In this manner, the technologies of data colonialism become what Ashis Nandy called (in the context of historical colonialism) our most intimate enemies—internalized overseers that we carry with us even when we are not connected to the network. As Nandy observes, colonialism is a “state of mind” that requires a “shared culture” between the colonizer and the colonized. Our comfortable acceptance, at least until recently, of the extractive rationalities of data colonialism indicates the extent to which our subjectivities had already been utterly occupied by data colonialism’s norms and ideologies.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 324