You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism
www.404media.co
Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them, Janus Rose writes.

If there’s one thing I’d hoped people had learned going into the next four years of Donald Trump as president, it’s that spending lots of time online posting about what people in power are saying and doing is not going to accomplish anything. If anything, it’s exactly what they want.

Many of my journalist colleagues have attempted to beat back the tide under banners like “fighting disinformation” and “accountability.” While these efforts are admirable, the past few years have changed my own internal calculus. Thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt warned us that the point of this deluge is not to persuade, but to overwhelm and paralyze our capacity to act. More recently, researchers have found that the viral outrage disseminated on social media in response to these ridiculous claims actually reduces the effectiveness of collective action. The result is a media environment that keeps us in a state of debilitating fear and anger, endlessly reacting to our oppressors instead of organizing against them.

Cross’ book contains a meticulous catalog of social media sins which many people who follow and care about current events are probably guilty of—myself very much included. She documents how tech platforms encourage us, through their design affordances, to post and seethe and doomscroll into the void, always reacting and never acting.

But perhaps the greatest of these sins is convincing ourselves that posting is a form of political activism, when it is at best a coping mechanism—an individualist solution to problems that can only be solved by collective action. This, says Cross, is the primary way tech platforms atomize and alienate us, creating “a solipsism that says you are the main protagonist in a sea of NPCs.”

In the days since the inauguration, I’ve watched people on Bluesky and Instagram fall into these same old traps. My timeline is full of reactive hot takes and gotchas by people who still seem to think they can quote-dunk their way out of fascism—or who know they can’t, but simply can’t resist taking the bait. The media is more than willing to work up their appetites. Legacy news outlets cynically chase clicks (and ad dollars) by disseminating whatever sensational nonsense those in power are spewing.

This in turn fuels yet another round of online outrage, edgy takes, and screenshots exposing the “hypocrisy” of people who never cared about being seen as hypocrites, because that’s not the point. Even violent fantasies about putting billionaires to the guillotine are rendered inept in these online spaces—just another pressure release valve to harmlessly dissipate our rage instead of compelling ourselves to organize and act.

This is the opposite of what media, social or otherwise, is supposed to do. Of course it’s important to stay informed, and journalists can still provide the valuable information we need to take action. But this process has been short-circuited by tech platforms and a media environment built around seeking reaction for its own sake.

“For most people, social media gives you this sense that unless you care about everything, you care about nothing. You must try to swallow the world while it’s on fire,” said Cross. “But we didn’t evolve to be able to absorb this much info. It makes you devalue the work you can do in your community.”

It’s not that social media is fundamentally evil or bereft of any good qualities. Some of my best post-Twitter moments have been spent goofing around with mutuals on Bluesky, or waxing romantic about the joys of human creativity and art-making in an increasingly AI-infested world. But when it comes to addressing the problems we face, no amount of posting or passive info consumption is going to substitute the hard, unsexy work of organizing.

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.comEnglish
    413·
    17 hours ago

    While I like to agree with that vision of decentralized social media, even here on lemmy we have our own pitfalls. Echo chambers are unchecked and defederation (even justified) happens.

    I don’t assume everyone here is a real person. There was a article recently that AI was training “persuasiveness” using reddit subreddits. I have to believe a similar trial exists on the fediverse least I be caught off guard.

    Plus, there are a lot of folks here (it seems like a majority sometimes in my personal experience) that are quick to advocate violence/sabotage in lieu of negotiation and debate. That reaks of puppeteering; there can’t be that many arseholes here, right?

    I know I have some strong biases that lean towards peace, and I’m confused sometimes why a comment of mine in the fediverse gathers double digit upvotes steadily only to plummet to the negatives overnight. I get old reddit botnet vibes on some topics.

    I suppose I want to like lemmy, the freedom, these communities, but it is still polarizing and influenceable by [insert tech/political/financial interests]. I don’t trust this enough to recommend to friends and family, but my presence here makes it a fraction more what I want to be.

    • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.businessEnglish
      37·
      15 hours ago

      Plus, there are a lot of folks here (it seems like a majority sometimes in my personal experience) that are quick to advocate violence/sabotage in lieu of negotiation and debate. That reeks of puppeteering; there can’t be that many arseholes here, right?

      That’s because there are a lot of marginlized folks here - gay, trans, autistic, linux users - who have spent decades disucssing politely and negotiating.

      Problem is the people throwing Nazi salutes and writing all these executive orders have, quite clearly, said they want us all either dead or in camps.

      Now I wouldn’t dream of speaking for everyone else, but I’m certainly not going to be attempting to politely debate myself out of a one-way train ride, if it comes to that.

      So, yeah, while I don’t encourage violence for the sake of violence, the neoliberal ‘oh dear we must all be very polite at all times and let rationality solve all our issues!’ is dead and worthless.

      I’ve taken classes for and armed myself, and I have zero qualms with defending myself and friends and family by any means necessary if it comes down to a situation where it’s us-or-them, regardless of who ‘them’ is.

      If you told me even five years ago that I’d be carrying a gun and be fully prepared to use deadly force to defend myself I’d have called you goofy, and if you told me that I’d be willing to use it against agents of the state if they came after me, I’d think you have lost your damn mind.

      But, well, it’s been a long 5 years, and frankly, IMO, the rule of law and the trust in any governmental institutions have been eroded into nothing.

      • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        13·
        10 hours ago

        Amazing take, no notes. I’ve done my due diligence, I’ve voted, I’ve canvassed for campaigns, I’ve donated to the right people.

        I will NOT be debating with fascists or agitators while my friends and family members get taken away for being trans or the wrong shade of brown (or a Linux user lol). Someone in a more privileged position than me can.

        I used that time to get my carry license instead.

    • EndRedStateSubsidies@leminal.spaceEnglish
      13·
      14 hours ago

      Something like 80% of all theft at this point is unpaid wages.

      You have to understand that a system that calls corporations people is inherently violent. Profit is unpaid labor, so the existence of a tax code that not only allows -but celebrates and defends- billionaires is class warfare. If you steal $1000 from a store, the police show up. If the store steals $1000 from your paycheck the police tell you to get a lawyer with a $5k retainer. The store’s existence isn’t hampered by the $1,000 while most families would be ruined without out.

      However, the only instance of the crime the system cares about is the one against the corporation.

      Corporations are the only people that don’t have to worry about eating. Corporations are the only people that don’t have hands for handcuffs. Corporations are the only people the law cares about.

      Corporations own the media. Corporations own the red ones. Corporations own the blue ones. Corporations own the food. Corporations are eager to own everything the DNC will meet the RNC half way in privatizing.

      We are here because infinite money now equates to infinite speech. We as individuals have ever less speech because we have ever less money. Unions are being crippled now and soon protesting itself will become a crime against the state.

      It will be a crime to speak out. It will be a crime to be different. It will be a crime to work too slow or think too much.

      When every notion of freedom becomes a crime, crime becomes our only freedom.

      Ready Player 2 mother fuckers.

    • callouscomic@lemm.eeEnglish
      111·
      15 hours ago

      Fuck negotiating and debate. That’s what has allowed the rich to erode or steal everything we could have had. That’s what allows wimpy politicians to get walked all over as the bullies take over again and again.

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      14 hours ago

      I know I have some strong biases that lean towards peace, and I’m confused sometimes why a comment of mine in the fediverse gathers double digit upvotes steadily only to plummet to the negatives overnight. I get old reddit botnet vibes on some topics.

      That’s probably time zones. I’m in Europe, and I’ve noticed that if I post something that’s not in line with mainline American thinking, I’ll wake up to a bunch of downvotes. The same could be true for Oceania/Asia or Europe/africa, depending on where you are.

    • auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      5·
      14 hours ago

      Yes we’re missing two things

      • Anonymous ID / Reputation system to tell it’s a human
      • Community-run moderation. So some chronically online sadsack can’t ban you from a significant portion of lemmy for life because you disagreed with them.
      • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        5 hours ago

        PieFed offers both, as well as most of the most heavily asked for features lacking from Lemmy (Categories of Communities, sign-up wizard asking for interests and subscribing to communities based on those answers, hashtags to facilitate cross-community discovery, etc.). Ironically it is the more foundational features (cross-posting, users tagging, comment previews, post searching) that it still lacks, but the point is that work is being done along the lines of what you said, even though I highly doubt that such will ever appear in “Lemmy” per se.

        • auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          I wouldn’t use any of those other features. I just browse by top all 1/6/12 hr (which piefed lacks) and the theme isn’t great either.

          How does it offer either of those things? I see an ‘attitude %’ on hover, and it says it has ‘strong moderation tools’. But I mean 100% community run. Subscribers have to vote on bans or something. And proof of personhood verification tests.

    • militaryintelligence@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      14 hours ago

      I am definitely one of those “to arms” types because I think talking is over. That’s all the oligarchs want, more talk. When a forum for discussion is introduced the controlling powers study it for monetization and misinformation purposes. When they figure out how to manipulate the fediverse and platforms like Bluesky it’ll be over. It’s important we keep ads off of them or they’ll dictate the discussion

    • errer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      16 hours ago

      there can’t be that many arseholes here, right?

      oh my sweet summer child