Digital Colonialism and Decentralisation

Summary

Digital colonialism describes the domination of Western companies in the provision of digital services in developing countries. These tend to be overwhelmingly US-based, and can be found in messaging, social media, search, music, storage, hosting, and domain names. While other names have been used to describe the phenomenon, the term digital colonialism dates mostly from the Net Mundial initiative, a series of meetings and events organised by the Brazilian government to shine a light on digital inequality in the global south.