Social media politics

Years ago, and I suppose still today, there was a website called “indymedia”. It began as a hub for information and organizing at the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. So from the get-go the organizing principle is in organizing gatherings and aligning messaging in the fight against ” globalism”, back when you can say that word without it being presumed an anti-Semitic dog whistle or some kind of entryism from leftwing politics to actual fascist or noxiously overly broadly defined “fascist” politics.

So I was listening in the early to mid lights to an interview with a webmaster for indymedia. The host was attempting to get at and get an explanation on the editorial policy of the structured website and who decides, and then when the guest denied such a thing existed get him to admit that one did. Like, it doesn’t exist because anyone can post and it remains there. Which, of course, is a lie or half truth, as they raised the important items of their concern to a permanent spot on the front page for the duration of its importance, reserved for the location that f Dick Cheney’s fund raising or the phone numbers of the National Lawyers’ Guild after last night’s Starbucks window smash fest — and had a sliding off the page sidebar marked “compost pile” where people advocating for and sending the message of tedious political figures (whether that be Kerry, Kucinich, Ron Paul, or La Roach) was dumped. There was never that answer for “By whom and how do they decide?” — because anarchism is in action, no hierarchy what so ever.

In a future date is such decisions would come to get the terms “platforming” and “deplatforming”.

I think I may have come across as something of a pre 1995 crank insisting the Internet was a nothing when at the mid and end of oughts I thought Facebook was not all that much. I just didn’t see much structurally new with it, and frankly still don’t. Just a new item in a series which gets supplanted in some parts and reshift to fit new niches in other parts by the next thing that is the same in basic fundamentals but with moderately different interfaces. Might as well be on LiveJournal for all it changes, and I mean that most sincerely. But it was at that time placed in as a landmark evolution in computer — step five with steps that included the ENIAC and the launch of the personal computer, a set up that left me flustered. Today Facebook is said to be a ghost town and dead, though I suspect in its dilapidation of one has a fairly specific purpose in maintaining contact with a select and close circle it may just be the ideal tool because of its passe state.

Looking at the Wikipedia page for indymedia, I see no one cares enough to alter effectively press promotional copy. The governing body that pretends it is not a governing body, and is thus more opaque than both pre and post Musk Twitter’s bumbling rules, gets its final word in.

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