I refuse to let a rogue billionaire destroy the platform on which I found friends, made professional contacts and informed myself every day.
You refuse to let a billionaire do what he wants to do with his own property? Who do you think you are?
I am also unsure whether the diagnosis of a particularly terrible hate machine is so accurate.
Donald Trump is a convicted criminal and a senile old man, but he has one important qualification: he traffics in hatred. Russian election interference amplifies that, thanks to X-twitter’s policies. Wild claims like “immigrants eating people’s pets” are amplified. Result: Donald Trump has just become the leader of the world’s greatest military power. He has already threatened Greenland and Panama. He has presented Canada two choices: carry out his policies or become the 51st state, else face 25% tariffs. He has already announced mass deportations.
Is there some other “hate machine” you had in mind? Some bigger hate machine?
The spread of hate speech is not really an exclusive Twitter phenomenon! I decided to stay on Twitter. Because things aren’t really any more objective elsewhere.
This is like refusing to leave a burning house because the neighboring houses are burning too.
In reality, there are platforms that are not on fire, namely, Mastodon, PixelFed, Loops, Friendica, and many other members of the Fediverse. You might argue that you dislike than because there are fewer people on these platforms, but this is circular logic. The topic of this discussion is why people don’t move to them.
Ultimately, the way the entire privately operated internet works is more or less designed to be exploited by right-wing demagogues. The algorithms reward what causes outrage, what is short, catchy and undifferentiated.
Yes. This is how X-twitter and its billionaire-owned competitors fell into an accidental alliance with fascism. The fact that it is accidental does not hinder it from working.
The issue here is that when billionaires control the channels of public discourse, they manipulate those channels in their own interests. As noted above, those interests align with fascism. However, there is one thing billionaires cannot buy: legitimacy. People like you provide that by staying.
I can at least provide a small counterweight. I annoy liberal-conservative journalists and politicians
How is it coming? Since Musk took over X-twitter, the far-right has only gotten stronger. Whatever you think you’re doing is not working.
Secondly, there is an implicit claim that we can resolve the pernicious effects of hate-speech by being annoying. In a world consumed by hatred, we can be heroes by being annoying – that’s the assumption. Some people can imagine a better world than that, and if you moved to the Fediverse, you would come into contact with them.
It’s easy to leave places like this to the screamers and populists. But taking the easy way out can’t be the solution.
Did you not just write: “I have made connections there that cannot be easily replicated”? How is this not the easy out?
4chan has the reputation of hosting every vulgar and offensive thing that the rest of the internet eschews. Here is where the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory was born. Are you on 4chan, or did you take the easy way out?
The pernicious effects of 4chan have largely been quarantined by lack of legitimacy. The civil part of the internet ignores it. 4chan is still dangerous, but not as dangerous as it could be. This is the solution that is being proposed by the eXit movement.
Summary
We are facing an inflection point in history. Greedflation and the high cost of housing are all artificial crises. Our obedience has only emboldened billionaires. For example, Google recently announced that it would not obey a new EU law requiring fact-checking. Just like that. It is telling the government which laws it deigns to observe. This is no idle threat: If the EU resists, then google and its billionaire allies shall use their social media platforms to stir up hatred of the EU. EU politicians, fearing the weakening of the EU, might well back down. There would be a class above the law.
What is an oligarchic fascist society? First, there is an inner party of powerful elites who make decisions behind closed doors. There is an outer party of citizens whose obedience is rewarded with a precarious economic existence. Finally, there is a proletariat whose situation is unworkable, but who are repressed by the police. If you can’t decide whether this is a description of the US today or a description of George Orwell’s ‘1984’, then the point has been made.
There is always some crisis, and it is always the fault of external or internal enemies. You can see that this is our current path. Donald Trump has already spoken much about the ‘enemy within’. These are his political enemies. Other threats are high-ranking bureaucrats who are more loyal to the law than to Donald Trump, the so-called “deep state.” These bureaucrats are in the process of being purged. The architects of greedflation are not mentioned as threats, rather transgender people have been identified as requiring government reaction.
All this is explained and justified on social media. X-twitter, in fact, faces the risk of becoming “The Ministry of Truth” were it not for the occasional counter-post. In Orwell’s ‘1984’, the state is dependent on having enemies. It must make its citizens believe that there is a resistance movement. We do not know whether Emmanuel Goldstein, the resistance’s leader, is even real. We just know that he is necessary.
When your grandchildren ask, “What were you doing in 2025?” how will you answer?
Anthony has a long history of volunteering with organizations such as Amnesty International and Union for Concerned Scientists. These experiences led to the founding of the Schwarz10 project house, which provided infrastructure for activist projects, such as Rockzipfel and Extinction Rebellion. It has also provided occasional meeting space for numerous external projects. The various informational pamphlets written during this time form the basis of the Activersity curriculum.
