Can there be digital fairness in times of unequal global distribution?

Whether discriminatory algorithms in recruitment procedures or differential pricing in online shopping: the digital space is run through with many power imbalances, some of them more visible, some less. But digital fairness should not begin only on users' screens. It should be thought globally, and it should apply as early as the production chains behind our technologies.

From the data worker in Kenya who rates texts for the training of language models to the content moderator in the Philippines who removes toxic content from social media platforms: today's digital technologies rest to a considerable degree on cheapened labour in countries of the Global South. Their precarious working conditions are increasingly exacerbated by digital technologies. The spread of AI coding tools, for instance, is increasing the pressure on tech workers in India, where recent waves of layoffs have left growing numbers of people overwhelmed, and have triggered suicides.

The question of digital fairness also arises with regard to raw materials and ecosystems. Rare earths, which are needed to manufacture technical hardware, are mined under degrading conditions and at enormous environmental cost in regions such as Rubaya in the Congo. When devices are discarded after just a few years, they end up as electronic waste in places such as Agbogbloshie in Ghana, with severe consequences for people's health and for ecosystems. Meanwhile, communities in the Chilean capital are fighting for their water supply, which is threatened by the construction of gigantic data centres.

One thing is clear: the global distribution of the costs and benefits of digital technologies is vastly unequal. While countries of the Global South experience an excess of the disadvantages and the risks, profits end up predominantly in Western countries.

This unequally distributed burden is no accident. It runs along global power asymmetries that rest on deeply rooted colonial dependencies. For centuries, countries of the Global South have been trapped in the role of supplying cheapened raw materials and labour for Western consumption. And although decolonial struggles of resistance in the twentieth century were able to lead many states to formal independence, they remain at the mercy of economic exploitation. This happened, for instance, through the structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, for instance, which cemented export-oriented production and thereby prevented countries from using their capacities for the needs of their own populations. Over time, this hardened into the configuration we experience today: a large proportion of the world's countries depend on producing goods at depressed market prices for Western consumption. They have to supply their labour, raw materials and ecosystems cheaply, while patents and monopoly power secure the profits and hegemony of industrialised nations.

What is particularly cynical: digital technologies such as AI are often touted as ways out of this role of dependency. The latest digital technology is supposed to be the way to raise productivity, secure prosperity and finally join the ‘front runners’.

But the way to a fair digital world economy is not a question of introducing new technologies faster, let alone of optimised market conditions. In order to achieve fairness and a dignified existence, those historically entrenched dependencies must be broken. To that end, it is crucial to ‘decouple’ global production – a process discussed in the literature as delinking. Instead of deploying resources and capacities for the export of consumer goods, countries can use them to meet the needs of their own populations.

With a little luck, a digitally fairer future might look something like this in a few decades' time: Sub-Saharan countries join forces in a strong regional bloc in order to escape dependency on cheapened exports and expensive Western imports. Together they develop equipment for schools and hospitals, with each country contributing its own components – as equals, and without systematically devaluing individual steps in production. Their numerous sources of raw materials have been brought under democratic control and follow strict extraction quotas that permit only the bare minimum, so as not to place excessive strain on ecosystems. A large proportion of tech work, from customer support to software development, takes place in cooperatives that guarantee fair wages and safe working conditions. Through decentralised open-source platforms, communities organise the recovery of raw materials from old devices and feed them back into production cycles.

The way there will not be easy. The current system puts up various hurdles that prevent countries from exercising greater self-determination over their resources. Resistance is punished harshly, in some cases even with military intervention, as the history of Guatemala or Burkina Faso shows.

Despite the challenges, it is worth fighting for this. For this transformation is about far more than merely fairer economic conditions. It is also our chance to be ecologically fit for the future. In times of overconsumption and climate crisis, digital fairness is not merely a charitable aspiration, but the precondition for a shared future worth living in on our planet.