7 months ago
3
The property demanded that we sing And chopped distant our tongue.
The property demanded that we travel And hammered successful the bung.
The property demanded that we creation And jammed america into robust pants.
And successful the extremity the property was handed The benignant of crap that it demanded.
(“The Age Demanded” by Ernest Hemingway)
In the shadows of capitalist integer empires, oregon technocracies, galore contradictions breed. Within our hyperconnected existence, wherever algorithms dictate what trends and what fades, gathering online solidarity for governmental causes has go a paradoxical endeavour. Consider 2 caller instances wherever the interaction of societal media has been marked by contradictions- the Pro-Palestine protests (worldwide since October 2023) and Nepal protests (starting September 8, 2025) triggered by a broad prohibition connected societal media.
On 1 hand, societal media appears to beryllium amplifying mean Palestinians’ voices successful an oppressive regime, connected the other, determination is wide removal and shadowbanning of pro-Palestinian content. On 1 hand, societal media facilitates the post-ironic mockery of elite excesses successful Nepal, connected the other, it continues to beforehand and embody elite influencer culture. This has created a request for revaluation of surrounding discourse.
There is wide statement amongst activists that societal media’s relation successful governmental activism cannot beryllium dismissed, though it carries a alternatively generous stock of baggage- clicktivism, slacktivism, virtuousness signalling, echo chambers, desensitization, and commodification of suffering. To antagonistic these, activists usually edifice to self-policing.
Greta Thunberg acknowledges Instagram and Twitter (now X) successful amplifying her archetypal governmental stint arsenic a schoolkid- Fridays For Future, but warns that lone tangible enactment tin afloat materialize the goals of societal change. While grassroots activism remains central, hesitation persists successful penning disconnected societal media, particularly fixed its renewed relation successful rallying protests. At the least, it disturbs the undisturbed; astatine its best, it makes wide enactment imaginable and galvanizes planetary solidarity.
An aggravated authenticity situation grips accepted planetary journalism today. We are witnessing an unprecedented emergence successful fake quality and corporate-sponsored polarisation of media outlets.
Misrepresentation and vilification of Palestinians by salient occidental media, and sanitized reporting by Nepali media obscuring the information of increasing unrest successful the country, compel america to each but state the demise of accepted media. This large institution, the watchdog of democracy, has, by and large, turned and bared its teeth astatine us. In this context, societal media seemingly rises arsenic a compelling alternative.
Kareen Haddad, a Palestinian writer-journalist coins the word “Instafada” (a portmanteau of Instagram and Intifada - an Arabic connection for ‘resistance’, ‘uprising’) to notation to societal media arsenic a originative instrumentality of resistance. In Nepal, wherever societal media presents the lone outlet for increasing frustrations among the youth, the authoritarian determination of a broad prohibition ignites long-repressed nationalist outrage.
Both cases suggest that we person travel to envision exertion to beryllium the adjacent large equalizer, and person transferred our expectations of a antiauthoritarian aboriginal connected it. However, that whitethorn beryllium simply wishful thinking.
Tech is simply a privatised ecosystem
At its core, modern exertion isn’t a antiauthoritarian commons; it’s a privatised ecosystem built and sustained by a constrictive cadre of individuals and corporations. Consider societal media and artificial quality ecosystems: platforms similar Facebook (Meta), Twitter (now X), Instagram, and TikTok are controlled by a fistful of conglomerates.
OpenAI (creators of ChatGPT) started arsenic a nonprofit but pivoted to a for-profit exemplary backed by Microsoft, 1 of the world’s largest tech giants. These aren’t grassroots inventions; they’re engineered by information scientists and executives from elite institutions (Stanford, MIT, Ivy League pedigrees), funded by task superior firms similar Sequoia, concentrating wealthiness among a tiny capitalist class. As of 2025, the apical 5 tech companies (Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta) power implicit 25% of the S&P 500’s marketplace cap, embodying what critics telephone the “techno-oligarchy”.
This elite power isn’t accidental. Barriers to introduction are immense. Building a societal media/AI level requires billions successful centralized infrastructure, ensuring power remains successful the hands of owners. The result? Innovation funnels upward, reinforcing a feedback loop wherever the technocrats who “own” the tech besides acceptable its rules. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of satellite wide web famously laments the translation of unfastened web into “walled gardens curated by elites”.
Modern exertion doesn’t conscionable link us; it harvests us. Social media and AI devou rpetabytes of integer information produced by us. So, is technocracy the caller imperialism? Proponents of this presumption constituent to “data colonialism” wherever planetary organizations (IMF, World Bank, UN) deploy technocrats to signifier processing nations’ policies nether the guise of reform, aligning them with capitalist interests, muddying bully governance. If we gully parallels with colonial-era policies, information is the caller ‘raw material’, and information extracted locally fuels overseas innovation, often undercutting our sovereignty implicit our produce.
Data colonialism, and technocratic neo-imperialism interconnect with planetary modern issues similar the takedown of pro-Gaza posts and Nepal’s societal media ban, done mechanisms of accusation control, communicative suppression, and powerfulness asymmetries. Technocrats and governments collaborate to curate integer spaces, extracting information for nett portion censoring contented that challenges ascendant governmental oregon economical interests—mirroring colonial-era power tactics.
This creates a integer hierarchy- a stratified satellite wherever presumption are dictated top-down by elites and aligned states. Platforms dangle the committedness of unfettered look to gully users in, but this “free speech” is conditional, bound by the imperative to maximize profits done information extraction, advertizing revenue, and hazard avoidance. This creates a facade wherever users consciousness empowered, yet the underlying architecture—algorithms, moderation policies, and concern models—prioritizes monetization implicit genuine discourse.
Wherever tech and authorities are not colluding, they are astatine loggerheads, arsenic successful the lawsuit of Nepal protests, often astatine the disbursal of antiauthoritarian discourse. The prohibition successful Nepal aimed astatine suppressing viral disapproval from mean citizens who were highlighting garish displays of wealthiness successful governmental families, portion the state struggled with wide economical hardship. This trending outrage, fueled by memes, exposing the stark opposition betwixt elite extravagance and alarming younker unemployment rates, frightened politicians, prompting the prohibition nether the guise of curbing “misinformation” and “hate speech.” However, portion a authorities led prohibition weakens democracy, it would beryllium unwise to suggest that Big Tech could beryllium its guardian and defender.
There are surely instances wherever progressive voices circumvent the controlling regard of Big Brother algorithm, employing originative tactical strategies to support visibility, similar the usage of VPNs and misspelling commonly flagged words to debar censorship. However, platforms continually adapt, and authorities power tightens arsenic a effect (e.g., Nepal arresting users for VPN-posted comments), some successful effect penalizing activists and discouraging societal change. The mislabelling of existing societal media arsenic a morganatic alternate to journalism, contempt its structural incompatibility with antiauthoritarian ideas, dilutes progressive movements. It is futile to defy wrong this panopticon.
Fair, unfastened and escaped societal media
To this dilemma, 2 solutions are given- 1 argues that we indispensable decentralize societal media from our conversations astir progressive politics. We fetishize exertion truthful overmuch truthful that we exaggerate its relation successful societal change. Real alteration emerges from grassroots activism.
The elite people would person america judge that societal media is our lone voice, and yet would marque mockery of integer activism. We person to realise that societal media is simply a tool, and we promptly discard the tools that don’t assistance america forge a way forward.
The other, much nuanced position recognizes that power successful modern exertion flows done the profit-driven algorithm. It imagines an inherently antiauthoritarian exertion that is publically owned, not-for-profit, and decentralized truthful arsenic to supply users a involvement successful programming, accumulation and dissemination of information. Calling for decentralized, crowdfunded platforms similar Mastodon with unfastened protocols, user-owned servers, and transparent, interoperable networks similar blockchain to propulsion powerfulness to the edges, tin trim centralization’s chokepoints and perchance alteration “algorithmic democracy”.
In an interrogation with Time Magazine, Mastodon inventor/owner Eugen Rochko claims his level is “not for sale”; it runs connected crowdfunding wherever radical carnivore the outgo of mounting up their ain servers arsenic opposed to centralized platforms similar Twitter(X) wherever the information servers are funded and owned by Meta. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon can’t unit compliance.
While this sounds similar a look for disaster, Rochko notes astir users artifact problematic servers, isolating them into echo chambers. These servers whitethorn persist unless removed by instrumentality enforcement, but their power is curtailed. Rochko calls this user-driven moderation “truly democratic.”
The way to existent integer ideology lies successful dismantling tech imperialism, not successful rejecting tech-mediated advancement. Yet vigilance is essential, lest this caller frontier beryllium seized by the precise technocracy it seeks to resist. People of the satellite unite, for we person thing to suffer but our algorithms!
(The writer holds a master’s grade successful English Literature from the University of Delhi and has world interests successful governmental economy, lit and activism.)
