I’ve had this feeling that since there are forces that do not want us to have free speech, and that the destruction of Reddit and Twitter does this effectively, creating a chilling effect, destroying social links and communities. Might it not be an intentional effort to stifle the ability of the downtrodden to organize and fight the power?
There are so many other ways things are engineered to benefit the minority and prevent the majority from gaining power, why not this too?
Just a thought rattling around in my head.
Don’t feel it is a conspiracy as such, in that I don’t think it is coordinated between different social media companies, but it is true that damaging the ability to inform very large numbers of people about what’s going on is incredibly useful to right-wing interests.
So though there’s still a lot of organising & educating online, now people need to seek out information to find it - they’re far less likely to accidentally stumble upon it whilst learning about their hobbies, following a band they’re into, or seeking advice for some personal situation.
In the absence of robust networks for persuading people to back right-wing ideas, disrupting everything else is the next best thing.
But, I also suspect that many of these companies have not been as profitable as anticipated, that there aren’t good ways to make them so, and that they cannot see how to remain functional in the face of imminent developments, so they’re wildly scrambling to wring out some profit, slash costs, and flog off infrastructure before the whole thing comes crashing down & they’re left holding useless, expensive messes.
A well measured response. Thank you. My concerns have been around the benefits that this would have for the far right. Maybe this will make it harder for so many people to stumble towards the far right as well. I suppose I can hope, right?