Read Frantz Fanon Against Facebook: How to Decolonize Your Digital-Mind (Versobooks.com)

From the Algeria to algorithms, Lizzie O’Shea argues that Frantz Fanon’s ideas have much to offer us as we seek to understand, and resist, some of the most profound challenges of living in the digital age.

Lizzie O’Shea discusses digital self-determination as a means to understand and resist some of the problems with big tech, using the rubric of Fanon’s work on self-determination. How can we have agency and create our own identity under the thumb of the big surveilling platforms?

Digital self-determination will involve:

  • making use of the technical tools available to communicate freely
  • designing information infrastructure in ways that favour de-centralisation
  • designing online spaces and devices that are welcoming

I definitely like all the conclusions. At first blush, any comparison between colonialism and racism and the problems of digital platforms feels like it could be a little crass… but O’Shea explains her thinking and says she feels Fanon’s ideas are so strong that they can be applied to different times and situations.

Even in a technologically-saturated world, in which human beings are categorised, surveilled and discriminated against, it is possible for us to carve out space for our own identity and shape our destiny.

Frantz Fanon Against Facebook: How to Decolonize Your Digital-Mind