Yup. Mamdani is teaching the modern left how to spread the message. There is a lot of disdain from the left on social media. A lot of us are smart enough to recognise that socmed is vapid and shallow. But we’re not too bright to recognise that that is where people are at these days, no matter how dumb socmed is. That’s why the often criticism of the left is the poor messaging. Now I understand what that criticism mean.
Social media is the new plaza, like how radio, cinema and TV were during FDR’s time. As a matter of fact, the Nazis also recognised the potential power of radio. One of their early policies is to buy everyone a radio; so that the Nazis could control information. This is not different from today in which oligarchs and the far right also recognised the potential of socmed as a tool for control.
Ignoring social media has been the biggest mistake of the left across the world. In my home country, an objectively better and progressive candidate was outvoted by the son of an ex-dictator by a landslide, because the said candidate is an old school progressive who still does the old-fashioned way of convincing voters, by going door to door and relying on legacy media, instead of presenting a brand of herself in social media like Mamdani does. That’s when I realised “yup, social media is now where the frontline is, whether we like it or not.”
The problem of fighting for democracy using social media, is that the ones controlling the algorithm are precisely the ones that don’t want the “left” to succeed. It is essentially fighting a battle in the enemy’s field, where they control the land itself. At small scales, it might work. But it will never work when it comes to true important positions. I’d go as far as to say that the mirage that it works in cases like Mandani is part of their plan, to keep the left locked in their platforms “because that’s what works”. Here in my country, Brazil, I could clearly see the impacts of the algorithm changes they put in place after 2011, after the pro-democracy movements that started on Facebook. Their networks started to curb engagement from the left, and massively boost fake news, right-wing content, ultra nationalism, and such. It’s naive to think that social media can be used to win the populace back to the left. They’ll never let it happen.
Yup. Mamdani is teaching the modern left how to spread the message. There is a lot of disdain from the left on social media. A lot of us are smart enough to recognise that socmed is vapid and shallow. But we’re not too bright to recognise that that is where people are at these days, no matter how dumb socmed is. That’s why the often criticism of the left is the poor messaging. Now I understand what that criticism mean.
Social media is the new plaza, like how radio, cinema and TV were during FDR’s time. As a matter of fact, the Nazis also recognised the potential power of radio. One of their early policies is to buy everyone a radio; so that the Nazis could control information. This is not different from today in which oligarchs and the far right also recognised the potential of socmed as a tool for control.
its the oldguard dnc that doesnt know how to reach thier voters, they stuck to the traditional MSM where everything is curated and controlled.
Ignoring social media has been the biggest mistake of the left across the world. In my home country, an objectively better and progressive candidate was outvoted by the son of an ex-dictator by a landslide, because the said candidate is an old school progressive who still does the old-fashioned way of convincing voters, by going door to door and relying on legacy media, instead of presenting a brand of herself in social media like Mamdani does. That’s when I realised “yup, social media is now where the frontline is, whether we like it or not.”
The problem of fighting for democracy using social media, is that the ones controlling the algorithm are precisely the ones that don’t want the “left” to succeed. It is essentially fighting a battle in the enemy’s field, where they control the land itself. At small scales, it might work. But it will never work when it comes to true important positions. I’d go as far as to say that the mirage that it works in cases like Mandani is part of their plan, to keep the left locked in their platforms “because that’s what works”. Here in my country, Brazil, I could clearly see the impacts of the algorithm changes they put in place after 2011, after the pro-democracy movements that started on Facebook. Their networks started to curb engagement from the left, and massively boost fake news, right-wing content, ultra nationalism, and such. It’s naive to think that social media can be used to win the populace back to the left. They’ll never let it happen.