More positively, it also means intensifying the pleasures of sociality (solidarity, even) that not even datafication has been able to suppress. One reason we all flocked to social media platforms originally was because they reminded us of the joys of collectivity at a time when mass media seemed to offer only individualistic isolation. That pleasure risks being extinguished now as we become ever clearer that social media outlets are managed by vast commercial interests. But we don’t need to forget everything that has been learned during our time on digital networks. We can develop forms of solidarity that extend what we have learned online but turn them toward values that are no longer aligned to data colonialism.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 633