tante
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.
Poul-Henning Kamp
I insist on calling it "Digital self-determination" for that and other reasons.
Blurry Moon
Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:
@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.
NoBorg
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.
skaphle
@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.
Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:
@jzakotnik From an italian friend "never say sovereign here. It will immediately put you in the wrong, far-right corner" I will also continue to sue "sovereign" for the top-down approach. But digital autonomy for the bottom-up way. That's a nice and helpful distinction for me. @larsmb @datenwolf @kejster @tante @sovtechfund
jzakotnik
@larsmb @datenwolf @kejster @jwildeboer @tante I would like to continue to use the word sovereign and within the first 2min of every presentation mention that "sovereign" is not "national" (copied this from @sovtechfund talks I heard). Hope it's clear then.
Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷
@datenwolf @kejster @jwildeboer @tante I'm not convinced. I don't want to be "autonomous": I want the capability to *act* in an autonomous/sovereign manner, yes.
The problem is that the right intentionally reduces "sovereign" to isolationism/nationalism. We kinda need to resist that, because they'll otherwise do it to any other term as well ("independence" is a similar candidate).
Maybe throw in an adjective & re-order? "Sovereign digital collaboration".
datenwolf
It's also a lot more accurate (IMHO) with respect to what the actual goals are/should be.
Kenneth Johnsen
@jwildeboer @tante Same here. Autonomy is a much better term.
Poul-Henning Kamp
They may have uttered it, but where I come from (DK/EU) it's mostly used about provinces and former colonies having had enough.
And that, to me, is the perfect analogy of people finally demanding freedom from the enshitifcators.
Blurry Moon
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