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.

[danielscardoso@scholar.social]

I usually see it used as "data sovereignty", in the sense of material control over data. Thanks for the new insight!

[hamishcampbell@mastodon.social]

@tante its mess we do need to practically compost https://hamishcampbell.com/digital-sovereignty-is-more-mess-we-need-to-compost/

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

@tante yeah, I can't see it without thinking of the crypto guy usage of the term

[hadon@mastodon.social]

@tante

It's not a right-wing term, it is a legal term.

[hadon@mastodon.social]

@jwildeboer @tante

Well, for what I understand, sovereignty and autonomy are not equivalent.
Sovereignty is a more legal sort of term and stronger than autonomy. Autonomy is part of sovereignty but the opposite is not true. I mean, in order to attain sovereignty you need autonomy, it defines it.

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[tante@tldr.nettime.org]

@hadon it's both

[ebel@moytura.org]

@tante lots of brexit campaining in the UK was about “sovereignty”

[lyrial@transfem.social]

@tante@tldr.nettime.org I think it can be salvaged, simply by copy-left projects ignoring fascists. The sad, part, though is that there are way too many Nazi OSS projects out there

[fabio@zirk.us]

@tante I think it's more than just the term. Replacing American corporations with corporations of a different nationality is not a progressive project. That's what the liberal elites mean when they say "digital sovereignty" and it's fully compatible with fascist concepts of sovereignty.

[beandreams@friendhole.social]

@tante It's a real bummer, because another big use of the term is in Indigenous data sovereignty, where "sovereignty" has a long-running anti-colonial meaning and denotes some very good technology governance principles

[siroj42@troet.cafe]

@tante I've been thinking the same. Digital sovereignty as a term is also very amenable to becoming digital campism, where technologies are preferred just because they are from the EU. Also this: https://troet.cafe/@Siroj42/116080748677182334
Whether it's the sovereignty of a king or "the people", I'd prefer a world without it!

[bsdphk@fosstodon.org]

@tante

I insist on calling it "Digital self-determination" for that and other reasons.

[mxalba@blahaj.zone]

@tante@tldr.nettime.org

Would digital independence be better?

[computersandblues@post.lurk.org]

@tante this isn't just about words and terms though, is it? if there's a perceived threat and the nation state is the legitimate sovereign, the response most likely becomes nationalist. if the logic of global trade gets shaken and the organizational units are nation states, the response very easily becomes nationalist.

[dar@mastoart.social]

@tante

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute.

1) words can be used by anyone, and a word such as sovereignty isn't right wing/fascist at all. It's just a word, with a meaning, used by people of all stripes.

2) Look at the Q bit of LGBTQ..... Words CAN be reclaimed, even when they are 100% pejorative. Trust me on this, I'm one of the ones who reclaimed it.

3) It's not unusual for fascists to use the word 'and' too. Should we all drop that as well?

[sanityinc@hachyderm.io]

@bsdphk @tante "Digital self-sufficiency" would work nicely too

[jakob@pxi.social]

@tante That's prescriptivist linguistics and I'd rather not cede ground on the very thing the term "sovereignty" denotes in an area of political contention.

Popular sovereignty is hard coded into the very first article to define and limit the power of the state in Art.20 of German Basic Law after all, as messy as that foundation is for political equity. I want to deliberate *who* holds sovereignty over the digital domain, rather than play word games. And I want that sovereignty to be equitable.

[heretohinder@mastodon.sdf.org]

@jwildeboer @tante definitely adopting that! I've had a couple of arguments/chats already where I've tried explaining why the "digital sovereignty" thing doesn't sit well by me, but autonomy vs sovereignty is much more succinct.

[computersandblues@post.lurk.org]

@tante what i'm trying to say is that there's a real, material contradiction at the heart of this. the projects of "national sovereignty" are all about lessening international dependencies and strengthening national economies here in the eu, because it makes sense economically as one available strategy. i don't know if i have to say this, but obviously it's not one i'm in favor of. and luckily it's not simply and only nationalist because the strategy involves some nods towards open standards and open source software (& hardware?), and hopefully that's enough of a wedge

[kim@social.gfsc.studio]

@hamishcampbell @tante

i don't think the entire concept of soverignty is one to cede, which really just asks about the relationship between legal governance and technology. there's great work being done by e.g. the Iwi Maori on this front. of course the right have their own nationalistic take on this but for me the really liberal thing is to kinda pretend countries and borders dont exist (esp whilst doing our work on stolen land)

Te Mana Raraunga

Our Data, Our Sovereignty, Our Future

Te Mana Raraunga (www.temanararaunga.maori.nz)