In order to articulate these positions, what are needed are methods for denaturalizing the logic of data and critiquing data colonialism. We must then use the results of those methods to reimagine different forms of social and economic relations and connections outside of Western notions of modernity. The project of creating these alternate versions of modernity is what Enrique Dussel calls a “worldwide ethical liberation project” that challenges the universalism of a Western form of reason. In essence, creating counterpresents implies engaging in media practices that question how notions of “progress,” “civilization,” or “innovation” are equated with data relations as conceptualized by corporate interests. Creating counterpresents would also mean reclaiming the agency of the colonized data subject. The colonial project granted subjecthood to dominated individuals, but it did not grant them equality.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 353