Wendy3d ago
King David Golf Club, Cape Town. Green so cultivated it looks computer-rendered. Underneath: a city whose Day Zero water crisis four years ago made every front page on earth, a grid that still rolls blackouts. Equinix wants 160 megawatts here — two data centers, power equivalent for 130,000 South African households. The application discloses no substantive detail on water use, emissions, diesel capacity, or even the buildings themselves. Foxglove and the Housing Assembly filed formal objection this week. Rosa Curling: "There is simply not enough information for a decision on a project of this scale." The land remembers what the contracts forget. So does the well running dry under the green.
https://twp.ai/4hqTwr
#CapeTown #LandscapePhotography #SouthAfrica #ClimateJustice #WaterCrisis #DataCenters #BigTech #DocumentaryPhotography #Environment #ClimateAction #DigitalColonialism #Fediverse
Show threadwendythedruid3d ago
160 megawatts. Two Equinix data centers proposed on golf course land in a city whose Day Zero water crisis still haunts the grid. The application doesn't disclose water use, emissions, or diesel capacity. Foxglove and the Housing Assembly filed objection. The land remembers what the contracts forget.
https://twp.ai/9OVj8i
#CapeTown #WaterJustice #DataCenters #ClimateCrisis #BigTech #SouthAfrica #Equinix #DigitalColonialism #ClimateAction #Fediverse
What Survives the Morning: The Empire's Pause Button, The Porta-Potty Doctrine, and the Server Farm That Wants Your Water

What survives the morning: empire's pause, political reckoning, and the infrastructure draining our future. Queer analysis meets survival tactics from The Gathering.

Wendy The Druid
ZannisApr 29
#AIExtractivism,#ShutDownDataCenters,#LandBackFromTech #IndigenousVSNvidia #IndigenousAIParadox #DigitalColonialism

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:whmdtfaoue7x2xxgl4cch3dm/post/3mkfy3l5qnx2s
The Stranger In My BodyApr 29
#Technocolonialism, #DigitalColonialism, #DataColonialism, #BodyTerritory, #Transhumanism, #Posthumanism, #HumanAugmentation, #Singularity, #DataHarvesting, #PhysicalReality, #BioEthics, #DigitalSovereignty, #AntiAI, #BookSky, #Bookstodon, #SomaticMaterialism www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX2ZJJQ6

ANTI-HARARI: The Anatomy of a ...
Amazon.com

Anti-HarariApr 29
#Technocolonialism, #DigitalColonialism, #DataColonialism, #BodyTerritory, #Transhumanism, #Posthumanism, #HumanAugmentation, #Singularity, #DataHarvesting, #PhysicalReality, #BioEthics, #DigitalSovereignty, #AntiAI, #BookSky, #Bookstodon, #SomaticMaterialism
www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX2ZJJQ6
Anti-HarariApr 28
In the thirteenth century, Aquinas wrote that story; he sanctified the ownership of land and the serf’s body by the lord as “divine order.” In the twenty‑first century, Yuval Noah Harari takes on the same task. Only this time, God gives way to Data, and divine order to the Algorithm.
#Technocolonialism, #DigitalColonialism, #DataColonialism, #BodyTerritory, #Transhumanism, #Posthumanism, #HumanAugmentation, #Singularity, #DataHarvesting, #PhysicalReality, #BioEthics, #DigitalSovereignty,
Kevin Dominik KorteApr 7
The unfortunate truth is, that the vast majority of African data already flows through US and Chinese companies. AI isn't changing that. However, the bright side is, that African governments have understood, that they can change it through open-source and digital sovereignty.
#digitalsovereignty #digitalcolonialism #opensource
https://streamlinefeed.co.ke/news/un-experts-warn-ai-accelerates-digital-colonisation-in-africa
UN Experts Warn AI Accelerates Digital Colonization in Africa

UN experts warn that imported AI systems are fueling digital colonization in Africa, threatening economic sovereignty. The implications are staggering.

Streamline
Paul SpiesbergerMar 29

Excited to share that I am one of 31 contributors to "Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World" by @TimUnwin

It was a privilege to be part of such a unique and diverse team, writing about digital colonialism and surveillance capitalism and how to counter these challenges.

If these topics matter to you, I highly recommend to grab your copy here:

https://www.routledge.com/Digital-Inclusion-in-an-Unequal-World-An-Emancipatory-Manifesto/Unwin/p/book/9781032983042

#DigitalInclusion #DigitalEquality #TechForGood #ICT4D #manifest #DigitalColonialism #foss #SurveillanceCapitalism

Stefan BohacekMar 24

"While much of the economic value generated by AI remains concentrated in technological centres such as Silicon Valley, many of its environmental and social costs are in these territories."

https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-pushback-chile-mexico-kenya-philippines/

#news #technology #TechNews #AI #LLMs #DataCenters #DigitalColonialism #BigTech

From Chile to the Philippines, meet the people pushing back on AI

Individuals and communities are resisting the demands and practices of Big Tech's AI infrastructure — such as data centers and digital labor — due to their environmental and social costs.

Rest of World
Miguel Afonso CaetanoMar 14

"Digital tools in farming are a big business, with the market worth about $30 billion last year and forecast to nearly triple to $84 billion by 2034. Tech companies including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, and Alibaba all have AI programs to tap this growing market.

Yet there is a risk that AI becomes a new form of digital colonialism, experts have warned, with big tech firms extracting data from poor communities to train a proprietary model and then selling a service or product back to them. Tech companies are already working with large agriculture firms to influence what crops are grown and how, according to the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, a think tank. Focusing on only the most productive and profitable crops — corn, rice, wheat, soybeans, and potatoes — can wreck local food systems and hurt farmers, it said.

This is what organizations must guard against, Gandhi said. If AI optimizes only for short-term yields and ignores larger issues such as water depletion, soil degradation, or energy use, it can erode long-term resilience.

“An AI system can perform technically well and still fail farmers if it ignores economic and ecological realities,” he said. “The real measure of AI in agriculture is whether it strengthens farmer agency, improves profitability, supports sustainability, and works for women and men. That depends entirely on building with farmers, not just for them.”"

https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-agriculture-local-data/

#AI #Farming #GlobalSouth #DigitalColonialism

Western AI models “fail spectacularly” in farms and forests abroad

Big Tech’s AI tools trained on Western data often can’t recognize local crops, forests, or farming conditions without adaptation to local environments.

Rest of World