I have been warning about the term "digital sovereignty" and how it is right-wing coded and probably can't be salvaged for non-right-wing politics.
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@tante I am slowly moving towards saying digital autonomy instead. Which is more applicable than sovereignty, as that term is more geared towards states/governments, whereas autonomy applies to people, groups, companies and authorities.
I go for Digital Independence myself.
Independence has the right vibe, at least for (US) Americans, and avoids the Sovereignty bro coding.
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I have been warning about the term "digital sovereignty" and how it is right-wing coded and probably can't be salvaged for non-right-wing politics.
The German fascist party AfD now created a European foundation to push their fascist politics further. The name: "Sovereignty Foundation".
Even though tactically it might feel like it makes sense to use the term to get funding, you are integrating right wing politics into your thinking and speaking.
@tante kill yourself, jew -
@jwildeboer that one is better, yes. I also like "digital capacity to act" or "digital agency"
@tante yeah "digital agency" is where i've landed to describe what seems important there -- focusing on each being's ability to choose, understand, and shape their own digital presence (or lack thereof)
agree "digital sovereignty" has always seemed too nationalistic -- is good to work to disentangle from exploitative american tech structures, but "sovereignty" kinda gestures toward "...so we can build our own exploitative tech structures!"
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I have been warning about the term "digital sovereignty" and how it is right-wing coded and probably can't be salvaged for non-right-wing politics.
The German fascist party AfD now created a European foundation to push their fascist politics further. The name: "Sovereignty Foundation".
Even though tactically it might feel like it makes sense to use the term to get funding, you are integrating right wing politics into your thinking and speaking.
@tante I've always been suspicious of the term "sovereignty". It was one of the main justifications for Brexit. And it is clearly a weaselword when it comes to the digital domain.
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@tante I've always been suspicious of the term "sovereignty". It was one of the main justifications for Brexit. And it is clearly a weaselword when it comes to the digital domain.
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I have been warning about the term "digital sovereignty" and how it is right-wing coded and probably can't be salvaged for non-right-wing politics.
The German fascist party AfD now created a European foundation to push their fascist politics further. The name: "Sovereignty Foundation".
Even though tactically it might feel like it makes sense to use the term to get funding, you are integrating right wing politics into your thinking and speaking.
@tante I strongly oppose letting the right wing “own” a word like that. This term has not been invented by the right wing and we should fight to keep it or just let them use it we don’t speak to the same people anyway…
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I have been warning about the term "digital sovereignty" and how it is right-wing coded and probably can't be salvaged for non-right-wing politics.
The German fascist party AfD now created a European foundation to push their fascist politics further. The name: "Sovereignty Foundation".
Even though tactically it might feel like it makes sense to use the term to get funding, you are integrating right wing politics into your thinking and speaking.
@tante It *is* a pretty important term in political science. Maybe we shouldn't just stop using every word those dumbwits are using? We will run out of words at some point.
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I have been warning about the term "digital sovereignty" and how it is right-wing coded and probably can't be salvaged for non-right-wing politics.
The German fascist party AfD now created a European foundation to push their fascist politics further. The name: "Sovereignty Foundation".
Even though tactically it might feel like it makes sense to use the term to get funding, you are integrating right wing politics into your thinking and speaking.
@tante "Digital independence" is a better term(as are several others already mentioned). But when I read "digital sovereignty", I tend to think of it as individuals, organizations, or countries technologically "going their own way" rather than be beholden to someone else.
ditching Microsoft for Linux, and Linux distributions ditching Red Hat software(systemd, GNOME) come to mind as examples of that. -
I have been warning about the term "digital sovereignty" and how it is right-wing coded and probably can't be salvaged for non-right-wing politics.
The German fascist party AfD now created a European foundation to push their fascist politics further. The name: "Sovereignty Foundation".
Even though tactically it might feel like it makes sense to use the term to get funding, you are integrating right wing politics into your thinking and speaking.
@tante There might be some promotional potential in "Digital Sovereign Citizens" as a movement, though.
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@jakob As a linguist, I would say you are wrong. It’s not a prescriptivist argument, it’s a descriptive one.
What @tante does is providing arguments for what the connotation for a certain word is. A prescriptivist argument would be that it’s ”wrong” in itself, or that you ”can’t” use it.
A descriptive linguist would probably be more careful not to appear to pass judgement, but I can’t find any explicit judgement even in this post, only implied.
@ahltorp yeah, no. All the Heideggeresk arguments from just-so-etymology about which other German (sic!) words would be more correct to describe the same issue... This is just not it.
Meanwhile the rejection of this particular word obfuscates critiques of dimensions and domains of sovereignty itself, whom it applies to, if it can exist outside of the state and how it intersects with hegemonic practice. The kinds of things I find useful as a linguist and political scientist.
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I have been warning about the term "digital sovereignty" and how it is right-wing coded and probably can't be salvaged for non-right-wing politics.
The German fascist party AfD now created a European foundation to push their fascist politics further. The name: "Sovereignty Foundation".
Even though tactically it might feel like it makes sense to use the term to get funding, you are integrating right wing politics into your thinking and speaking.
@tante i thought digital sovereignty was a good thing?! :0
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@ahltorp yeah, no. All the Heideggeresk arguments from just-so-etymology about which other German (sic!) words would be more correct to describe the same issue... This is just not it.
Meanwhile the rejection of this particular word obfuscates critiques of dimensions and domains of sovereignty itself, whom it applies to, if it can exist outside of the state and how it intersects with hegemonic practice. The kinds of things I find useful as a linguist and political scientist.
@jakob So basically, what you're saying is that since the post didn't analyse all aspects of the word, it should never have been posted?
Would I have accepted the post as an article in linguistics? No, but why should you apply those standards to a 450 character Mastodon post?
And where are these "Heideggeresk arguments from just-so-etymology about which other German (sic!) words would be more correct"? Not in the post you replied to, that's for sure.
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I have been warning about the term "digital sovereignty" and how it is right-wing coded and probably can't be salvaged for non-right-wing politics.
The German fascist party AfD now created a European foundation to push their fascist politics further. The name: "Sovereignty Foundation".
Even though tactically it might feel like it makes sense to use the term to get funding, you are integrating right wing politics into your thinking and speaking.
@tante I don’t see Resilience in the comments. Whether it is just that word or Regional / EU Resilience, enterprise risk folks often have part of their Resilience (BC/DR) based on geopolitical-risk metrics to avoid having critical supplies or functions reliant on scary places.
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@vintage_pizza @tante imagine thinking a toxified word doesn’t matter.
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@hadon @jwildeboer @tante I would say, autonomy, as the word part "auto" suggests, can apply to people and institutions on their own. You can have autonomy from X.
Sovereignty includes the word "reign". You can not reign without an object, you can have sovereignty over X.
As such, the two words are completely different in the way they describe a power struggle. Focus on autonomy and you describe a situation where you want to be free from something (e.g. Big Tech, or US tech, or whatever). Focus on sovereignty and you (and not someone else) should have power over something, typically via property, law, infrastructure involved.
I think both can still be used from a right-wing perspective of (EU) nationalism, but autonomy is more open to anarchist anti-capitalist principles.
But sovereignty seems appropriate since we are talking about not being dependent on another State. The idea is to not be dependent on American technologies (or defense)
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But sovereignty seems appropriate since we are talking about not being dependent on another State. The idea is to not be dependent on American technologies (or defense)
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Fascists will adopt whatever terms we use.
So, maybe we should always add, to every term, the word: "antifascist"
We want antifascist digital souvereignity.
@nilz @tante @jwildeboer This is why I love projects that use the .gay TLD. Built in antifascist naming scheme there.
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@tante yeah "digital agency" is where i've landed to describe what seems important there -- focusing on each being's ability to choose, understand, and shape their own digital presence (or lack thereof)
agree "digital sovereignty" has always seemed too nationalistic -- is good to work to disentangle from exploitative american tech structures, but "sovereignty" kinda gestures toward "...so we can build our own exploitative tech structures!"
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@larsmb I agree when it comes to terms that are useful/good (think Freedom). I'm not willing to fight for "sovereignty"
