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.
100000000% agree
I am trying to get people I know personally to stop posting and reading and instead begin to focus on the very basics of actual organization, in the form of simply being able to communicate effectively and securely.
I have collected and written up information for them with the consideration that they are non-technical, pertaining to secure and private communications primarily, but also many more potentially useful emergency-scenario information and data which I will not speak about here.
The package I have started giving to my friends contains information such as:
- How to communicate securely using something like Simplex or I2P
- How to correctly configure and use a VPN
- How to flash a security distribution of Linux such as TailsOS to a flash drive and how to boot to it from a computer
- How to securely encrypt data to a device using an encryption software with hidden volume features such as VeraCrypt
- A litany of manuals for all kinds of useful information you can use in emergencies, which I will not detail here
- Files containing the data required to build potentially useful items in emergencies given access to the correct hardware which I will not detail here
I firmly believe that the majority of Americans will not do anything until someone is actually showing up at their door, coming after them in the street, or destroying the regularities of their personal day to day life, so my intention is to distribute materials which they can turn to when the fear sets into them well enough that they are scared to talk about such things openly.
It is clear to me that most of my American friends at least, at this point, still only feel superficial fear and outrage. The other day I asked them “If you had to vandalize a public space with a piece of art, what would you draw or paint? Let’s say it is the side of a bank”.
One said “tits”, one said “flowers”, one said “a fox”.
Even in a fantasy, they would not express fear or outrage in a public setting.
Is signal not good enough or something? I basically switched to signal.
It’s good, but it’s centralized. Let’s say an authoritarian regime shuts down the central Signal servers. Then what?
No. You claim to be a journalist; you don’t just stop reporting on the President of the United States. We don’t have that luxury.
Sounds like a complicit media attempting to absolve itself.
I can’t upvote this strongly enough. Social media is doing everything in the establishment’s favor - especially ingraining the habit of glancing at a news item and making an instant value judgement with minimal thought before scrolling along to the next item. It’s not just that endless scrolling and venting take time away from real action, it’s the encouragement of superficial thinking. People who get all their info from memes are solid gold to con men like Trump who depend on triggering stupid conclusions. They got conservatives to worship him by not thinking too much, and they can do the same to liberals.
Social media is doing everything in the establishment’s favor
For about half a second, people used social media to organize. Then the fascists saw how to manipulate and control it, and jumped at the opportunity. At this point social media – especially billionaire controlled social media – is just part of the fascist apparatus.
To a lesser extent, as this article talks about, the coping mechanism of posting through better platforms allows you to vent enough to prevent you from having the discomfort necessary to actually do anything. It’s not nearly as harmful, but it’s not good either.
After working with computer software most of my life I’ve come to understand that if success relies on people ‘paying attention to something, making an informed decision and then performing an action’ that it is nearly impossible to get the desired outcome more than half the time.
We’re so fucked.
Also in that field, but… I think you have to acknowledge that being, usually, in your example 1) at work and 2) on a computer, make people that much less interested in giving a shit. Compare to various systems people use in their free time, and you probably see that people are pretty good at attending to the things they think matter.
Capitalism, or, at the very very least, unfettered capitalism, are the real problem, not people writ large.
I agree.
“Planet’s burning up, another genocide, fascism on the rise… ugh… where are the funny memes.”
Apathy is the greatest tool of the oppressor.
It’s probably boomers’ fault for creating PCs so GenX could create the Internet. They should have seen this coming!!!
I’m afraid you can’t vote or protest your way out of fascism. Only way out is to shoot.
Violence is bad. And it won’t help anyway, unless it only makes things worse and society even more divided, leading the country into cycles of endless dictatorship.
The only way to get rid of illegitimate leaders is for at least 50%+ of the entire country to get together and protest all the way to Washington.
There is another way - if it’s in your power, don’t obey the regime in any way.
That’s the whole point of dictators - they come in when some economic crisis starts and/or the people are divided.
By the way, authoritarians thanks to the fact that people are divided, and continue to rule. And also political apathy and social conservatism are only to the advantage of dictators, so they should have been regarded as evil from the beginning
Except you won’t, because you are already coping on Lemmy
For sure. This is all hypothetical. No real threats of violence here.
Not enough ammo…
They have the popular vote, most gun nuts are right wing. And they have the military, most of which voted trump. Are there even enough people who are left of center to fight against that?
The US has experience being beaten by smaller, poorly-armed forces.
That’s just what they want you to believe. Most of the country does not support the capitalists. Support for Luigi remains bi-partisan.
As someone who is outside the US, the best I can do is share important information with people inside the US.
I would be very surprised if any of our US-Allied governments call out Trump. I would be overjoyed, but surprised.
Reminder that the USA has a nationwide protest at State Capital Buildings TODAY.
Organising to do what exactly? A majority of the US population wants this nightmare. The Trump administration is expected to destroy norms and institutions to bring about their bigot’s utopia, they ran on that promise.
It’s really that dire. It’s beyond the reach of the checks and balances that have kept things somewhat on-track up until just after 9/11. Checks and balances are precisely what the voters want to delete from the courts.
If Trump wants a 3rd term, he will get it, and his voters will not be moved by marches or sit-ins or AOC exquisitely calling out the scum and villainy from the floor of the senate. Either talk Luigification, or let the people post their fucking memes in peace.
A third term implies the constitution is still in place and don’t see them passing an amendment without doing something ridiculous like creating a bunch of extra states.
Far easier to just never end the second term. Claim a national emergency and suspend elections/the constitution.
What will matter in the end isn’t what you put online.
It’ll be how good your memory becomes when ICE comes knocking on your door asking about your neighbors. That’s the hard part.
I suspect the vast majority of people turning to social media as a pressure release valve feel disempowered, and don’t know what more they can reasonably do. When voting is no longer enough, and you have little time or money to spare, what’s next? How can a fly meaningfully change the orbit of a planet?
This article is insightful, but practically useless. I think it would be better if it also presented specific actions and achievable goals that would lead to shutting down encroaching fascism.
Vast numbers of people feeling disempowered … sounds like the Trump crowd when he appeared and proclaimed himself their savior. Liberals are in for the same treatment from someone with a different sales pitch. Some people think that’s who Kamala Harris was, I truly believed in her, but maybe that was the whole plan and it’s already like professional wrestling - you win this match, I’ll win the next one, and we both take home the money. I dunno.
Well at least the article validated some of my feelings and gave me a sense identification of the problems I have been sensing around me with the flaccid liberal rebellion.
Hey wait a sec! Dammit!Most concrete action I can think of is some posts I remember seeing about coat-hanger do it yourself frontal lobotomies. I’ve seen plenty of very low IQ Americans with economic status as bad or worse than mine somehow perfectly happy with all the fascist shit that is going down. This seems like an opportunity to join in their bliss.
Get to know the people in your community. Take an interest in growing food, learn how to fix things. Get a gun (or two) and learn how to use them.
https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/
Establish secure lines of communication and start preparing for what’s coming. The next decade is going to be hard but we’ll probably know how it’s going to shake down by then.
edit: formatting
TLDR - We need more Luigis against the techbros
Luigi 1 didn’t accomplish anything, though.
You’re talking about it.
I’m talking about a guy who made no impact on a single company much less an industry and then went to jail awaiting prison, throwing away all of his rich boy ivy league education, because people like YOU keep bringing him up.
I’m talking about a guy
Since you’re refusing to back up your stance I take that to mean you’ve resigned from the argument and that you agree with me.
Back up my stance of “you’re talking about it” when you start your comment with “I’m talking about it”?
I really don’t see a reason to “back that up” any further. You did all for me.
I see you have the memory of the goldfish so I’ll recap the discussion for you.
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User above stated we need more luigis
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I brought up the fact that Luigi 1 accomplished nothing
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You retort that we are talking about it
So either your response was completely pointless and off topic or you meant it as evidence that Luigi 1 accomplished something. What did he accomplish? How does talking about it change anything for anyone?
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I have the social skills of a cholla cactus and so when someone says ѻɼﻭคกٱչﻉ ץѻપɼ กﻉٱﻭɦ๒ѻɼɦѻѻɗ กﻉՇฝѻɼᛕ I find it only confusing and unintelligible. I did consider making cookies for my neighbors with a notice saying _I don’t know how to ዐዪኗልክጎጊቿ ል ክቿጎኗዘጌዐዪዘዐዐዕ ክቿፕሠዐዪጕ but maybe someone else does…here’s some cookies? Mind you, my neighborhood is a tad lower class and has an air of desperation so they may not trust my cookies.
It’s a thought. My kitchen appliances are lent out right now, and I don’t actually know how to bake.
But I seem to understand enough leftist theory to bridge those who, like me, have been brainwashed to see communism and socialism as derisives and terms of contempt.
I’m also going through a psychotic break because a lot of stressors piled up at the same time seventy-seven million voters decided to give the Genie’s lamp to Jaffar.
“bread and circuses” has been an effective strategy for thousands of years.
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.
ahem lemmy
Maybe we won’t be guillotining them anytime soon, but we can at least slow their roll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVgNJf6CsBA
This is a very enlighting article
Posted from my iPhone
