The Double (and On-Going) Failure of Facebook and Twitter
Let’s get to the point. By failing to manage its 4chan forums, and incubating anti-democratic ‘free speech’ and fake news, fake accounts and fascists and/or delusional narratives in favour of insurrection, Facebook (and Twitter) fermented a figurative and then literal riot over democracy. Yet, by stewing up such a concoction through its algorithms set to its highest level of financial greed mode, any reaction or turning back doubles the anger, justifies any irrational feeling of the government seeking out the fantasylanders, (try Kurt Andersen’s amazing book on this) and cements the anger of right-wing libertarians who hold the wondrous idea that US came into being by some national, immaculate conception rather than collective government work by the masses. This setback move won’t last long.
Now this confused, but anger mass, albeit more vocal than large but clearly dangerous, funded and frenzied by Fox News and social media are now find a new home in the likes of Parler, an American app, now hosted in Russia, Telegram, another Russia app or Signal, an app with very tough encryption. While this may take politics out of the centre into the morass of anti-intellectualism and conspiracy, (but in the eyes of some, into liberty and action), it in fact further isolates and concentrates a dangerous fringe, back to the time of pre-social media and forums. The fringe is the right place for them, leaving them easier to monitor and less impactfulness on collective society. Can we breathe a sigh of relief?
Awareness is key. America has always been highly susceptible to cults, conspiracies theorists and wackos. Indeed most Americana enjoys and celebrates the kooky. The backstory of many of its religious movements from the Seven Day Adventists and Mormons to their modern TV evangelist iterations could only be described as outlandishly cultish, started in basements or caves and playing a narrative of escaping some authority until they’ve refined themselves into the very paragons of authoritarianism, controlled and paranoid. America loves the quirky and exotic. Witness the Tiger Kings or QAnon. Some will bubble and seethe out of sight becoming the disturbing tragedies Waco and Jonestown, others fade back to the cave and a few dangerously mainline into politics, determined to be given legitimate space and respected.
No one wants a depoliticised centre. By removing this off-centre politics and their charlatan leaders from Twitter and Facebook, we send them to apps like Signal and away from the critical evaluation. Group psychology tells us you can debate with those seeking confirmation bias. The echo chambers pander to this. There is of course a balance to be struck between banning those fringes who seek to insurrection and creating a Brave New World society where hedonism and political disregard under some assumed benevolent dictatorship replaces participation and debate. History tells us that this rarely works out well, leading to the marginalisation and then internalisation of thought and action overlaid by an increasingly pernicious and invasive state.
A deeper and wider discussion is required to explain why the same revolutionaries convincingly cite the narratives of autocratic state takeover or screaming of, and then for, radical transformation to become more mainstream, oblivious to the clear and obvious truth that they themselves are autocrats by refusing to accept numbers as counted resulting in the descent rather than ascent of clarity.
Much is to be done, but much can start with the obvious. The respected truth. Once we promulgate this, it soon becomes an accepted truth. After that, even a party of QAnon can have a reliable narrative and future.
