DECONSTRUCTING BABYLON #009 - DEFENDING THE DIGITAL WHENUA - STOPPING THE EXTRACTION OF DIGITAL FLESH🦎⚛️
We often think of the internet as a "free" space where we share our stories, our photos, and our language. But in the age of Artificial Intelligence, the cloud has become a new frontier for extraction. Just as the land was once taken under the lie of Terra Nullius, our knowledge is now being mined to fuel machines that don't belong to us. Today, we are deconstructing Tool #6 of Babylon: Digital Colonialism and the Extraction of the Digital Flesh.
Tool #6 of Babylon: Digital Colonialism and the Extraction of the Digital Flesh
In Research Report #224, we identify Data as the "new whenua". Just as land was the primary asset of the 19th century, data is the raw material for the 21st-century economy. Global tech corporations practice Digital Colonialism by scraping Indigenous languages, art, and Whakapapa without consent to train Large Language Models (LLMs).
We conceptualise this unconsented data as Digital Flesh—a commodification of the ancestors that strips knowledge of its relational context and Mauri. This is a "Bad Explanation" that treats our culture as a dead resource rather than a living expression of our people. By removing the "Indigenous" from the training data, these algorithms act as a filter for automated erasure.
We counter this extraction by asserting Digital Sovereignty and practicing High-Tech Kaitiakitang. This means moving our data out of the "Public Square" and into "Sovereign Gardens." We align with the Kaitiakitanga License, developed by Te Hiku Media, which asserts that data is a taonga to be stewarded, not "owned" in the Western sense. It mandates that any value derived from our data must flow back to the source community.
How to Counter it in Everyday Life
Be Mindful of What You "Feed" the Machine: Before posting sacred stories, traditional recipes, or photos of tūpuna on major algorithmic platforms, ask if you are comfortable with that data becoming "Digital Flesh" for a global corporation.
Support Sovereign Platforms: Use and support Indigenous-led tech initiatives like Te Hiku Media and their Papa Reo project. These are our "Digital Tohunga"—models trained on high-quality, culturally verified data that respect our ethical constraints.
Retreat to Private Gardens: Move your whānau and hapū communications from public feeds like Facebook into "Private Gardens" (encrypted messaging or private servers) where your Whanaungatanga can be practiced without surveillance or extraction.
Data sovereignty is the modern expression of Tino Rangatiratanga. Don't let Babylon colonise your mind or your ancestors' voices in the cloud. Today, take one step to protect your digital whenua. Treat your data with the same tapu as you would your physical land.
