This right here is it. Full stop. Conservatives have spent the last 4 years realizing that even being a giant bag of dicks to people isn’t an affirmation of cultural power.
So, really, all they have left is institutional power. Even stacking the courts won’t buy you cultural power and enforcement of your cultural ideals. So, they’ll try to change the entire conversation by forcing the allowance of — and let’s be honest here — the sort of withering activities most people don’t find acceptable.
The thing is it won’t work because being a dick cedes concepts like basic cultural competence and exhausts everyone. For example, I picked up Facebook again after the election, and all of the local news is full of half literate Boomers swarming anyone they deem liberal. I simply left those pages and groups. Not fun. Not worth my time, and I don’t particularly like watching adults behave like stupid children.
I mean, there’s a reason alternatives to big social media don’t last. It’s because most people don’t want to deal with the sort of crazy found on the likes of Parler. FB and Twitter have every incentive to balance out the freak show with active engagement, and forcing them to cater to the freaks will depress engagement and, over time, hurt the platform.
Its also that a gaggle of crazies do not have very much economic power. Just take a look at the majority of the people arrested so far.
Even conservative folks on Parlor have admitted people on parlor do not click through or buy shit.
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No they are calling for internet access to be like a utility. Your ISP. Comcast for example, not Twitter.
Not the actual internet.
Buh Byeeeeeeeeeeee !!
I really think the only thing political social media generates is donations and patreon bucks, honestly.
I mean, yeah, when you can’t even sell your MAGA swag on your MAGA social media platform why would apple ever pay to advertise?
Edit: I’ve gotten so far away from this shit my new phone doesn’t even recognize Patreon anymore. Good.
Last edited by GreenGoldSharpie; 2021-01-14 at 07:18 PM.
I guess that Republicans and Russian troll farms didn't know that it's very easy to start your own website.
and? What does this have to do with them calling for internet access/service to be a utility and NOT the actual content to be regulated like a utility?
No one forces anyone to write books or forces the library to have every single book that has ever been published. Ever get any pornographic books at the library? Maybe those that can be deemed educational but straight up porn, nope.
Buh Byeeeeeeeeeeee !!
Yeah, nobody will argue they're the same in scope or scale.
But the point remains that what was started by a bunch of kids has faced infinitely more pressure and threat from not just a few corporations, but multiple massive industries (movies, music etc.) and governments all desperately trying to take them down. And while it has gone down periodically, it comes back up.
The point remains that he's a proof-case for how if you actually believe in the thing you say you do, you can find a way to make it work. And even beyond that, he pointed out how poor their security and systems were, which further highlights how this was nothing more than yet another right-wing grift claiming noble goals when their only real goal was to make money.