Such power has harmed the human race by stripping it of its very humanity. What makes our human race human is its composition of individuals, who regardless of being physically controlled, have always found refuge in their own minds. No man, even the most powerful rulers could have full access to the continuous flow of someone’s thoughts. Gandhi was aware of this truth when he stated, "You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind". He knew, that despite being physically controlled, he could NEVER be stripped of his exclusive access to his self. Several have tried to strip people of their humanity in the past - they have indoctrinated people from the youngest age, censored speech, and used propaganda. While such measures have influenced how people think, shaping their convictions and beliefs, they have been limited in effect. They have failed to capture the complexity of every individual that was targeted - still even the most powerful could not have access to people's deepest secrets, their insecurities, their ambitions, or their subconscious. Hence, despite the oppressors and power-hungry tyrants throughout history, the human race has continuously enriched itself with the birth of every individual: new ideas, new opinions, new perspectives, and new stories, all added to the human race's incorruptible humanity.

But Zuck. Zuck has done what many vicious tyrants before him have failed to do, even with the most sophisticated torture methods. Users of his products (and later products that learned from his) can no longer seek refuge in their own minds. Their thoughts no longer belong exclusively to them but are appropriated by a superstructure (a.k.a ZUCK) that becomes perpetually more omniscient at the cheap cost of everybody's individualities.

Speaking of cheap, 3.82 dollars was how much the average Facebook user was worth to Zuckerberg in 2016 (Funk). Really? From individuals with rich, perpetually flowing thoughts, to commodities? Worth 3.82 dollars? That's what I am to you, Zuck? Maybe my true worth to you is the information I constantly provide. But still, I am just one of your billions of subjects. You don't actually care about me, you only care about my contribution to the aggregate, to the super machine you have built - the source of your power. So now, my supposedly unquantifiable individuality is simply disposable to you, it is just a millilitre of fuel to your machine of power. Even better, it increases your company's profits by 3.82 dollars a year!

Maybe this is all a means to an end. You are outweighing the harm you cause us with good right? You are making our life easier right? You are contributing to the "exoskeletal nervous system that ties the entire species together"(Moglen) right? No. All you care about is control. All you care about is power. All you care about is YOU. You knew you were, almost exclusively, appropriating something that WE were meant to control. You knew, from the beginning that you were creating a "dark machine by design" (Moglen) that would feed off our progress for your benefit. The harm you caused to the human race was not accidental. It was an evil manifestation of your greed and lust for power. Even today, you continue to strengthen your hegemony by acquiring, acquiring, and acquiring. You have left us very few avenues to truly escape your control of our minds.

So, did such harm go further than that of anyone Zuckerberg's age? Very few people, let alone those Zuck's age, could be said to have committed comparable harm to the human race. Steve Jobs, the king of the undead now dead, created the "densest collection of sensors ever assembled"; - the Spyphone. His creation also allowed him, and those who succeeded him, to intimately track our behaviour and tap into each individual's flow of thoughts. He did it at 51. Musk, who is currently trying to literally plant a chip in people's brains is also up there. But he started that project at 45. But Zuck. He created Facebook at 19.

The challenges faced by the Global South countries are not purely a failure of governance but also a result of the lack of awareness and imbalance of power in the structure of the global digital system. People in many developing countries lack knowledge about the collection or use of their data. As Couldry and Mejias said, the digital platforms usually become people’s everyday interaction without them realizing what they are giving up. At the same time, unlike European countries that have strong data privacy regulation like GDPR, countries in the Global South mostly lack such legal protection, making it easy for big tech companies to use these data for their own profit. Moreover, even where the law exists, the penalties are sometimes too weak to stop the violation by these tech giant companies. For example, Uber still operates even in breach of local law since the cost of penalties for running a business is lower than the benefit of operating it (e.g., in 2016, a French court fined Uber for running illegal services) https://www.csis.org/analysis/real-national-security-concerns-over-data-localization.

Global South countries need to take clear steps to reclaim their digital futures and fight back against data colonialism. One solution is to build strategic knowledge and culture for local people and to find new space for internet and digital governance. This new space should be supported by the United Nations rather than by the U.S. or other tech giants’ institutions in order to help developing countries create their own fair data laws and strategies to combat the data privacy violations done by powerful nations. One strategy that could be led by the United Nations is to emerge South-South cooperation as a tool for strengthening data statistic and capacities between Global South countries to develop common standards to stop further exploitation. Moreover, countries may adopt the regulation about 'localizing digitization,' which mandates the local storage of consumer data. While this might limit global data flows, it could be a beneficial step to give countries better control of their citizens’ data and build a fairer power balance. Alternatively, the ‘nationalizing data’ approach may be done by requiring tech companies to pay for data they collect. In this way, the data will be used not just for private profits but for the benefit of their public.

Today’s tech giants control data similarly to how colonial powers appropriated land and resources. The control over their data falls beyond reach for countries in the Global South. To reclaim digital sovereignty, developing countries must have stronger data legislation and educate their citizens, while keeping data within national borders and work together to create regulations that protect their digital rights.

Introduction:

1. Not Just Another Taxi

Notes

1 : Uber update 3.222.4, which prompted a Federal Trade Commission claim (see https://epic.org/wp-content/uploads/privacy/internet/ftc/uber/Complaint.pdf). The settlement with the NY Attorney General left concerns mostly unaddressed, allowing Uber perpetual access to users’ whereabouts if encrypted and held under multi-factor authentication.

2 : https://www.aclunc.org/blog/electric-scooters-are-racing-collect-your-data ; Lime and Bird reserve the right to store user information indefinitely, even after an account deletion request.

2. (The Shortfalls of) Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence:

Notes

3 : 39 F.4th 548, 553 at 559 (9th Cir. 2022)

a. Third-party Doctrine; long live the outdated King

The third-party doctrine entails that information that is voluntarily entailed to a third party is not protected by the Fourth Amendment. Miller, 425 U.S. at 443. However, this does not extend to data forming “an all-encompassing record of the holder’s whereabouts.” Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2217. Claiming that users fully comprehend the extent of data gathering and location tracking would be incredulous, particularly considering that some ridesharing companies allow users as young as 13 years old to *create their own profile* . While not all SCOTUS Justices have been oblivious to inadequacy of the third-party doctrine and this false notion of ‘consent’ in today’s era of heightened data-sharing practices (4) , the law evolves at an inadequate, glacial rate. This is exemplified most recently by Sanchez unequivocally affirming the applicability of the third-party doctrine in ridesharing cases, ruling that the Defendant affirmatively shared his data with the ride-share company by agreeing to the app conditions. Sanchez, 39 F.4th at 559. Considering the breadth and depth of data gathered by such ridesharing companies, one would expect that the Carpenter limitation to the third-party doctrine to apply. However, defying all sense and in an impressive display of naiveté, Sanchez deemed the captured data as limited and occurring “during discrete trips”, thus falling outside of the scope of the Carpenter limitation. Sanchez, 39 F.4th at 560. This decision sets a troubling precedent for future data privacy challenges against ridesharing companies, paving a dark future for the safeguarding of user privacy in this industry.

Conclusion:

The judiciary’s ancient approach to what constitutes a reasonable expectation of privacy, and their (mis)understanding of the deceptive tactics embedded in rideshare companies’ Terms of Service regarding consent, undermines US citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights, facilitating unfettered access by law enforcement, and authorizing the erosion of privacy rights as envisioned by the Framers.

Notes

4 : See United States v. Moalin, 973 F.3d 977, 990 (9th Cir. 2020)