I’m in beautiful downtown Asheville North Carolina. Mrs. Spocko & I had a vegan pizza & a great conversation with fellow Hullabaloo blogger Tom Sullivan & his wife.
We talked about what was happening & I described the various actions by activists I was following. My big focus now is on current harm being done by the right & what can be done. I had lot of pent up talking and some “You know what you should do… ‘ thoughts. I said that I found this clip from Ben Collins very interesting.
Ben starts with how bad information about the assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi got distorted by the right and then a false story got spread from the top rapidly.
His comment starts with “If we don’t cut this out right now, * instantly my inner Sam Seder popped up.
PAUSE IT! Who is we? What does cut this out right now mean?”
When I talk to people about threats and intimidation online, via email, social media or RW media I have suggestions on what to do. Some are accepted, “Make them pay a financial price. Use the market against them. Convince advertisers to stop associatiomg their brand with this threatening violent rhetoric.”
But other suggestions to stop harm are met with lots of “Yes but…” and “If you try to do that, then…” what I want to do is get people to acknowledge the reality that harm is caused and that we need to do something about it.
I suggest people read the first four pages of this piece from The Center For Countering Digital Hate.
One of the things that has to be made clear as said on pages 4-5, self regulation is no regulation. The social media companies know harm is happening & choose to ignore for profit. They need to be regulated. (I can hear the “Yes, but…” from here in Asheville! But read the rest of the article first.)
As we watch Musk’s sophomoric view of ‘free speech’ lead to new harm, people will keep asking “what can be done? ” based on their Disinformation Dozen research & follow up report the answer that will be given is, “Nothing, people are just going to have to keep being harmed.”People in the media can see disinfo, racism, & antisemitism lead to harm and that something needs to be done. BUT THEY feel they can’t change things.
They aren’t activists. We are.
Since for the tech companies the harm they amplify leads to more profit, they aren’t going to change things. . But we CAN.
Change the equation, change the world.