Samenvatting

The pandemic has shown how many areas of life can still be digitized, from work, school, and social relations to institutional and care contexts. Using the utopian techno-visions of the metaverse and the critical concept of data colonialism, this essay argues that such ongoing digitization and datafication poses a threat to autonomy, a central value in democratic societies. It proposes a multi-faceted notion of autonomy, which goes beyond rational choice or privacy, to understand the ramifications of the economic, epistemological, and ontological monopolies that technological platforms strive for.