DECONSTRUCTING BABYLON #135 - OUR DATA, OUR FUTURE: KEEPING OUR STORIES SAFE
In our previous posts, we have looked at how the Babylonian system extracts our physical resources like timber and gold, and our financial resources through the "Leaky Bucket" economy. But there is a new frontier for the machine: our data. In the digital age, our stories, our voices, and even our whakapapa are being treated like "empty land" that anyone can walk onto and claim. In this post, we are looking at how to protect our digital heritage and reclaim our power in the online world.
The Research: Digital Colonialism
Research Report #224 identifies a modern version of an old problem: "Digital Colonialism." Just as the "Doctrine of Discovery" was used to claim land that already belonged to indigenous people, big tech companies today treat the internet like "Digital Terra Nullius" (empty land). They "scrape" our social media posts, our recorded kōrero, and our family photos to train their AI models and make massive profits, often without our consent or even our knowledge.
This is a new form of extraction. The system takes our "Digital Flesh" - our unique cultural data - and exports it to build tools that don't always understand or respect our values. When our stories are taken out of our hands, we lose the ability to tell them in our own way. We become products of the machine rather than the authors of our own future.
Data as a Taonga
Deconstructing Babylon in the digital world means shifting how we think about our information. We need to move from "Digital Colonialism" to Data Kaitiakitanga (guardianship). Our data is not just "bits and bytes"; it is a taonga (treasure). It is a digital extension of our mana and our whakapapa.
When we treat our data as a taonga, we start to ask better questions:
Who owns this? Instead of just clicking "agree" to long legal documents, we start demanding to know where our stories are being stored and who is profiting from them.
Who does this benefit? We look for digital tools and platforms that are built by us and for us, rather than just using whatever the big corporations give us for "free."
Is this safe for the future? We consider how the information we share today will affect our mokopuna in fifty years.
Reclaiming the Digital Marae
Protecting our stories doesn't mean we have to stop using technology. It means we have to become the "navigators" of our own digital waka. We can start making small, practical changes right now:
Practising Data Sovereignty: Supporting Māori-led data initiatives and technology projects that prioritise our values.
Being Mindful Sharers: Thinking twice before posting sensitive cultural information on platforms that claim ownership of everything we upload.
Teaching the Next Generation: Helping our rangatahi understand that their digital footprint is part of their mana, and it deserves to be protected.
The Babylonian machine wants our data because our data is valuable. It is the fuel for the next generation of the system. By becoming the kaitiaki of our own stories, we stop the extraction and ensure that the "digital landscape" of the North remains under our own authority. Our stories are our own; it’s time we kept them that way.
This series is based on Research Report #224 - The Tools of Babylon: A Forensic Deconstruction and Counter-Strategy. If you would like to read the full report, please contact the author via the contact us page.
