Many of my journalist colleagues have attempted to beat back the tide under banners like “fighting disinformation” and “accountability.” While these efforts are admirable, the past few years have changed my own internal calculus. Thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt warned us that the point of this deluge is not to persuade, but to overwhelm and paralyze our capacity to act. More recently, researchers have found that the viral outrage disseminated on social media in response to these ridiculous claims actually reduces the effectiveness of collective action. The result is a media environment that keeps us in a state of debilitating fear and anger, endlessly reacting to our oppressors instead of organizing against them.
I'm a bit ambivalent here. On one hand, yes. I can see the idea that being outraged and fighting on the internet gives some people the illusive feeling of productivity. Even if the action was gone...
More recently, researchers have found that the viral outrage disseminated on social media in response to these ridiculous claims actually reduces the effectiveness of collective action.
I'm a bit ambivalent here. On one hand, yes. I can see the idea that being outraged and fighting on the internet gives some people the illusive feeling of productivity. Even if the action was gone unnnoticed by the people of power. But on the other hand, I wonder how many people would take collective action if social media wasn't a factor. We're socially isolated for many, many reasons that could be its own article, so our will to collectively organize is already lessoned as a result from that.
I do wish we could use our modern tools to focus more on taking collective actions instead of infighting. But I don't think any age of the internet ever fully took advantadge of that. We can connect to anyone, anywhere, but many actions need support from a national, state, or city level to pull off. Those are much harder kinds of things to organize without a dedicated group all choosing a place (platform fracturing is another issue worthy of its article).
I think the idea that engaging with fascists on Twitter is unproductive is 100% correct, but there is still something to the idea of being the kind of person you want to see more of. Sure, each of...
It’s not that social media is fundamentally evil or bereft of any good qualities. Some of my best post-Twitter moments have been spent goofing around with mutuals on Bluesky, or waxing romantic about the joys of human creativity and art-making in an increasingly AI-infested world. But when it comes to addressing the problems we face, no amount of posting or passive info consumption is going to substitute the hard, unsexy work of organizing.
It’s a lesson the Extremely Online Left still hasn’t fully learned, failing where its political enemies succeed.
I think the idea that engaging with fascists on Twitter is unproductive is 100% correct, but there is still something to the idea of being the kind of person you want to see more of. Sure, each of us is only one random on the internet, but our collective actions create the norms and culture.
My biggest point of conflict is that, while feeding the trolls has always been a terrible idea, refusing to engage with any wrong opinions creates social bubbles. I guess the question is basically, how do you know who's engaging in good faith and who's simply trying to stir outrage? It's not an exclusively left right thing either in my experience. Creating a trust network is basically Tildes, but it's less accessible to the average person (at least for now).
I would argue that social media, in general, is antithetical to creating a trust network - at least, "large scale" social media, of which I would consider Tildes a member. Anytime that one's...
Creating a trust network is basically Tildes, but it's less accessible to the average person (at least for now).
I would argue that social media, in general, is antithetical to creating a trust network - at least, "large scale" social media, of which I would consider Tildes a member.
Anytime that one's interactions are gamified - upvotes, likes, reskeets, "Exemplary" labels, etc - it turns from interaction for interactions' sake to an attempt to get that rush of endorphins from having other people like your views. Alternatively, there's the trolls who try to do the opposite and get downvoted/etc to oblivion, for the same rush.
You can still be "the kind of person you want to see more of" by simply not engaging with bad faith actors. It is not your job, nor your responsibility, to correct other peoples' views; if the person with whom you're chatting shows signs that they are open to having their mind changed, then perhaps you have an opportunity to do so. But it's not your job to force that mindset on people, much less seek out opportunities to change minds.
Now, how to determine who is arguing in "bad faith"? That's a great question, and I think a variation of Poe's Law is applicable. If you can't easily tell if someone is arguing in good faith, it's probably best to assume they aren't. What's more, it's worth considering whether getting into an argument with them is productive in the first place; I would wager the vast, vast majority of arguments online are simply not productive at all, and are just people getting their opinions off their chest in the hopes that others agree with them.
EDIT TO ADD:
In terms of creating trust networks, I think that happens in-person. Online, you simply do not know anyone with whom you are interacting, unless you know them personally - that usually comes from face-to-face interactions, but can also happen via phone calls or some other form of direct communication. If you're trying to create a trust network by simply finding random people on social media ... well, where's the trust?
I feel like it's a mix. Sure, people misuse labels on Tildes, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't get endorphins from upvotes, but, in theory, the systems should be designed to encourage positive...
Anytime that one's interactions are gamified - upvotes, likes, reskeets, "Exemplary" labels, etc - it turns from interaction for interactions' sake to an attempt to get that rush of endorphins from having other people like your views.
I feel like it's a mix. Sure, people misuse labels on Tildes, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't get endorphins from upvotes, but, in theory, the systems should be designed to encourage positive interactions and good content. For example, Tildes doesn't have a total karma or like count across all your posts and comments to discourage karma farming.
I would wager the vast, vast majority of arguments online are simply not productive at all, and are just people getting their opinions off their chest in the hopes that others agree with them.
Yeah this is all true, but sometimes reply chains stretch on until I come around one way or another. u/definitelynotafae and I have plenty of discussions which really do help my opinions change and evolve. There are plenty of people on Tildes I disagree with, yet I can engage with them here and learn something valuable from our interactions.
In terms of creating trust networks, I think that happens in-person. Online, you simply do not know anyone with whom you are interacting, unless you know them personally - that usually comes from face-to-face interactions, but can also happen via phone calls or some other form of direct communication. If you're trying to create a trust network by simply finding random people on social media ... well, where's the trust?
I guess we're discussing the difference between making broad gestures and pronouncements on the internet versus directly talking to the people behind the screen. It's much harder to trust a username on a forum, but people still build up virtual reputations and trust with each other. While it might be slightly easier in-person, I've found any kind of shared interests or values or simply being open minded can create opportunities for good dialogue. You can see this in fandoms where passionate fans sometimes persuade others through something like an effortpost on a character's true motivations.
Right, but the topic we (you and I) addressed here is trust. I've had plenty of good/great conversations online with complete strangers - but I would never say I "trust" them, not without actually...
Yeah this is all true, but sometimes reply chains stretch on until I come around one way or another. u/definitelynotafae and I have plenty of discussions which really do help my opinions change and evolve. There are plenty of people on Tildes I disagree with, yet I can engage with them here and learn something valuable from our interactions.
Right, but the topic we (you and I) addressed here is trust. I've had plenty of good/great conversations online with complete strangers - but I would never say I "trust" them, not without actually knowing the person. And knowing the person involves more than message board posts, imo.
I guess we're discussing the difference between making broad gestures and pronouncements on the internet versus directly talking to the people behind the screen. It's much harder to trust a username on a forum, but people still build up virtual reputations and trust with each other. While it might be slightly easier in-person, I've found any kind of shared interests or values or simply being open minded can create opportunities for good dialogue. You can see this in fandoms where passionate fans sometimes persuade others through something like an effortpost on a character's true motivations.
When we're discussing "trust" here, I'm looking at it in terms of the topic of the article at hand (fascism and activism). Through that lens, I have almost zero trust with an absolute stranger on the internet. It's one thing if it's a place like Bluesky, where you have a reasonable expectation that if someone claims to be a certain celebrity, activist, etc ... that they are who they say they are. But without verification you cannot really know for sure. This becomes doubly difficult if it's just a name on a screen of anyone that isn't a part of public consciousness; in particular, we're seeing social media sites (Facebook, Linkedin, and others) creating virtual/AI users that pretend to be people.
People can, and deservedly do, develop online reputations in one form or another. But I wouldn't personally jump to considering passionate fans in fandoms as comparable to antifascist activism. An effortpost on a fandom page doesn't require the same level of trust as, say, someone organizing a march on a state capitol.
I dunno, I'm kind of getting out in the weeds because I think we're looking at "trust" in different ways here.
Tildes is useful for some things, but I don't see it as much of a trust network because most of us don't post under our real names, we mostly don't know each other in real life, and we often live...
Tildes is useful for some things, but I don't see it as much of a trust network because most of us don't post under our real names, we mostly don't know each other in real life, and we often live in different countries. It's too loose a group to do all that much.
But if we're lucky, we can share some links and have some good conversations, and that's not nothing.
I don't have the links handy, but studies on anonymous social networks with persistent handles have shown they're less toxic than using real names. Facebook is plenty awful despite most users...
I don't have the links handy, but studies on anonymous social networks with persistent handles have shown they're less toxic than using real names. Facebook is plenty awful despite most users being, ostensibly, real people using their real names. I don't think you have to know a user personally to trust them in some way or another. Perhaps I'm overly trusting?
Yes, I agree that real names alone don't fix anything with social networks. But it's different when you know people in real life, and also communicate online. There are a lot of things I don't...
Yes, I agree that real names alone don't fix anything with social networks. But it's different when you know people in real life, and also communicate online. There are a lot of things I don't like about Facebook, but I do appreciate posts from my actual friends. (Unfortunately there's a lot of garbage mixed in.)
A problem with posting anonymously in public (like on Tildes) is that if you're serious about privacy, you have to self-censor - you avoid revealing personal things about yourself and other people in your life that would identify you. Not revealing personal information often means you don't really know them well. I talk about the rest of the world, but don't reveal much about myself or my family.
(And of course you could switch to private messaging, but I tend not to do that.)
As a former World of Warcraft player and someone who made friends on forums before we could ever connect via Facebook, I don't agree that trust is tied to knowing everything about someone, their...
As a former World of Warcraft player and someone who made friends on forums before we could ever connect via Facebook, I don't agree that trust is tied to knowing everything about someone, their real name, etc. I answer to several nicknames, my WoW Main's name, my LARP character's names, and, often here "Fae" despite explicitly not being one.
Not everyone forms connections in those spaces, but I've made several people here I'd consider friends, and would be willing to meet in person, offer support to, and would be sad to see leave here. I've made life long friends via WoW, plenty of them before I knew their real names, and some whose real names I never learned. I had a friend die of cancer who I knew only from game.
If the cost of this is a bad actor can eventually track me down. I'll take the chance.
I think you can make friends from doing activities together and online gaming definitely counts, but here are some questions to consider about whether they're real friends or just someone you hang...
I think you can make friends from doing activities together and online gaming definitely counts, but here are some questions to consider about whether they're real friends or just someone you hang out with for one activity: do you do anything together outside that activity? Do you keep in touch after that activity ends?
For example, consider work colleagues that you only see at work, versus friends you met through work, but you also do stuff together outside work. What happens after you switch jobs? For some work relationships, that's the end - neither side keeps in touch after someone moves on. But I also have old friends that I originally met through work at a job thirty years ago. Neither of us work there anymore and the company is long gone. If they cancel their Facebook account, we will keep in touch some other way.
If you've met someone recently and you only do one activity together, it might be ambiguous whether they're a real friend or not until after someone's status changes.
For online acquaintances, a question to ask is whether you've made sure you have another way to get in touch with them if they deleted their account for that activity.
I don't understand this response, I definitely distinguish between acquaintances and colleagues and people I happen to do an activity with from friends. But I definitely do have people I consider...
I don't understand this response, I definitely distinguish between acquaintances and colleagues and people I happen to do an activity with from friends. But I definitely do have people I consider friends. If you're just giving general suggestions I guess but I was sharing that it's definitely possible for some folks to make friends in anonymous or semi-anonymous online spaces. I think some people don't make connections online or prefer these types of connections but I'm someone who does.
It’s not a direct response; I agree with all that. Not saying that making friends online isn’t possible - many people do it. But there also seems to be a lot of social media interaction between...
It’s not a direct response; I agree with all that. Not saying that making friends online isn’t possible - many people do it.
But there also seems to be a lot of social media interaction between strangers or between people who know each other but aren’t friends, though. Perhaps most interactions? And more generally, social media doesn’t seem to reversing trends towards people having fewer friends? So I’m speculating about how that works.
I have at least half-a-dozen good, personal friends I could talk to about anything, but we don't have any regular activities together. I noticed awhile ago that I was lonely despite having a lot...
here are some questions to consider about whether they're real friends or just someone you hang out with for one activity: do you do anything together outside that activity? Do you keep in touch after that activity ends?
I have at least half-a-dozen good, personal friends I could talk to about anything, but we don't have any regular activities together. I noticed awhile ago that I was lonely despite having a lot of great, close friends and getting along fine with my coworkers. I started some new weekly activities with some more casual friends which helped fix the sense of loneliness. I think both groups are real friends. The types of relationships are different, and we can benefit from both.
I think that's the issue here. We're conflating "wrong" and "different" opinions. as an example: "I like pineapple pizza" is a different opinion. , but it's "low stakes" and you can make a...
while feeding the trolls has always been a terrible idea, refusing to engage with any wrong opinions creates social bubbles.
I think that's the issue here. We're conflating "wrong" and "different" opinions. as an example: "I like pineapple pizza" is a different opinion. One worthy of mockery, but it's "low stakes" and you can make a productive discussion out of it if you wish. Even if no minds are changed, it's not like your pizza livlihood is at stake
"Women shouldn't be in the workforce" is an outrght wrong and dangerous opinion. It is not one worthy of debating in this culture. That mentality spreads hate and intolerance and giving it any legitmacy only emboldens hate from some people who at best know not to utter such words.
So I say engage with different opinions, filter out "wrong" opinions. It can be a challenge to differentiate the two, but the general mindset is "would this sort of thought process hurt others?".
Yet a lot of beliefs with broad social support started out as "wrong" opinions. Besides social stuff, most ancient Christians believed all humans would eventually be saved by the Christian god, no...
Yet a lot of beliefs with broad social support started out as "wrong" opinions. Besides social stuff, most ancient Christians believed all humans would eventually be saved by the Christian god, no matter what. Nowadays, that view is considered wrong and harmful by most Christian theological traditions. They see universalism as discouraging reconciling with god and avoiding sinful behavior. Universalism can be thought of as the opposite of hellfire and brimstone preachers that want to scare everyone into doing right to make sure humans go to heaven.
I follow your general mindset and use similar mental heuristics, but it seems unclear to me whether refusing to engage with wrong opinions actually marginalizes them and swings public opinion. I think some people with wrong opinions are engaging in good faith and may be open minded enough to consider alternatives. Maybe it's better to assume everyone on the internet with a wrong opinion is not worth debating because it's the internet, but the internet is an increasingly significant part of real life.
While the author is correct that you cant post your way out of fascism, I do find that social media is critical for doing the main thing he suggests - organizing. I can think of several examples....
While the author is correct that you cant post your way out of fascism, I do find that social media is critical for doing the main thing he suggests - organizing.
I can think of several examples. The Freedom Convoy in Canada was largely organized online and it included people from across Canada. The result was a strong protest in Ottawa and our outgoing Prime Minister and Liberal Party are still feeling the after effects of that anger two years later. Its going to be part of their presumed demise in the next election.
Currently, the boycott of Loblaw's our largest grocery retailer has been going on for months, for its massive profit margins amid tough economic times, would've been hard without social media.
And the very new pro Canada 'Buy Canadian' movement has ramped up just in the last few days, largely through online organization and comments on social media. Just saw someone had created an app that allows us to scan a barcode and see if its a product of Canada.
So I agree that JUST posting anger online isnt helpful, but its seeing how many other people who are also motivated to action against authoritarians also brings momentum and that momentum ends up with real world consequences.
Maybe the way to think about it is that it's mostly not used for organizing, but it's potentially useful if people want to organize for a specific purpose?
Maybe the way to think about it is that it's mostly not used for organizing, but it's potentially useful if people want to organize for a specific purpose?
Whelp, here I am, posting this link...
I'm a bit ambivalent here. On one hand, yes. I can see the idea that being outraged and fighting on the internet gives some people the illusive feeling of productivity. Even if the action was gone unnnoticed by the people of power. But on the other hand, I wonder how many people would take collective action if social media wasn't a factor. We're socially isolated for many, many reasons that could be its own article, so our will to collectively organize is already lessoned as a result from that.
I do wish we could use our modern tools to focus more on taking collective actions instead of infighting. But I don't think any age of the internet ever fully took advantadge of that. We can connect to anyone, anywhere, but many actions need support from a national, state, or city level to pull off. Those are much harder kinds of things to organize without a dedicated group all choosing a place (platform fracturing is another issue worthy of its article).
I think the idea that engaging with fascists on Twitter is unproductive is 100% correct, but there is still something to the idea of being the kind of person you want to see more of. Sure, each of us is only one random on the internet, but our collective actions create the norms and culture.
My biggest point of conflict is that, while feeding the trolls has always been a terrible idea, refusing to engage with any wrong opinions creates social bubbles. I guess the question is basically, how do you know who's engaging in good faith and who's simply trying to stir outrage? It's not an exclusively left right thing either in my experience. Creating a trust network is basically Tildes, but it's less accessible to the average person (at least for now).
I would argue that social media, in general, is antithetical to creating a trust network - at least, "large scale" social media, of which I would consider Tildes a member.
Anytime that one's interactions are gamified - upvotes, likes, reskeets, "Exemplary" labels, etc - it turns from interaction for interactions' sake to an attempt to get that rush of endorphins from having other people like your views. Alternatively, there's the trolls who try to do the opposite and get downvoted/etc to oblivion, for the same rush.
You can still be "the kind of person you want to see more of" by simply not engaging with bad faith actors. It is not your job, nor your responsibility, to correct other peoples' views; if the person with whom you're chatting shows signs that they are open to having their mind changed, then perhaps you have an opportunity to do so. But it's not your job to force that mindset on people, much less seek out opportunities to change minds.
Now, how to determine who is arguing in "bad faith"? That's a great question, and I think a variation of Poe's Law is applicable. If you can't easily tell if someone is arguing in good faith, it's probably best to assume they aren't. What's more, it's worth considering whether getting into an argument with them is productive in the first place; I would wager the vast, vast majority of arguments online are simply not productive at all, and are just people getting their opinions off their chest in the hopes that others agree with them.
EDIT TO ADD:
In terms of creating trust networks, I think that happens in-person. Online, you simply do not know anyone with whom you are interacting, unless you know them personally - that usually comes from face-to-face interactions, but can also happen via phone calls or some other form of direct communication. If you're trying to create a trust network by simply finding random people on social media ... well, where's the trust?
Just my opinion, two cents, grains of salt, etc.
I feel like it's a mix. Sure, people misuse labels on Tildes, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't get endorphins from upvotes, but, in theory, the systems should be designed to encourage positive interactions and good content. For example, Tildes doesn't have a total karma or like count across all your posts and comments to discourage karma farming.
Yeah this is all true, but sometimes reply chains stretch on until I come around one way or another. u/definitelynotafae and I have plenty of discussions which really do help my opinions change and evolve. There are plenty of people on Tildes I disagree with, yet I can engage with them here and learn something valuable from our interactions.
I guess we're discussing the difference between making broad gestures and pronouncements on the internet versus directly talking to the people behind the screen. It's much harder to trust a username on a forum, but people still build up virtual reputations and trust with each other. While it might be slightly easier in-person, I've found any kind of shared interests or values or simply being open minded can create opportunities for good dialogue. You can see this in fandoms where passionate fans sometimes persuade others through something like an effortpost on a character's true motivations.
Right, but the topic we (you and I) addressed here is trust. I've had plenty of good/great conversations online with complete strangers - but I would never say I "trust" them, not without actually knowing the person. And knowing the person involves more than message board posts, imo.
When we're discussing "trust" here, I'm looking at it in terms of the topic of the article at hand (fascism and activism). Through that lens, I have almost zero trust with an absolute stranger on the internet. It's one thing if it's a place like Bluesky, where you have a reasonable expectation that if someone claims to be a certain celebrity, activist, etc ... that they are who they say they are. But without verification you cannot really know for sure. This becomes doubly difficult if it's just a name on a screen of anyone that isn't a part of public consciousness; in particular, we're seeing social media sites (Facebook, Linkedin, and others) creating virtual/AI users that pretend to be people.
People can, and deservedly do, develop online reputations in one form or another. But I wouldn't personally jump to considering passionate fans in fandoms as comparable to antifascist activism. An effortpost on a fandom page doesn't require the same level of trust as, say, someone organizing a march on a state capitol.
I dunno, I'm kind of getting out in the weeds because I think we're looking at "trust" in different ways here.
Tildes is useful for some things, but I don't see it as much of a trust network because most of us don't post under our real names, we mostly don't know each other in real life, and we often live in different countries. It's too loose a group to do all that much.
But if we're lucky, we can share some links and have some good conversations, and that's not nothing.
I don't have the links handy, but studies on anonymous social networks with persistent handles have shown they're less toxic than using real names. Facebook is plenty awful despite most users being, ostensibly, real people using their real names. I don't think you have to know a user personally to trust them in some way or another. Perhaps I'm overly trusting?
Yes, I agree that real names alone don't fix anything with social networks. But it's different when you know people in real life, and also communicate online. There are a lot of things I don't like about Facebook, but I do appreciate posts from my actual friends. (Unfortunately there's a lot of garbage mixed in.)
A problem with posting anonymously in public (like on Tildes) is that if you're serious about privacy, you have to self-censor - you avoid revealing personal things about yourself and other people in your life that would identify you. Not revealing personal information often means you don't really know them well. I talk about the rest of the world, but don't reveal much about myself or my family.
(And of course you could switch to private messaging, but I tend not to do that.)
As a former World of Warcraft player and someone who made friends on forums before we could ever connect via Facebook, I don't agree that trust is tied to knowing everything about someone, their real name, etc. I answer to several nicknames, my WoW Main's name, my LARP character's names, and, often here "Fae" despite explicitly not being one.
Not everyone forms connections in those spaces, but I've made several people here I'd consider friends, and would be willing to meet in person, offer support to, and would be sad to see leave here. I've made life long friends via WoW, plenty of them before I knew their real names, and some whose real names I never learned. I had a friend die of cancer who I knew only from game.
If the cost of this is a bad actor can eventually track me down. I'll take the chance.
I think you can make friends from doing activities together and online gaming definitely counts, but here are some questions to consider about whether they're real friends or just someone you hang out with for one activity: do you do anything together outside that activity? Do you keep in touch after that activity ends?
For example, consider work colleagues that you only see at work, versus friends you met through work, but you also do stuff together outside work. What happens after you switch jobs? For some work relationships, that's the end - neither side keeps in touch after someone moves on. But I also have old friends that I originally met through work at a job thirty years ago. Neither of us work there anymore and the company is long gone. If they cancel their Facebook account, we will keep in touch some other way.
If you've met someone recently and you only do one activity together, it might be ambiguous whether they're a real friend or not until after someone's status changes.
For online acquaintances, a question to ask is whether you've made sure you have another way to get in touch with them if they deleted their account for that activity.
I don't understand this response, I definitely distinguish between acquaintances and colleagues and people I happen to do an activity with from friends. But I definitely do have people I consider friends. If you're just giving general suggestions I guess but I was sharing that it's definitely possible for some folks to make friends in anonymous or semi-anonymous online spaces. I think some people don't make connections online or prefer these types of connections but I'm someone who does.
It’s not a direct response; I agree with all that. Not saying that making friends online isn’t possible - many people do it.
But there also seems to be a lot of social media interaction between strangers or between people who know each other but aren’t friends, though. Perhaps most interactions? And more generally, social media doesn’t seem to reversing trends towards people having fewer friends? So I’m speculating about how that works.
Ah ok, it just felt like you were trying to explain friendship and what "I" needed to do to me. Since we're not directly communicating, I'll step out
I have at least half-a-dozen good, personal friends I could talk to about anything, but we don't have any regular activities together. I noticed awhile ago that I was lonely despite having a lot of great, close friends and getting along fine with my coworkers. I started some new weekly activities with some more casual friends which helped fix the sense of loneliness. I think both groups are real friends. The types of relationships are different, and we can benefit from both.
I think that's the issue here. We're conflating "wrong" and "different" opinions. as an example: "I like pineapple pizza" is a different opinion.
One worthy of mockery, but it's "low stakes" and you can make a productive discussion out of it if you wish. Even if no minds are changed, it's not like your pizza livlihood is at stake"Women shouldn't be in the workforce" is an outrght wrong and dangerous opinion. It is not one worthy of debating in this culture. That mentality spreads hate and intolerance and giving it any legitmacy only emboldens hate from some people who at best know not to utter such words.
So I say engage with different opinions, filter out "wrong" opinions. It can be a challenge to differentiate the two, but the general mindset is "would this sort of thought process hurt others?".
Yet a lot of beliefs with broad social support started out as "wrong" opinions. Besides social stuff, most ancient Christians believed all humans would eventually be saved by the Christian god, no matter what. Nowadays, that view is considered wrong and harmful by most Christian theological traditions. They see universalism as discouraging reconciling with god and avoiding sinful behavior. Universalism can be thought of as the opposite of hellfire and brimstone preachers that want to scare everyone into doing right to make sure humans go to heaven.
I follow your general mindset and use similar mental heuristics, but it seems unclear to me whether refusing to engage with wrong opinions actually marginalizes them and swings public opinion. I think some people with wrong opinions are engaging in good faith and may be open minded enough to consider alternatives. Maybe it's better to assume everyone on the internet with a wrong opinion is not worth debating because it's the internet, but the internet is an increasingly significant part of real life.
While the author is correct that you cant post your way out of fascism, I do find that social media is critical for doing the main thing he suggests - organizing.
I can think of several examples. The Freedom Convoy in Canada was largely organized online and it included people from across Canada. The result was a strong protest in Ottawa and our outgoing Prime Minister and Liberal Party are still feeling the after effects of that anger two years later. Its going to be part of their presumed demise in the next election.
Currently, the boycott of Loblaw's our largest grocery retailer has been going on for months, for its massive profit margins amid tough economic times, would've been hard without social media.
And the very new pro Canada 'Buy Canadian' movement has ramped up just in the last few days, largely through online organization and comments on social media. Just saw someone had created an app that allows us to scan a barcode and see if its a product of Canada.
So I agree that JUST posting anger online isnt helpful, but its seeing how many other people who are also motivated to action against authoritarians also brings momentum and that momentum ends up with real world consequences.
Maybe the way to think about it is that it's mostly not used for organizing, but it's potentially useful if people want to organize for a specific purpose?