based or cringe? One one hand human right activists in these countries are using Twitter to create awareness about the local isseus. On the other hand, CIA also uses it to manufacture consent to whatever plans they got
Banning social media is the single most dangerous thing to progressive movements in the world today, I say progressive rather than "leftist" for a reason since liberals are very much affected by this also. Social media has created an absolutely massive power shift from corporate billionaire controlled media towards people controlled awareness of issues. Yes it is partly manipulated by algorithm and other factors on the ruling class' side but it has still monumentally improved our ability to spread leftism and other issues.
In history the newspaper was the tool that spread awareness. Banning newspapers was the method to repress that. In the modern day the modern newspaper is social media.
Social media is a newspaper where the audience itself picks the topics to highlight with input from moderators and the site defined algorithms. Banning social media is akin to banning and shutting down newspapers in the Bolshevik's time.
Yeah if the Fediverse ever matures it's gonna be real hard to stamp out.
I don't think the problem is maturing Fediverse but incentivising bodies into it. Big money is what seems to move internet populations around these days and I don't know how you combat that without big money yourself. Fediverse needs monetary investment to blow up in the same way that Cryptocoin needed monetary investment to blow up. The key to creating fully decentralised social media in my opinion lies with also incentivising people into pushing it because they can profit from it.
That is probably going to be an unpleasant thing to say for some people on this site, but it is a fact of the current society we live in and the left tends to overlook this reality a bit too much. I think it's a mistake for people to think we can take on the giants without some sort of investment, fighting fire with fire.
Ultimately I think the service that figures out how to make a social media tech that's both decentralised and also attractive to people the same way crypto was will really take things along to the next step. I have no idea what that will look like, some sort of revenue sharing decentralised social media sounds weird.
There have been a lot of attempts to do the revenue share thing, but in the words of Dan Olson, “If you’re a new video platform and your core selling point, your big launch feature, is a tip jar, forgive me if I’m having some déjà vu, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard this song before.”
Yeah you can't really do it as a revenue sharing thing. Functionally it has to work differently. Bitcoin is TECHNICALLY a revenue sharing thing though, "do work for the network by adding compute power to authenticate transactions and we'll share money with you in the form of blocks you mine". This is however a cleverly reworded and disguised revenue sharing model, hidden behind mining as a proxy and longterm incentive to expand the network.
Striking the same incentives but with social media is hard but I believe someone will come upon something eventually. I don't know if it'll be fediverse or not. I just think that when money and decentralisation mingle in precisely the right way we'll see an upheavel of existing centralised systems. This will happen in particular because ancaps will push the ever loving fuck out of it for the same reasons they pushed bitcoin, and I think that it will be easier to blow it up by attempting to appeal to those types of people as opposed to just everyone generally. Interestingly, the left and these shits have a mutual interest in decentralisation.
Coops are a tool but they're not magically better in all cases and it's foolish to assume they are or always will be. They are better statistically. Factors like having the right team members and actually-pursuing-the-profit-motive are important, coops actually pursue profit.
A major issue in leftist groups I keep seeing is teams that get bogged down in ideological thinking instead of doing what's actually best if they want to profit. There is a balance, but a lot of leftist groups fail to find it when they don't have the right people to push for it.
Oh absolutely. I just also see problems that need to be overcome. Teams that start as coops without an income seem to struggle to maintain motivation to grow a product until the point they can actually live on it for example.
How hard would it be to stamp out fascists and imperialists though?
Always hard, always been hard, that's nothing new since they have almost all the power
This comment doesn't say anything about why Nigeria might be banning it. It's just an idealist "ban things is bad because free speech". China banned Twitter, Facebook, etc. but they have their own social media platforms not literally controlled by US companies and the US government.
In this case it seems more akin to Nigeria banning a British or French or American newspaper or something. Twitter is not some local left-wing newspaper.
That's fair. I don't know anything about why the ban is occurring and have not at all looked into it. Mentioning India made me assume it being bad for us though. I did want to sound off on what social media is enabling for us and why we should defend it wherever possible though even if it is largely establishment controlled. It being less controlled than older media is a significant benefit.
If this happens in India I believe it is certainly a negative. I know very little about Nigeria's conditions though.
Could you elaborate? I would be quite interested in understanding the Nigerian issue a bit better.
I know next to nothing about Nigeria but from the CNN article alone it looks like Twitter deleted one of Nigeria's president's tweets. See my other comment here. It also looks like Nigeria is part of Belt and Road.
yayyyy it's ok for Nigeria to ban online platforms used by Nigerian leftists because he's launching Buharitube tomorrow!!! yayyyyy big wins for anti-imperialism :DDDD
Good post but I reject the comparison to Bolshevik newspapers that were not nearly as corporate or profitable as today's big news media
Totally fair. I don't mean to imply they are, I just mean to imply the effect is to remove the power of proles to influence the masses, that's what social media is doing.
Are you saying that banning social media removes the power of proles to influence the masses, or are you saying that social media itself (by being an imperialist mouthpiece) removes the power of proles to influence the masses?
I'm saying that social media is the modern newspaper except it is audience controlled to an extent. In essence, it is a newspaper that is prole created.
That's not 100% true of course because the site admins control content via algorithms and rules. But it still places massively more power in the hands of proles than the traditional newspaper where the editor has 100% of the power over content. They still have a lot of power (especially if you really want to flex and shape the narrative), but not 100%.
So with that understanding of it, the removal of social media removes power from the proles.
(especially if you really want to flex and shape the narrative)
I should clarify this part. If you run a subreddit or facebook group or any community for example, you can act rather ruthlessly and do INCREDIBLE work shaping that community into literally anything you want it to be. I have watched first hand 3 communities now get taken over by communists who understand this "it's a newspaper and we're the editors" concept. Those communities went from liberal to full-tilt unfiltered communism in weeks with almost no drop in overall traffic and activity. The shift was largely accepted as long as the mod team worked hard at ruthlessly crushing liberal opposition and played it the right way. So yes there's a huge amount of power that lies on the admin and moderator side on social media but in the vast majority of spaces it is not being flexed that way because so many truly do not understand what social media is in this kind of way. I do not think many people even among the social media crowd have figured this out or written about it either. My background is in marketing and community management so I'm fairly up to date in the field.
My background is in marketing and community management so I’m fairly up to date in the field.
A bit of an aside, but do you have any particular or immediate reaction to the words "we're launching a new community" ?
mod team worked hard at ruthlessly crushing liberal opposition and played it the right way.
Wait, how was this possible if the liberal mods were still there?
Most mod teams on reddit operate on consensus driven by internal discussions in moderator discords. If the communists in the modteam become the consensus the liberals get pushed out.
But how did the communists get on the modteam of a lib subreddit in the first place?
liberals are very much affected by this also
Now that you say this, it doesn't sound all that bad to me.
Virgin :trump-anguish:: gets banned on twitter, in response creates a blog that lasts less than a month
:chad: buhari: Gets one tweet deleted, shuts down the entire platform
India wants twitter to comply with new rules
The new rules require internet platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to erase content that authorities deem unlawful and to help with police investigations, including identifying the originators of "mischievous information."
"Last month, the messaging app WhatsApp filed a lawsuit in Delhi High Court arguing that new government rules that require it to make messages "traceable" to external parties are unconstitutional and undermine the fundamental right to privacy."
so the new rules are bad
Eh, I wouldn't say that the rules alone are bad. I judge based on who is applying it and for what purpose. If the fascists are applying it on communists, that's bad. If it's us applying it on fascists it's good.
Well, in the current context it's definitely bad since it's Modi and his psuedo fascist allies pushing for it. They already got Twitter to block accounts associated with the farmer's protests but now they want more.
There were many Indians spreading fascism few weeks back when Israel was bombing Palestinians though. I see this as an opportunity to actually encourage people like those farmers to use media that isn't controlled by imperialists.
. If the fascists are applying it on communists,
yeah that's what it is when the BJP is trying to find out who posted what
I know. My contention was with the rules being bad. I don't have a problem with the rules, I have a problem with the people applying the rules. It's just like I don't have a problem with protests, I have a problem when it's fascists doing the protesting.
no ...
This is media controlled by the empire ... so banning it suspens Heegemonic linies of Influence...
also dont dissmiss people as tools this easy ...
Twitter literally deleted a tweet from the country's own president. The tweet wasn't even that inflammatory.
literally so fucking what
he could have opened diplomatic channels, done literally anything other than this to counter that. what is wrong with people on this thread jesus fuck I swear half of you are 14 year olds edgelords with hammer and sickle avis who have never travelled outside the United States and think anything is based if it targets anything in the US without actually considering any broader repercussions for the global working class get a FUCKING grip
if you've ever travelled to an authoritarian country in the Global South you know they rarely if ever do things in the direct interests of their people. America has had a big hand in keeping it that way but shit like banning social media and putting up firewalls is completely aside from that
It was Twitter, an American company, that deleted the tweet. I would always side with some crap leader in another country over the US government's designs. Deal with one's own country first. I don't entirely know about Nigeria-US relations but Nigeria is a part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, so there's always the potential for a US coup.
come back and talk to me once your understanding of international relations has progressed beyond that of an edgy 11-year-old who discovered Marxism two weeks ago and now thinks everything Twitter does is personally directed by Langley through voodoo dolls. I'm not denying it can be used as a tool of US imperialism, I'm saying banning it in response to that is idiotic and leaders in the global south who do so have demonstrated that they're doing it out of spite and because it conflicts with their own self-interest, like Modi and now Buhari
man you are really quick with the name calling , do you ever ask yourself that you might lose something of value when you call people not agreeing with you : "edgy 11-year-old who discovered Marxism two weeks ago "
instead of considering what they say about "Sovereignty" a tiny little bit .... ?
lol it will not, it will suspend only ONE instrument of American Hegemony... ONE ... , a small step but a step non the less...
"Ideological trap victim" detected:
Souvreign Nation Does Something ----> Invoce single ideological Moral principle based on your cultural Indoctrination (Media Banning is Bad: Something something ... "FREEDOM !" ) ----> Argue on your Ideological Principle ---> Do not even consider why Sovereign nation had to do it , Do not even consider Imperialism and Geopolitics ,
Just stay up in the clouds arguing Moral prinicples , its so easy , you dont need to know a single thing more then your Moral Prinicple and you can look down on the world with smug...
And call people Names , ...
You can avoid this harsh fate by no longer being a dumb asshole.
Right. A tweet from the president of Nigeria was deleted by an American company. Seems like a bigger deal than some guy getting banned on twitter.
I literally don't care who he is or what his motives are. Complaining about the Nigerian government banning Twitter (he is the head of state right, it's not like this was just his personal decision like they're framing it) is pointless. More countries should ban western platforms and use other ones (does China have any that other countries could use?). Anything that gives American companies less power is good. Of course it sucks for Nigerian twitter users though.
can you not ( in your mind ) Remove yourself from the Person itself -Right wing Dip Shit what ever - ,
- and understand that : AMERICAN COMPANY CENCORING NIGERIAN PRESIDENT , is the Issue here and nothing else ...
Did you not gloriously invoce a Principle yourself : "Everyone cheering as media is Banned is a Tool" ..
There are other Principles in Game here is called "Sovereignty"
Why do you focus arrogantly on a single one .... ?
why are you caping so hard for a fucking authoritarian who literally came to power as the result of a military coup. why is everyone on this thread taking crazypills. are there seriously people who think Buhari is a leftist? he isn't even like a half socdem half Marxist like Xi or some of the CPC people who at least seem to have their nation's interests at heart. he's an authoritarian fuckstick who violently suppresses any dissent.
talk to an actual Nigerian for once in your fucking life I swear to god
Except that was in the 1980s and he's currently in office as the result of elections. The country is also part of Belt and Road.
that's right, I forgot military coups are ok if they happened in the 80s. cool, I just forgave Compaore for killing Thomas Sankara! I thought he was guilty but he's not because it happened years ago. based! also every country that is in Belt and Road can automatically do no wrong because they're part of Belt and Road. excellent logic my good sir
Guess we should just overthrow them right. Let's ignore reality and start the revolution now!
But what if there is an alternate infrastructure in place that isn't captured by American imperialist multinationals? Not saying that is the case in Nigeria, but what about the great firewall and all that
It's not the case in Nigeria so why are you trying to intentionally distract from the issue here, which is government suppressing a popular platform just because Bukhari's fee-fees got hurt?
Just trying to make conversation really, i disagree with the staking of an absolute position in this matter but probably agree with you in this specific case
fair enough. I guess in that case it makes sense but a big difference between China and Nigeria is that despite being wary of American tech and enacting restrictive internet policies, China's government is still nominally ML and still generally does its duty and service for its people. It's not comprised of military bureaucrats who got their posts from a junta, and it's not led by a military leader who has been in power for 30 years after taking it in a brutal coup.
Despite all the nonsense people on reddit say about him, Xi is a pretty normal dude. Buhari is not.
How exceedingly smooth is your brain if you think Twitter is media? It's not media, it's a shitty platform that's collectively turning our brains into gloop as we all yell at each other why a caramel frappuccino is actually cultural appropriation.
Critical support for President Buhari against Twitter
Edit: honestly, I don't know enough about the situation in Nigeria
Read the title wrong... had me thinking that Nigeria was going to ban India after banning Twitter.
Given the ability of social media to do sudden great harm, probably a good thing. It wasn't that long ago that ... I think it was
TwitterFacebook (WhatsApp maybe)... that was being used to stoke racial hatred of Muslims in India right? There was either no ability or inclination to quash that shit from the high up muckety mucks.Given the ability of social media to do sudden great harm, probably a good thing
they didn't ban social media though. they will be probably let other socials to move into the vaccum as long as they don't censor those in power
Well, you only need to go after the largest one at any one time to make a difference.
It might not be a signal that the country is against social media platforms in all flavors just larger ones that are based outside the country that can be influenced by a foreign nation might be something to go after first.
WhatsApp probably is used more to spread misinformation in India
11 year old anarkiddies: imperialism is when twitter deletes based tweets :zenz:
I hope they don't ban it in India, I love exploring the minds of pro-Zionist Hindu nationalist 15 year olds who love Hitler
