I've been thinking of potential measures that corporate-controlled authoritarian governments could use against any kind of left-wing information or organizing, and it seems like an obvious one is a sudden, widespread crackdown on left-wing content. In practice, social media companies would collude with the government to:
- Wipe out all left-wing social media profiles and ban left-wing rhetoric under the justification that it is "terrorism-related content".
- Block access to thousands of left-wing sites at once and de-list them from search engines
- Update content moderation algorithms to prevent more of this content from being published or recommended
- Do all of these on the same day to cause the most disorientation and fear
- Continually go after the hosts of the niche left-wing news and communication channels that still remain, such as small websites, fediverse instances, and encrypted communication channels. Throw their operators in prison and make examples out of them
In effect, due to the centralized nature of social media and news, the online left could instantly be scattered through the collusion of just a few large corporations.
It would:
- Galvanize the populist right-wing base
- Stoke feelings of fear, isolation, and hopelessness among the opposition, deterring action
- Weaken the left's ability to organize
- Make it harder for people to learn about real left-wing ideas and stances
Why wouldn't they take that opportunity?
The bulk of online left-wing activity could instantly be wiped out in a single day. Why am I not hearing more people talking about that? Why do so many left-leaning people think sites like BlueSky will save them? Do they really think they are resisting by using centralized social media platforms? The corporatocracy has complete control over all of the infrastructure...
In my opinion, every influencer on the left should be screaming from the rooftops every single day that the most productive thing you can be doing is talking to people, building connections, and organizing in the real world, because our platform on the Internet could vanish instantaneously.
Anyway, I hope I'm wrong, but it feels like something that could easily happen. What are your thoughts?
If only life were so simple. There's a warehouse full of reasons.
Why should they care as long as it's just talk? Sites on the open internet that truly pose a threat in regards to organizing coordinated action to effect the powers that be do get attacked and taken down, regardless of political affiliation. It's not about politics, it's about protecting the money and power.
Threats are easier to track, and organized movements are easier to infiltrate/disrupt, the more visible they are. Why would they choose to push anything they're concerned about deeper into places that are harder to track like private IRC, Signal, dark web, etc?
General plan of attack as documented in leaked intelligence agency docs, is to infiltrate potential threats, manipulate to discourage direct action and to divide the group with an ever increasing list of concerns until they're spread too thin for action, then cause loss of momentum and or trust in leadership, then finally destroy if there's any reason to (usually the movements disperse and die on their own at this point). Look into Occupy Wallstreet and how it was derailed by introducing intersectionality into what was originally a clearly targeted movement based purely on class division.
Controlled opposition is useful as hell. They can use their own resources to more easily influence groups when the groups are out in the open.
Obvious direct censorship action tends to spur people to action, vs careful manipulation to ensure the pot doesn't boil over.
You can make money off of all sides and discussions when you own the discussion sites, get to harvest all the data, and get to sell all the ads.
Things are not nearly as centralized as you imply, and even getting all the big names and powers in line and coordinated to do anything in one fell swoop is nearly impossible. Systemic issues are difficult because it's not one source of rules and truth passing commands down, it's tons and tons of people effected by rules and expectations from all over the place, which collectively congeal together to cause the shit end results.
#3 I wonder if this strategy could be somewhat attacked by staging online groups that seem like they should be infiltrated. Try to waste their time and make them doubt.