Like the network visualizations of today, colonial maps illustrated a form of knowledge that can be described as nodocentric. The maps showed the location of mines, ports, towns, and other resources that were crucial to the operation of the empire; they isolated and represented the points or nodes that had value and rendered everything else invisible. A network diagram performs very similar functions. Only nodes and their connections are prioritized, giving us a reality in which nodes can only “see” other nodes, and only nodes deserve to be accounted for. In essence, the colonial maps of the past and the network diagrams of the present function as spatial representations of a power structure that in each case submits to a capitalist and a colonialist logic. They connect peripheral resources to processing centers or network hubs while depicting intermediary spaces as empty or dead. Locations that hold no value to the colonial enterprise, just like individuals who are not users of the platform, practically disappear from the map or diagram.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 312