we must encourage the use of free software, considered UNAM's specialist in technology and digital culture, Irene Soria Guzmán. Although perhaps we have forgotten the idea of commemorating October 12 as "Columbus Day", we should reflect on this, since we currently live under a "data colonialism", which is related to power and other practices, emphasized the expert.
While giving the conference "Hacking differently: notes for a critical and decolonial technology", organized by the School of Latin American Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (FFyL) of the UNAM, Soria Guzmán said: the figure of the hacker, even though it originated in 1960, "is once again taking center stage in this tenacious and transgressive era".
Hacking the patriarchy
Master in Visual Arts by the Academy of San Carlos and doctoral candidate in Feminist Studies at the Autonomous Metropolitan University, she exposed:
"Technology is not neutral, it reflects interests of whoever heads it, sometimes it even reflects the political stance of certain men and this deprives humanity of certain knowledge."
"Against hegemony, we must become a new code of open people, break the control of software. With multiple voices, help weave a situated technology with transgressions of capitalist, patriarchal and gender norms."
Technological power
In the virtual classroom of the FFyL, the also graduate of the University of Valencia, Spain, and the University of Villa María, Argentina, assured that the internet is a space that is inhabited: with each photo, transmission, private message, voice, but that, in contrast, this collective intelligence only serves profit. "We transmit our struggles through these channels, that's why they know everything about us."
"Who makes and how does this technology that enters our lives and knows our emotions work? Five big companies of technological power: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, (GAFAM), by their acronyms, control a large part of cyberspace and their technology is carried out through software, which is a distribution model," he indicated.
That is why it is vital, he insisted, to use free software as much as possible because it is the mediator of communication with our equipment and hides the processes that occur behind it, with the argument that they are invisible programming codes, industrial property secrets. The code is the law and we live data colonialism.
It should be noted that this technology allows users to run, copy, distribute, modify or study it to improve it.
