this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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That's not the same though? We can't stop participating in Capitalism right now. But we can easily stop using Twitter as far as I'm aware. You will not die if you stop using a website. I am not saying don't participate in social media of any kind. I am saying if you can't even stop using a website because it clashes with every value you have, then what chance is there that you'll give up something even greater for the sake of the greater good? Your analogy can be used to justify not making any kind of change ever because it inconveniences us.
As someone who does grassroots campaigning, I’m not sure she can. She needs to reach out wherever her audience is.
Yeah really. I can stop using Twitter because nobody gives a shit about me. My thoughts have 0 impact.
Companies and figures can't simply ignore the platform and remain competitive.
Ok I can accept that. I am not speaking about her personally but about many people on the revolutionary left who stay on there and spend 90 percent of the time complaining about what Elon Musk did or said. There's something wrong with this "politics of negativity", where the very apparent opposition you have to something is what ultimately fuels it. It's ironic in a sense. A post complaining about Elon Musk is ultimately creating money for Elon Musk. The apparent discourse and the latent effect are diametrically opposed.
You're correct in a moral sense although I agree entirely with other posters that politicians need to spread their message far and wide regardless of platform. I do not personally use Facebook or Twitter because I find them to be toxic, predatory, and privacy red flags in the case of Facebook. I rarely use Reddit out of principle when they screwed over Boost devs. The issue though is similar to why boycotts really just don't work for the left. Our power is in changing the systems at the government level, not at the endpoint or point of sale because almost definitionally we're not part of the 1% who make or break companies financially. Increasingly even together in unity that's still the case that our financial incentive offering is relatively minimal to the biggest companies if you ignore mass indignation as a stock value factor.
Twitter doesn't comply with hate speech laws on social media companies and is used as a tool by Elon to manipulate markets. These are problems addressed through giving teeth to the agencies and that's always going to be far more meaningful than the 4 cents you contribute in ad revenue before you max out views for the day.
Let's be honest though, with Twitter it's going to fail with or without government teeth around it. Elon has already started prepping the narrative to why his white nationalist pickme project is death spiraling.