Kwet first speaks about economic domination, where US Big Tech companies like Uber are dominating the market in the Global South [1]. He laments that usage of these products will "create technological dependencies" leading to "perpetual resource extraction" [2]. It is indeed true that the dominance of Uber's ride hailing service leaves little room for local companies to compete. However, this is a global phenomenon and not limited to the Global South. The "South African Taxi Wars" in 2013 [3] was swiftly accompanied by a protest in London in 2015 where the city's black cabs blockaded Oxford Street [4].
Kwet then speaks about the dominance of code and hardware. By "planting infrastructure in the Global South", Big Tech companies are able to rent these infrastructure for profit, conduct surveillance and control the data flow [5]. Once again, this is not a phenomenon unique to the Global South. The top 10 largest cloud service providers consist of only US and Chinese companies, yet account for over 79% of the global market [6]. European countries, Japan, Korea and other countries in the Global North are similarly affected.
According to Kwet, dominance and control of intellectual property rights allows Big Tech companies to charge for the usage or enjoyment of these content [7]. Kwet tries to cover both copyright and patents but did not go into much detail. Regarding copyright, I thought Kwet's arguments were wrong. If the US really wanted to achieve cultural domination, they would have made all their songs and films freely accessible to spread their culture far and wide. Regarding patents, the global chip race has been well underway with countries worldwide spending billions in research [8]. Perhaps, some sort of balance can be achieved and yesterday's technology could be transfered to developing countries for free without disincentivising countries from spending on research.
Kwet then speaks about commercial domination. Facebook provides free internet services in return for prioritizing its own app, processing the user behavioural data for commercial gain [9]. Again, this is not unique to the Global South, Facebook even manipulated elections in the United States [10]. In fact, I believe "surveillance capitalism" is more severe in developed countries compared to the Global South. The Cost per Click (CPC) is a metric that measures how much an advertiser is willing to pay for an individual's click on an advertisement [11]. The data shows that countries in the Global South have a much lower CPC than countries in the Global North [12]. Advertisers are willing to pay less because these countries have lower income and thus lower spending power. Big Tech companies will likely focus less effort on "surveillance capitalism" in the Global South since the revenue generated is lower.
Finally, Kwet speaks of Ideological Domination, arguing that "product placement in schools" will 'tighten the stranglehold of Big Tech products' [17]. Walk into any school in the Global North and you will also see Microsoft Windows, Apple iPads and Google Chromebooks.
I believe Kwet's main premise is misguided. Colonialism is being reinvented. However, this new form of digital colonialism is no longer just targeting the Global South. It's aim is global world domination. No one, not even the US government or the US people are spared.
[1] Michael Kwet, 'Digital Colonialism: US Empire and the New Imperialism in the Global South' (2019) 60(4) Race & Class 3, pp. 6
[2] ibid.
[3] ibid.
[4] Richard Trenholm, 'London streets blockaded as taxi drivers protest against Uber', https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/london-streets-blockaded-as-taxi-drivers-protest-against-uber/ accessed 23 March 2024
[5] Michael Kwet, 'Digital Colonialism: US Empire and the New Imperialism in the Global South' (2019) 60(4) Race & Class 3, pp. 8
[6] Felix Richter, 'Amazon Maintains Cloud Lead as Microsoft Edges Closer' (Statista), https://www.statista.com/chart/18819/worldwide-market-share-of-leading-cloud-infrastructure-service-providers/ accessed 23 March 2024
[7] Michael Kwet, 'Digital Colonialism: US Empire and the New Imperialism in the Global South' (2019) 60(4) Race & Class 3, pp. 10-11
[8] Bloomberg, 'Global chip race touches off spending spree, led by Intel’s US$50 billion worth of new plants', https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3224818/global-chip-race-touches-spending-spree-led-intels-us50-billion-worth-new-plants accessed 23 March 2024
[9] Michael Kwet, 'Digital Colonialism: US Empire and the New Imperialism in the Global South' (2019) 60(4) Race & Class 3, pp. 12-14
[10] Alexis Madrigal, 'What Facebook Did to American Democracy' (The Atlantic), https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/10/what-facebook-did/542502/ accessed 23 March 2024
[11] Mark Irvine, 'Average Cost per Click by Country: Where in the World Are the Highest CPCs?', https://www.wordstream.com/blog/average-cost-per-click accessed 23 March 2024
[12] ibid.
[13] Michael Kwet, 'Digital Colonialism: US Empire and the New Imperialism in the Global South' (2019) 60(4) Race & Class 3, pp. 17