Renewing the Promise of Platform Cooperativism
Dear Reader,
It’s been an action-packed month. In a long drawn-out crescendo, the EU passed both the Platform Work Directive and the AI Act.
The first of these was unexpected, as it came about through a sudden reversal in position by two member countries—Estonia and Greece—that tipped the majority vote in favor of the Bill. And, while this is certainly a milestone in gig work legislation, one cannot rejoice unconditionally. The approved Directive has been sanitized of its more progressive elements. As analysts have pointed out, the Bill does not enshrine formal employment for gig workers, leaving this to member states to decide and implement. Platform companies like Uber are already preparing a lobbying assault at the national level to neutralize the law. How these battles will play out will likely determine the efficacy of the law. Similarly, as commentators note, while the Directive also provides new rights to workers vis-à-vis algorithmic management and data collected about them, truly making use of these rights will require a degree of organization that remains scarce among platform workers.
We are also closely watching the first comprehensive regime of AI legislation passed thus far, the EU AI Act. It enacts a range of barriers to try and prevent irresponsible trajectories for the technology’s future, from outright bans on harmful use cases like facial recognition, to guidelines and stipulations on general-purpose AI projects and horizontal rules on transparency and accountability for the industry as such. However, there is much left to be desired from the standpoint of addressing AI inequities, given that the Bill does little to clamp down on the unprecedented monopolistic power of Big Tech companies. Moreover, it even risks facilitating greater de-regulation and market capture. As critics point out, the Act has numerous exceptions that threaten the scope of its own restrictions, with entire marginalized groups being left outside the remit of proper protections.
In other news, the digital cold war between the US and China drew new salvos from both sides. US President Joe Biden passed an executive order creating new restrictions on sending US personal data to particular countries, and the US Congress also passed a new Bill that attempts to push ByteDance into a forced sale of TikTok in order to continue to operate within the country. For its part, China declared the phasing out of Intel and AMD chips in its public sector institutions, also signaling an intent to move away from foreign operating systems like MS Windows. These different maneuvers reinforce the splinters in the global tech ecosystem, and we saw the fallout of this rivalry also play out across the developing world. At one end, Indonesia and Sri Lanka both hopped aboard the Big Tech train, announcing partnerships with Microsoft to help boost their institutions into the AI epoch. Conversely, and with an influential push from China, the BRICS nations are reported to be experimenting with a new payments system designed to mitigate persisting dependencies on the US dollar. It is precisely these parts of the world that are the key sites of struggle around digitalization today, for what happens within them may well determine whether we are restricted to a future trapped in the oscillating power dynamics of rival hegemons, or whether a genuine third path might yet be forged.
This month on DataSyn, we bring you two pieces that are situated at this very juncture, capturing as they do the explosive potentialities and the stark abuses of power that frame these digital contexts. Our first piece serves as a synthesis and overview of the landmark ‘Roots of Resilience’ conference that took place a couple of months ago in Kerala, and which sought to reinvigorate platform cooperativism for the Global South. Our second piece serves as the sequel to our coverage of Africa’s fintech landscape, this time offering a deep dive into Big Tech’s machinations within the space.
The DataSyn Team
PROLETARIAT MATTERS
Towards Fairer Horizons: Cooperativist Solutions to Tackle Platform Capitalism
Viraj Desai
IT for Change and the Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC), along with the Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council (K-DISC), recently co-organized a momentous conference perched on the frontiers of the platform cooperative economy. Roots of Resilience was an inclusive and vibrant dialogic space where scholars, practitioners, and fellow travelers of the platform cooperativism movement reflected on new visions for a just and sustainable digital future, explored new ways of working together, learning and unlearning, and contemplating cutting-edge institutional change. Have a look at this synthesis piece by Viraj Desai, which brings together key threads from the proceedings.
Read on.
THE BIG EXCESS
Reassessing Big Tech's Impact and the Disruptive Force in SSA's Fintech Landscape
Rachel Achieng'
A follow up piece on her earlier study of predatory lending in Sub-Saharan Africa, our fellow, Rachel Achieng, takes aim at the growing stranglehold of Big Tech over the fintech scene within the continent. Charting both economic influence and gate-keeping tactics, as well as the problems for legal mitigation against increasingly entrenched market power, the piece seeks to capture the difficult challenges that local regulators must confront.
Read on.
The Sins & Synergies Lounge
The passing of the Platform Work Directive this past month came as something of a surprise, with a sudden change in stance from Greece and Estonia tipping over the vote and leaving only France and Germany standing against the legislation. What was the political conjuncture that led to this breakthrough, and what does it portend for the future of gig workers' rights? Check out this analysis from the Gig Economy Project for a critical overview of this landscape.
With the AI Act representing the first milestones in the global momentum for regulating the space, it is also worth paying attention to the other side of this movement: industrial policy projects that are being tailored around expanding national AI capabilities and building economic institutions around new technological possibilities. Tune in to the AI Now salon and listen to Amy Kapczynski and Jeremias Adams Prassl tackle this multidimensional issue.
The valorization of data and its appropriation for various forms of economic use is increasingly recognized as one of the most dynamic forces in contemporary capitalism. Yet, how might we think about this outside the large corporations that continue to dominate the digital terrain? In this article, Heather Horst and Adam Sargent explore a variety of bottom-up data strategies from the Global South.
Given the mounting volumes written about China’s digital interventions across the developing world, how does one keep track of what exactly is going on? As a great start, check out this extensive literature review by Heeks et al., which provides a robust snapshot and balanced take on the repercussions of these structural processes.
One of the key outcomes that emerged from over the three days of the Roots of Resilience conference this past November, was the Thiruvananthapuram Declaration on a New Innovation Ecosystem for Our Collective Digital Futures. We encourage you to add your endorsement to this powerful vision here.
Post-script
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