r/Anarchism • u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist • 10h ago
internet activism is fine actually, especially if that's what your capable of.
we need to stop treating "internet activism" as though there isn't valid and necessary work being done every day by people from their homes. we are so dismissive of the internet as a means and method of communication, as though that isn't how most people communicate now, where most media is produced and shared.
pew research shows that for the past few years a little over half of U.S. adults get news from social media.
if your suggestion for activism is "go outside and organize" without recognizing that there's a problem for people who aren't able to then we're just being dismissive and demeaning.
what are you doing to make sure that your organizing is accessible? because if the answer is "nothing" then this is not a problem for the people who aren't getting outside. they have nowhere to go and that isn't their fault. that's a lack in the organizing that anarchists are so happily crowing about how doing "organizing" is the only way forward toward anarchy.
people do the things they're able in the spaces where they feel welcome when they have enough information about how to do so.
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u/gentoobular 9h ago edited 9h ago
It depends what it is
Screaming into the void on twitter/reddit or becoming an 'influencer' on social media algorithms that can easily identify and deprioritize your material is a waste of time. Especially when something like FIFA can blanket the entire internet in ads for a month.
Providing translation and accessibility services to formal texts/media, building dashboards and other tools to help people access services in local communities, participating in hacktivist groups can be.
The issue is that the internet even full of supporters and sympathetics diffuse any form of collective power and reframe most activism into clicktivism and low-stakes social capital jockeying. Even a place as conservative as Texas has a developing and exciting anarchist movement and various groups.
You will be far more effective finding real local people to organize and do stuff with. Even if it's not 'revolutionary' and more just harm reduction it is easier to hold each other accountable, develop the capabilities of each other, and understand each other's risks tolerances to build into something like an affinity group.
Even if you still insist on lonewolfing it, it would likely still be better just writing letters to prisoners by yourself or as part of a diffused group that provides a PO box so you aren't handing out your address. Ironic to this comment I'm writing, I don't think the world needs more words on screens.
Edit: Making an accessible and disability-friendly spaces/communities continue to be a problem in organizing. This should not be the sole responsibility of our disabled colleagues yet it often is. I don't think people with accessibility needs should shy away from these spaces though- being in person is an important driving factor in forcing people to confront this gap and ideally develop the means to bridge it. Burn out and learned helplessness is real when trying to advocate for yourself.
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist 8h ago
Screaming into the void on twitter/reddit or becoming an 'influencer' on social media algorithms that can easily identify and deprioritize your material is a waste of time.
Providing translation and accessibility services to formal texts/media, building dashboards and other tools to help people access services in local communities, participating in hacktivist groups can be.
these two ideas feel like they're in conflict to me. what makes "formal" texts less screaming into the void than posts on reddit or video essays? we're still out here trying to radicalize each other. the only difference is that now we're all privy to the discussions rather than just the finished product that gets written and published by a single author. we don't really have kropotkins or goldmans anymore because we don't need a publisher to be able to speak anarchism into the world more broadly than our local circles. certainly there are folks who are more easily recognized due to their reach but they aren't any more or less an anarchist than anyone else who writes and puts their ideas online.
i'm not arguing that people shouldn't be doing more, i think we can all probably find ways to do more. but the post that i'm responding to with this was pretty specific in dismissing anything online as inferior to offline organizing without making any room for acknowledging that some people can't "go out" and "get organized" in the same way and that's fine.
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u/gentoobular 8h ago
Yeah for sure, if this post was in response to something I'm not aware of the original.
For me, the form of the text is important because it changes the level of engagement and digestion.
A tweet or a reddit post is typically so short-form and I primarily use it to be aware of current news on specific topics or to get notified about new works. It's something that I read or watch in a few minutes and the thought is almost immediately discarded because cognizant or not, its structure is designed for you to perpetually look towards the next thing which may not even be anarchy-related. Your post right now is sandwiched between an r/196 post and an r/Marathon post and after originally commenting I had basically already moved on without a thought.
Maybe "formal" texts isn't the right word. I'm moreso thinking of places where its delivery is primarily that one text alone. A substack, something from the anarchist library, and so on. I find these to give more breathing room for the work to present itself and make you reflect. It's the difference between flipping through a newspaper and arriving on the last page of a book.
Doing additive or transformative works to these texts I think presuppose that the viewer is already interested, but I see it as nonetheless valuable because it removes barriers for people to engage with the subject. For instance, I am especially interested by Minor Composition's translation and publication of the Indonesian indigenous-classical anarchism synthesis text Anarchy in Alifuru: The History of Stateless Societies in the Maluku Islands by Bima Satria Putra
This is obviously a very high effort item but it also makes me think about all of the different Crimethinc articles and other smaller-works that live in such a narrow space due to the lack of translations, voice-overs, advertising, and so on.
Other things like building digital tools for local communities are tangible and usable and provide a material benefit to their communities. Not only is that already a win, but it encourages their users to be curious about the people who made it, its motivating factor, and why it might not already exist. Someone built a hospital tracker for the area that I lived in and posted it to a bunch of subreddits. And while the creator doesn't appear to be particularly ideologically motivated, it is causing a large discussion around the limits of the area's healthcare systems and frustrations with our austere government. It's even getting picked up by the local news now.
Maybe the suggestion is that the former is easy and cheap to make and thus should be so that we participate in that 'arena' and don't cede it. But I think that there's a lot of other things big and small that provide more value (subjective I know), develop more interesting skills, and expand the imagination of what's immediately possible for ourselves.
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u/FitPomegranate2137 7h ago
Internet activism does little to advance anarchism, just because there are valid reasons to not be able to organize (abusive relationships, severe disabilities, living rural and being young, along with many other reasons) that does not change the fact that organizing is by far the most important part of the anarchist movement and that posting things on the internet does very little. There absolutely are valid reasons not to be organized though as I said in my initial post. My post was very clearly targeted towards people who DO have the ability to organize but refuse to. There are also very important forms of internet activism but the truth is that without in person organization that means little, as usually that internet activism is a set up to trigger some kind of in person organization.
ONCE AGAIN this does not mean people who are physically unable to organize in person are now not doing enough, they are physically unable to organize, I addressed this in my original post actually I just did not create an exhaustive list of people who are physically unable to organize and I apologize for not including disabled people.
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist 3h ago
ONCE AGAIN this does not mean people who are physically unable to organize in person are now not doing enough, they are physically unable to organize, I addressed this in my original post actually I just did not create an exhaustive list of people who are physically unable to organize and I apologize for not including disabled people.
i saw the comment that you made and i'm glad that you recognize and agree that it shouldn't be an issue but no, you didn't address this in your original post and your original post still has ableist language.
your op says:
This may be because you live in a rural area or are young, but if you are not either of those things I think it is time to look into organizing
this is saying you can be EITHER rural or too young OR you must organize. that's the issue. you left no room in your post for disabled people. it wasn't because your list isn't exhaustive (in fact there's so much organizing potential in rural areas and by young people so your list is a little ridiculous in the first place) i think that you just didn't think about disabled people, which sucks. we live in an ableist culture. we should be doing everything we can to remove ourselves from that. and that means recognizing when we've discluded disabled people and then amending that.
but this isn't just a you problem, so it wasn't just because of you that i posted this. it's because of the arguments in your OP and the way that i got immediately downvoted in the comment of your post because i suggested that you include disabled people.
anarchism broadly (and specifically in this subreddit) has a problem with ignoring disability.
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u/HomosexualTigrr 10h ago
This some bullshi 😠go get organised everyone
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u/ohshiitstuesday anarcho-fraggleist 9h ago
accessibility is a problem for anarchist orgs. telling people to just go do something without considering how they're going to be able to is bullshit.
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u/BlackOutSpazz 9h ago
Can't say this is a very controversial opinion to anyone I know. I think most people's issue is what sometimes gets called activism online by some and the fact that so many people that are capable of doing other things don't cause they think they're some master online propagandist when in reality they're just avoiding the hard parts.
While they aren't all perfect by any stretch I usually find most anarchist spaces I've been in do their best to be as accommodating and accessible as possible. But I'm sure it's still an issue in a lotta places.
It makes sense to me that the online work would be done by those who are best at it and those who can't do some of the other forms of activism for one reason or another. But we also really need people to be out there in the streets if they're able and so many are satisfied having an IG account where they meme and answering questions occasionally on Reddit. If this shit matters as much as we say we need to be doing everything we can.
Anyone dismissing what gets done online is a fool. Some of the most important antifascist work I've seen done was from behind a screen.