Data collectives and cooperatives, which let creators control the collection and distribution of their data, are emerging as preferred alternatives to big tech companies.
Can data collectives help strengthen vulnerable cultures in the face of AI?
"Data collectives and cooperatives, which let creators control the collection and distribution of their data, are emerging as preferred alternatives to big tech companies."
Join | Mozilla Data Collective
Mozilla Data Collective is rebuilding the AI data ecosystem with communities at the centre.
Join | Mozilla Data Collective
Mozilla Data Collective is rebuilding the AI data ecosystem with communities at the centre.
A Polycentric Governance Lens on Data Infrastructures
Funding policies for data infrastructure promote open data sharing to drive positive social impact. However, concerns regarding the long-term management of data within and across distributed infrastructures can hinder data sharing. We draw upon the concept of polycentric governance to demonstrate how collaborative practices of data curation, in preparing and maintaining data for (future) sharing, provide a solid foundation for understanding data governance within data infrastructures. Based on a qualitative case study of a distributed ecological network, we investigate the conditions under which data are managed as a shared resource by local actors to ensure the long-term (re)usability of data. We contribute to CSCW by conceptualising data curation as a complex form of governance practice with multiple centres of decision-making, each of which operates with some degree of autonomy in data infrastructures. A polycentric governance lens on data infrastructures advances the CSCW conception of data curation as a collective governance practice that can cultivate a data democracy culture within and across organisations, empower individuals to be accountable for their data, and foster a mindset shift toward decentralised data governance.
A Polycentric Governance Lens on Data Infrastructures
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) - Funding policies for data infrastructure promote open data sharing to drive positive social impact. However, concerns regarding the long-term management...
Owning group data - meri's missives
Thinking about how communities can manage shared data on and off ATProto
“Data Strikes”: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a New Form of Collective Action Against Technology Companies | The World Wide Web Conference
Collaborative recommendation is effective at representing a user's overall interests and tastes, and finding peer users that can provide good recommendations. However, it remains a challenge to make collaborative recommendation sensitive to a user's ...
Collective action strategies in the age of AI w/ Nick Vincent from Data Leverage - The Blockchain Socialist
I spoke to Nick Vincent, assistant professor of computing science at Simon Fraser University and author of the Data Leverage substack, about what it actually means that AI systems are built on the collective output of humanity’s digital labor and what we can do about it. Nick has spent years researching how data functions as a bargaining tool, […]
The Digital Life Collective
The Digital Life Collective is an enabler. If you think we should be doing something we're not currently doing, we're here to help you and your project make the change you want to see in the world.
Can “Conscious Data Contribution” Help Users to Exert “Data Leverage” Against Technology Companies?
Tech users currently have limited ability to act on concerns regarding the negative societal impacts of large tech companies. However, recent work suggests that users can exert leverage using their role in the generation of valuable data, for instance by withholding their data contributions to intelligent technologies. We propose and evaluate a new means to exert this type of leverage against tech companies: "conscious data contribution" (CDC).
Democratizing Data
Democratizing Data builds a community-driven data ecosystem by identifying how datasets are used and reducing barriers to accessing high-quality public data. The initiative enhances the discoverability, usability, and relevance of data for researchers, policymakers, and stakeholder communities. A suite of tools and strategic partnerships supports this work by connecting users to the data, insights, and networks needed to inform decisions and generate impact.
Cooperative Data Centers: Lessons from GAD eG | Platform Cooperativism Consortium
Tara Merk’s report uses GAD eG to show that power in AI does not sit only in data or code. It also sits in the buildings, servers, energy contracts, and ownership structures that decide who gets to…
Beyond the Individual: Understanding the Evolution of Collective Intelligence
This chapter outlines the evolution of collective intelligence, starting from its ancient roots and concluding with modern digital platforms. It discusses intelligence theories, project examples, and the impact of technology on collaborative efforts. Key focuses include the role of the internet and online communities in boosting our collective IQ, with a particular emphasis on Douglas Engelbart's contributions and the open-source movement, as exemplified by Linux's development. The chapter examines how digital transformation has facilitated new forms of community and knowledge sharing, significantly influencing fields such as management, decision-making, and organizational learning. Various scholars and their definitions of CI are discussed, including Pierre Lévy's vision of universally distributed intelligence and the concept of swarm intelligence in biological sciences. We then move on to practically implemented CI projects, exploring crowdsourcing as a manifestation of CI in business and social projects and examining possibilities of harnessing the wisdom of crowds for problem-solving and innovation. The chapter concludes with a presentation of the current state of collective intelligence academic research.
Governing by dismantling: tech oligarchy and the stifling of public data infrastructure
Published in Science as Culture (Ahead of Print, 2026)
This approach to a data commons could extend to so many typically shared things. For businesses to easily and authoritatively publish things like open hours or product catalogs, discographies, every kind of -ography... creative appmakers could do so much with all that
JB Hutch
Testing an idea that I've had for a while, but I think is even better suited for atproto Internet, meet plts.at
