[mandmandam]

I guess the part where I'm confused is how you think de-platforming politics at mass population scale will increase civil engagement somehow.

Like, isn't "small text blurbs" better than nothing? ... Do you think billionaires bought and crippled Twitter and Reddit for our sake?

We recently got hard evidence that Facebook and Twitter censored true information at the White House's request; to drive people toward a desired political outcome... On Threads, that wouldn't even have been necessary. They just call any debate they don't like 'political', and de-platform it. Silent, and deadly.

Reddit and Twitter have been suicided. That's not actually a boon, as toxic as they were pre-Musk and pre-SpezGate. Now a platform where political engagement is explicitly shadowbanned rises up to offer ever-more vacuous bullshit heavily dosed with pro-corporate propaganda, with the glimpses of substance all expressly filtered out. That's not a boon either, though that's what seems to be the spin.

I do hope your optimism isn't misplaced. Maybe driving the engaged people toward defederated platforms will work out, and we can leave the sports-minded to their own devices - but realistically, those people will be weaponized against change even more easily once the agitators have been sectioned off.

It's like the free speech zones Bush brought in - say whatever the fuck you like, in this little cage two miles from any TV cameras.

[JohnFen]

> Like, isn't "small text blurbs" better than nothing?

I honestly don't think they are. Small text blurbs are not actually informative. You can't engage in nuance, you can't really argue a position, and you can't really have a good debate. They're just good for bloviating, and there are lots of places where you can bloviate anyway.

[antigonemerlin]

Something that's particularly interesting; on Pod Save America, they referenced a study (which I forget right now) that tracked protest effectiveness vs size, and right around the time that twitter/facebook started taking off, protest size skyrocketed while protest effectiveness plummeted.

As it turns out, social media short-circuited traditional methods of organizing. Those traditional methods of organizing, ie, actually knocking on doors and talking with your neighbours, were also the social glue that formed civic groups which did stuff after the protest ended, like voter drives or lobbying politicians, political tactics which actually worked.

[mandmandam]

That was also within a few years of Bush W making moves to cut protest effectiveness, such as the free speech zones. Not to mention, there are plenty of examples of social media creating very effective protests, which then inspired heavy handed tactics in retaliation, with examples of this from all over the world.

Do you think what happened to OWS was just because of tweets lack of effectiveness? I don't believe that, and neither should you.

I did try to find the study you mentioned, as well as the podcast, but came up empty. Got a link handy?