Their problems are not our problems

There is a notable presence of the idea of decolonialization in my rss feeds today. This morning Andres Guadamuz posted “Time to decolonialize the internet” followed by “The First Steps to Decolonise Digital Rights” published by the DFF around lunchtime. Both posts are thoughtful an well worth reading in full. And while both of them include references to The Social Dilemma, and both of them are illustrated by a south-up map, they use the term decolonialization as shorthand for entirely different issues.

Andres’ post deals with what he calls digital cultural colonialism that finds its expression in an internet culture dominated by American cultural tropes, that exports the worst elements of American political culture¹:

The underlying infrastructure of the tech industry is bad enough, but one of the most baffling aspects for me of the digital colonialism has been the entrenchment of US culture’s dominance. American cultural hegemony goes back to analogue media with the prevalence of its music, TV and film everywhere. Many of us who saw the dawn of the modern Internet believed that it would bring a more diverse cultural environment, people all over the world communicating with each other and sharing each other’s cultural expressions. What happened was that the infrastructure advantage translated into the continuing export of the US internet culture.

[…] This has had an interesting effect. Social media has spawned a global culture that speaks the same American Internet language of memes, streams, music and show references. And even when we get more representation and diversity, it tends to be entirely US-centric. […] The main effect has been the export through social media of the toxic US culture wars to the rest of the world. American culture has become extremely divided, and politicians have learned to use that division, encouraging the polarisation in order to maintain power.

I think this description is spot-on, and it reminded me of my initial reaction to a Deutschlandfunk push message i received last Friday informing me that the US would block TikTok as of last Sunday:

My initial reaction was to hope that the US would indeed make good on this threat. Not because i think the world would be a better place without TikTok but rather because i was looking forward to a unique natural experiment. With TikTok being banned in the US would it continue to be a dominant cultural vector in the rest of the world (thereby signalling the demise of the US cultural hegemony)? Or, would Internet culture move on to the next US-based replacement platform, resisting decolonialization? With the TikTok ban off the table (for now) an answer to this question will have to wait. In the meanwhile it is worth considering Andres’ suggestion to…

…ask questions when we see another US-centric trend in our timelines. Is this relevant to me? Is this relevant to my society? Have I been consuming local culture? Have you helped to crowd-fund a local project?

But perhaps more importantly, be mindful about your own cultural consumption, and who you choose to centre in your advocacy. Remember, their problems are often not our problems.