When one agrees with a license to distribute work in a certain way, they are making a technological agreement, transferring a certain autonomy to another entity and consenting to be exposed, copied, modified and distributed. The nature of networks is a highly contractual one, demanding permissions and exchanges in almost constant rhythm. Contemporary big tech platforms rely on such exchanges for monetisation, mining personal data to be re-sold to advertisers as prime revenue. It is questionable whether we are really consenting to all the conditions laid out in small letters across endless documents for accessing communication or other services — particularly as platform dependency grows so asymmetrical and infrastructural, that it becomes difficult to see the extent of its trappings. Rethinking consent with a server and a DIY technology allows for stepping back and rethinking consent with all technical infrastructures around us. Data feminism emerges as a field that can connect to consensual server and service understandings, bringing to light power relations and structural oppression systems [|||] that allow for uneven relationships between people and technology, creating “a profound asymmetry between who is collecting, storing, and analysing data, and whose data are collected, stored, and analysed”

— All the Other Directions We Can Go by Carolina Valente Pinto (Page 61 - 62)