Building data citizenship and learning to resist in the datafied society

Abstract

This paper explores what literacies people need to challenge big tech companies. We selected key digital rights practitioners, who mediate between policy and public awareness and have diverse experiences in working with people to critique and change the power asymmetries we have with big tech companies. Investigating how citizens can negotiate with big tech companies based on the experts’ insights highlighted the inequalities involved and how data literacy stands as a collective and structural barrier. Four key themes emerged from the interviews: contextual awareness, real or imagined concerns, who is responsible for creating and solving problems, and resistance possibilities. Drawing on the Data Citizenship framework, we show how these findings can be translated into civic action which involve different actors: government, Big-Tech, media, NGOs, and society. Importantly, we found it was difficult to imagine what an ‘ideal world’ would look like. Therefore, we argue that once we can imagine and verbalize how we want our data-driven future to look like, it will be easier to proactively strategize and work towards it.