Fed up with Big Tech, communities turn to data collectives for control
Rest of World Rina Chandran
Communities are establishing data collectives and cooperatives to control their data rather than allow major tech companies to extract it for AI training without consent or compensation. Mozilla Data Collective hosts approximately 700 hours of voice data in 39 Pakistani languages and over 20 African languages, with Meta and other companies now negotiating usage terms directly with communities. This shift enables underrepresented language communities to build AI tools in their own languages while maintaining governance over how their data is used.
Why it matters
Data collectives and cooperatives, which let creators control the collection and distribution of their data, are emerging as preferred alternatives to big tech companies.
