The corporations are going to move to remove all left-wing content, it's best we begin changing strategy. Popular social medias need to be a secondary relation, not a primary.

Share everywhere, let’s begin building a new way to use the internet

  • TankieTanuki [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    31·
    11 days ago

    -Non-Federated, Left-Wing Sites

    • TankieTube, Communist YouTube

    Thanks for the mention! quagsire-pog

    TankieTube is a PeerTube instance, so it belongs in the federated column IMO (albeit its current network is small).

  • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
    26·
    11 days ago

    That has been my position for a while: that we should settle our main accounts and activities on independent social media particularly the fediverse and use main-stream social medias as a way to reach out for more peoples.

    I also think we should adjust our communication: debunking the propaganda about AES and historical communist theorists and leaders is good, but we do it so much that we barely talk about Marxist economic theory and philosophy. When trying to win over peoples in the process of getting radicalized, we should first talk about things like how the bourgeoisie is stealing the worker’s surplus value and how that fact plus the competition and need for perpetual growth inevitably lead capitalism to fail, the rehabilitation of Stalin and Mao has to come after.

    • SevenSkalls [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      19·
      11 days ago

      I agree. That’s basically how I and other leftists came in to the fold. First is some Sanders-style Democratic Socialism which mostly focuses on the problems of capitalism and raising class consciousness, then came the study of how these problems are part of capitalism’s innate quality, then socialism could fix these problems, but then you run into the old propaganda against it (it sounds good, but it would never woke in theory, every state it’s tried hasn’t worked, etc). That’s when you can focus on raising the consequences of imperialism and the good parts of those old states.

      A lot of people are stuck between those first couple steps, knowing there’s an issue with today’s society and hating billionaires, but aren’t ready to believe socialism can fix it because they have been trained to reflexively hate it. Many also don’t believe these problems are intrinsic to capitalism, that it can still be saved, that our current period is an aberration of capitalism, and not inevitable for the system, and such. The nice period of the boom cycles, like the 50’s or the 90’s of their youth, are clearly the normal part of capitalism and the bust cycles are just the result of mismanagement. From this average frame of understanding coming from a lifetime of being raised in propaganda, you need to start with pretty base theory, not advanced stuff like navigating the complex legacies of Stalin or Mao, or even the Russia-Ukraine war (imo).

      • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
        16·
        11 days ago

        Not only that but we need to relate to the people’s immediate material concerns, that’s when our propaganda is at its strongest and liberal propaganda at its weakest. We need to remember that the strength of Marxism is that it can explain why things are so bad like no other ideology can.

        Liberal economics is little more than gaslighting and lionizing that attempt to shift blame and responsibility on the average person and pretend that the system isn’t broken, only mismanaged, meanwhile fascism is the laziest of victim blaming imaginable and such an ideological void that they have to tokenize leftist terminology to trick peoples into getting on board, only Marxism has an analysis of capitalism that makes sense with the average worker’s lived experience.

    • Islamic.Socialist@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
      15·
      11 days ago

      I have been saying this for a while and it’s why I made Redline Media Institute. I’m not going to just wait for the Left to come around, I’m going to help build.

      We need a wide range of different propaganda for different purposes. Our group has guides on social media strategy, psychological warfare, and memetic warfare.

      We have and need more propaganda centered on left-wing communities - defending AES, talking about Marxist economics and philosophy, theory, etc.

      We need propaganda for the progressives to move them left - micro-dosing ideology, challenging liberal notions, etc.

      We need propaganda to influence normies to the left, usually a combination of the previous two but in smaller micro-doses and said as a passing piece in content that isn’t even political.

      Like I said “What makes a pipeline a pipeline is the many entry points into it that leads to specific political communities.” We need to pull in people from anywhere.

  • Kultronx@lemmygrad.ml
    19·
    11 days ago

    While I mostly agree with everyone you say, I still believe one has to meet the masses where they are found, and increasingly among younger people, this is on mainstream social media sites, so a little bit of both.

    • Solenoid@lemmygrad.ml
      132·
      11 days ago

      Too many braindead antimaterialists who think that their ideas or conscientiouses create reality.

      • baffled_and_aghast@lemmygrad.ml
        11·
        11 days ago

        True but if you look at the careers of every successful revolutionary they did tons of reading, writing, and getting the word out. Don’t discount theory, communication and networking. That’s not idealism, that’s putting ideas into action.

        • Islamic.Socialist@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
          9·
          11 days ago

          Facts, this was exactly what I did after I studied theory and got self-activated to organize with the organizations I belonged to.

    • Islamic.Socialist@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
      11·
      11 days ago

      I never said not to use popular social medias, but to use them specifically for the purpose of spreading ideology. The sites like this one where we aren’t censored or as censored need to be spaces of planning, discussion and getting propaganda. Then we should go to popular socials specifically to spread these beliefs and propaganda into communities outside our own echo chambers.

      “You need to see every corner of the internet as a city to influence and people to bring towards the movement as best as possible. That’s our biggest weak point in the Left in terms of influence, the lack of mass mobilization and spread of influence.”

      • Islamic.Socialist@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
        8·
        11 days ago

        Which can only really happen with a primary space sharing tips and tactics to do so without as much or any censorship. That’s why I made Redline Media Institute. And for the rest of the Left who doesn’t make content, that’s what spaces like this one and the others is for. A place to speak freely and plan and then know how to carry ourselves on the corporate sites as we spread influence.

  • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    19·
    10 days ago

    I’ve been saying this for a long time as well. All the tools are available for us. We have a few issues I think:

    • Networking
    • Administration
    • Ease of access

    Networking

    We need to built a network (read webring or similar) of leftist sites. We need to take a Popular Front approach to this work. Connecting groups via our shared core goals regardless of our ideological differences. This way, that list of shared sites is more easily and readily accessible. Remember, Google Search isn’t going to turn up these sites on a query most of the time. So building a network of sites is key to discovery. This could also work as a kind of federation group.

    Administration

    We need to foster a cadre of technical minded comrades as well as community minded comrades to build these sites. This is a dual issue that needs to be worked out in unison, because these sites need to be stable. Not just in terms of uptime but also in its community. A site which is wither up and down often, or unmoderated and full of wreckers does us nothing and will make this task more difficult for everyone. We have a dedicated person on the team at Hexbear maintaining our UI fork for example. Its unclear of we have a backup plan for a “hit by a bus” scenario here. So we must ensure open communication with the wider administrative community but also find ways to educate and train more like minded technical comrades and community builders. Likewise we need to be involved as much as we can in contributing to projects to ensure they suite our needs and to ensure their continued development.

    Ease of Access

    Lastly, we should be collecting and collaborating together on how to make the setup and management of these sites as easy as we can for future operators. Hosting things like Lemmy, Matrix, Mastodon, etc, is no simple task at times. This goes hand in hand with Administration. Part of being a good administrator is having good documentation. Many of these services have decent documentation, but it could be better. So as part of ensuring ease of access we should be collecting:

    • guides on configuring popular services.
    • docker configurations for easy spin up.
    • write-ups on various services to run, their maintenance complexity, and ease of administration.
    • an authoritative list of queer/leftist software to investigate.

    We should also be evaluating the underlying tech stack as well and providing guidance on things like: what hosting sites to use, What domain registrars to use, How to host out of your house, etc.

    If we want this network to grow; if we want it to be the safe harbor for users who will be driven off mainstream social media, we have to make that process easier for people. With the_deprogram kicked off reddit, I wonder if they would have taken the option of building their own site if we had materials ready to ease them into that process.

  • big_spoon@lemmygrad.ml
    10·
    11 days ago

    i mean, this has lots of sense…that’s why i left most of my accounts on traditional websites. now i’m in mastodon and lemmygrad, and i use linux and most free software that i can

    • Islamic.Socialist@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
      6·
      10 days ago

      I use both. I use Linux, element, and signal for my computer, communications and planning with the comrades, and the popular social media’s specifically for propaganda and reaching out to comrades to bring into the organizations our group is building.

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmygrad.ml
    10·
    9 days ago

    Fantastic article! I already agree with federated, explicitly leftist spaces as our base, but one thing I see under-mentioned is the necessity of engaging with reactionary-controlled spaces to agitate and bring people over to our spaces. We need to be on Reddit to bring people to Lemmy. We need to be on Lemmy.ml to bring people from Lemmy.world and the like to places like Lemmygrad.ml and Hexbear.net. We need to be on Twitter to bring people to Mastadon.

    One thing I really think is helpful is agitating not just on Reddit, for example, but on Lemmy.ml in areas where radicalized liberals can see it. It’s why I host my intro ML reading list there, and do all of my agitation there. I have recieved DMs from users thanking me for continuously pushing the ML perspective and helping change their minds, so I know it works.

    At the same time, the areas we control, such as Lemmygrad.ml, need to be developed spaces that are easy to transition people to. Introductory reading guides, helpful FAQs, and more are already great exampled we do. We need to continue fostering our communities here so that we have spaces to bring people.

    All in all, excellent article, well done comrade!

    • Islamic.Socialist@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
      4·
      9 days ago

      I fully agree and I’d love your involvement with the work we’re doing in this. I don’t know if you saw the Redline Media invite link at the bottom of the piece but that is where we’re working from temporarily until we move to self-hosted servers. We need as many people involved in this project as much as possible.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmygrad.ml
        4·
        9 days ago

        I’ll have to think about it! I’m extremely busy lately, and have recently begun org work IRL on top of that, so my hands are pretty full at the moment, but I’ll keep it in mind!

        • Islamic.Socialist@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
          4·
          9 days ago

          Trust me I fully understand. Between my content, work, Red Rifle Collective, and the think tank - I have no free time, and honestly I am happy since political work is my love. I hope you can in the future, we’d love the extra hands with this project.

  • he/him lady@lemmygrad.ml
    8·
    9 days ago

    commenting to boost/bump + so i can find this post more easily later (saved as well of course)

    this has been a long time coming for sure. this is a tad dramatic to say but watching the internet i grew up with being dragged around as a rotted, empty beaten-dead-horse-corpse is very upsetting and disturbing. but I need to find it in me to work hard and turn that emotion into the fuel needed to collect and (re)distribute resources

  • tinfoilhat@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    8 days ago

    Covert propagandists, people who belong to one of many (or multiple) subcultures and online or real life communities, who talk about their subject and micro-dose beliefs and ideology into their content as a way to begin the entry into the pipeline. They don’t make politics their primary topics to discuss, it’s secondary to their hobby or niche as a way to begin radicalization. Once the algorithm picks up on left-wing talking points or positions, it will begin feeding more left-wing content to their audience.

    We all need to be, to some extent, covert propagandists at a minimum.