I mean it sounds crazy and people over there likely don’t give a fuck but wouldn’t it be worth a shot?
11% of Reddit is owned by the company Tencent. The company has numerous CPC party members and someone on the board of directors who’s a member as well as a deputy to the National People’s Congress.
Couldn’t we ask them, as fellow communists, if they’d consider putting some pressure on Reddit to, at minimum, push back against far-right and anti-china sentiment as well as try to get some of the leftist communities we’ve lost back?
Again I know it sounds crazy but isn’t this what our movement is all about? Solidarity and internationalism?
Solidarity to do what? Look where we are. The way reddit is now is the reason platforms like lemmy exist. Platforms we will need to share information when the larger platforms crack down even harder. The solution is not to carve out space for communists on capitalist controlled platforms but to build our own alternatives. As much as it may upset the new people who are coming here from the banned reddit communities to have to migrate it is a good thing. Entirely getting off of all western corporate social media should be the goal.
It’s far easier to convince people who are new to socialism to join a community on a site they already use then migrate to a whole new website. You’re not thinking practically. The point is to maintain a presence wherever people are, not to form some secret society off in the corner. It makes sense for a niche fandom or some weird legally grey activities but for actually trying to build an international workers movement is self-defeating.
We have to consider our material conditions - this is where people are communicating and spending their time. The dedicated people will come here but where will the the ones who were more passive go? The people on the path to becoming dedicated and the people who may not have much revolutionary potential but would have repeated our rhetoric to other “normies”.
Obviously a space like this also existing is a good thing and should keep existing but to suggest we should all just flee the spaces where people are is just wrong. We need to be organising our in the open, in the streets, not hiding in some guy’s basement.
The point is to maintain a presence wherever people are, not to form some secret society off in the corner.
I very much agree with this and i think we should strive to maintain at least some form of presence on the “mainstream” platforms. Communists should go to where the people are, not isolate ourselves in echo-chambers.
That being said, this must not become a justification for self-censorship. If the rules and the moderation on those platforms make it impossible to openly express principled progressive, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist beliefs, then it’s not we who are chosing to abandon these platforms.
The response to “mainstream” platforms driving communists out can only be to create, join and support alternative platforms that will not censor us, and to try our best to make these new platforms into ones which are big enough to reach the masses. We have to become the new mainstream for those disaffected with the system.
The increasingly censorious and repressive nature of the big corporate platforms - and not just toward communists but toward anyone who steps out of the ever shrinking window of acceptable status quo - is already having the effect of forcing people to migrate. So this shift is happening either way. Our task is to maintain enough of a presence on those platforms to be able to guide people to the leftist alternative before the right wing captures them.
I generally agree. We need to be in these platforms, but it should be made clear that we are at risk of being censored while in these big corp owned spaces. The only way to counter that is by heavily promoting spaces like Lemmy and other federated platforms among ourselves.
We have to consider our material conditions - this is where people are communicating and spending their time.
While you’re right, that’s mainly for the english speaking side of the planet. Here in Brasil for example, the amount of people that uses Reddit is very small, in contrast, almost everyone here have either Facebook or Instagram.
I mean that’s fair enough. So in Brazil, for instance, people definitely need to be on FB and Insta, but also it’s important to maintain Brazilian and otherwise lusophone communist spaces on reddit, in case people do show up there.
Yeah 100%. I don’t use Facebook so I can’t comment on that, but Instagram have quite a few Brazilian communist pages and content creators that are growing. For example, Jones Manoel (PCBR member and content creator on YouTube) just reached more than 1.4 million followers on Instagram, his online presence in August grew more than Lula’s, which is a big feat.
On Reddit, the main Brazilian sub, r/Brasil, is mostly leftist, but there’s also a Communist sub, r/BrasildoB.
Reddit is not “in the open” its a website most working class people have never even used. This isnt some color revolution we arent gonna be able to use western social media to organize.
The working class are organized in the workplace. That is the meet them where they are.
Also social media is literally a state surveillance platform. If an actual revolution comes about it will not be fast. And the capitalists will use social media data to hunt down and capture or kill any person who they see as a potential revolutionary. Using platforms they control is just putting a target on your back, and helping them to build lists.
You say “weird legally grey activities” idk if you realize this thats what being a socialist is. They see us as criminals, and terrorists. We should always assume we will be treated as such, and take precautions.
I don’t think an 11% stake is enough to give them that much power, it’s still ultimately a US based platform.
contact them about what? how annoying redditors are?
More the way admins are running things.
No - China, Vietnam, and Laos don’t really take sides out of a non intervention principle but if it does affect their national interests, maybe…
I don’t think it would result in anything to be honest. As far as I know they have a very hands off approach to services outside of China, that’s why there’s two versions of TikTok for example.
Anti-China sentiment is unfortunately expected outside of China, but doesn’t matter to the Chinese at all. What are you gonna do, stop trading with China? Can’t happen. Go to war? You’ll loose.
Best we can do is unfederated social media like Lemmygrad. Truly owned by the people. We can’t be kicked off here. Do be mindful it might not be anonymous, depending which email/username you signed up with and which IP address you’re using to access. But a hell of a lot better than Reddit.
