Social media the most powerful propaganda tool of all times.
In the 1960s you would say the same thing about TV, and you’d be right. Before that it was the cinema. It’s not because the mediums as such are inherently evil, but they carry an inherent power that can be used for evil.
There is, however, another element to it, and one that is completely new for social media. That’s the illusion that we can actually contribute in a meaningful way by participating.
Nobody believes they are fighting fascism by watching TV all day. Yet, on social media, we waste our time shouting at clouds rather than going out in the real world to actually achieve something. We collectively tread in water as democracy dies, all the while feeling like we are “doing our part”.
I participate in the Fediverse because I have hope that we are building something different; something that can derail the large platforms that are used for evil, and where the organization of actual opposition can be possible. I think it might be. But I am also afraid I am just wasting my time.
The Bible and Quran are around for a lot longer tho.
I think propaganda potential is inherently linked with technological innovations - once books came along, they were ground-breaking, and the religions that were quick to adapt to books have been incredibly successful since. It might not be random that Jesus was born around the time that modern-format books were invented:
Julius Caesar may have been the first Roman to reduce scrolls to bound pages in the form of a note-book, possibly even as a papyrus codex. At the turn of the 1st century AD, a kind of folded parchment notebook called pugillares membranei in Latin became commonly used for writing in the Roman Empire. Theodore Cressy Skeat theorized that this form of notebook was invented in Rome and then spread rapidly to the Near East.
Not to mention the importance of the Gutenberg Bible in the history of the printing press.
(repeating myself below, please ignore)
There is, however, another element to it, and one that is completely new for social media. That’s the illusion that we can actually contribute in a meaningful way by participating.
Nobody believes they are fighting fascism by watching TV all day. Yet, on social media, we waste our time shouting at clouds rather than going out in the real world to actually achieve something. We collectively tread in water as democracy dies, all the while feeling like we are “doing our part”.
I participate in the #Fediverse because I have hope that we are building something different; something that can derail the large platforms that are used for evil, and where the organization of actual opposition can be possible. I think it might be. But I am also afraid I am just wasting my time.
