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Facebook trying to sell me politics
Sep. 22nd, 2021 09:08 amfor fuck's sake, I started hiding those stupid quizzes and as revenge I'm getting flooded with conservative propaganda in random "suggested for you" posts.
funny thing is, in the preceding months, there's a bunch of further-left actual-socialist stuff suggested in my feed. And when it does make sense, I've usually been afraid to click "like" on any of it because I've been worried about what gets attached to my name on this thing.
Funnier thing is, most of the rightist stuff is telling us which people are bad (Biden, AOC, Fauci, the CDC) and which people are good (only Trump and cops). It's just there to isolate conservatives from information sources, and to prevent cooperation with the enemy, and to the extent that Facebook allows, to prolong the pandemic.
But none of the far-left stuff is about which politicians are bad. it's all actual statements like "the system that keeps people homeless is unjust" and "we only have a weekend because of the labor movement" and "cops do constant and demonstrable harm to civil rights protestors". It's stuff that's as true today as it was in any other time – I've seen a lot of cartoon panels that claim to be from the 1920s. If anyone's being called "bad" then it's usually a kind of profession that they deem to be keeping the working class down, like investors, landlords, or cops. If anyone's being called "good" then it's usually a historical figure who won some right that we enjoy today.
The most hostile left-wing content I've seen on Facebook has been in the Star Trek meme groups I'm in. Every few months I see a big cluster of "throw TERFs out the airlock" memes. Even the LGBT people in my feed never post revenge fantasies like that. As a cis man, I can't really comment "hey that's a little hostile innit?" without getting called out, and that feels stifling. Indeed, if I were of a more paranoid mindset, I'd wonder if that was the point: to post something problematic that's pro-LGBT, and make cis people think "I wish I could criticize that," and thus make us open to the right's "the queers are censoring you" narrative.
anyway I gotta get off that hellsite but it's 75% of my social life, please send help.
funny thing is, in the preceding months, there's a bunch of further-left actual-socialist stuff suggested in my feed. And when it does make sense, I've usually been afraid to click "like" on any of it because I've been worried about what gets attached to my name on this thing.
Funnier thing is, most of the rightist stuff is telling us which people are bad (Biden, AOC, Fauci, the CDC) and which people are good (only Trump and cops). It's just there to isolate conservatives from information sources, and to prevent cooperation with the enemy, and to the extent that Facebook allows, to prolong the pandemic.
But none of the far-left stuff is about which politicians are bad. it's all actual statements like "the system that keeps people homeless is unjust" and "we only have a weekend because of the labor movement" and "cops do constant and demonstrable harm to civil rights protestors". It's stuff that's as true today as it was in any other time – I've seen a lot of cartoon panels that claim to be from the 1920s. If anyone's being called "bad" then it's usually a kind of profession that they deem to be keeping the working class down, like investors, landlords, or cops. If anyone's being called "good" then it's usually a historical figure who won some right that we enjoy today.
The most hostile left-wing content I've seen on Facebook has been in the Star Trek meme groups I'm in. Every few months I see a big cluster of "throw TERFs out the airlock" memes. Even the LGBT people in my feed never post revenge fantasies like that. As a cis man, I can't really comment "hey that's a little hostile innit?" without getting called out, and that feels stifling. Indeed, if I were of a more paranoid mindset, I'd wonder if that was the point: to post something problematic that's pro-LGBT, and make cis people think "I wish I could criticize that," and thus make us open to the right's "the queers are censoring you" narrative.
anyway I gotta get off that hellsite but it's 75% of my social life, please send help.
