Been thinking about this and want to know if it bugs anyone else.

It’s crazy to me that Twitter, Reddit and Facebook all cut off API access and people just went quiet on it. There was noise and complaints but no solutions. Usually when stuff like this gets locked down a counterculture shows up around it. Workarounds, open alternatives, people who make it their thing to keep it open. Like file sharing or ad blockers.

That didn’t really happen this time and I can’t figure out why. With all the propaganda and fake stuff out there right now, wouldn’t being able to see what’s spreading be important to understand? And isn’t them shutting it down a pretty large signal that it is important?

Maybe there’s a boring explanation I’m missing. But the part that gets me is the other possibility, that there’s some kind of suppression force we might not even be aware of.

Is that terrifying to anyone else or am I overthinking it? Just curious what people who were around for it think.

    • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.worldOP
      11·
      8 hours ago

      would say when most comments I saw online said some version of “don’t even argue with them, it’s like wrestling with pigs” is when I started to notice our spaces being given away.

      I’ll be the first to admit I’m terminally online. With that comes alot of vibes, so I get this is vibes. But my experience is that leftists don’t like confrontation. I saw many spaces start out resisting when MAGA and racists began to show up, but they quickly lost interest and left. My instinct when I see a space getting turned is to stubbornly prevent it as much as possible. Other people have more common sense. But it’s almost always inevitable.

      Look, I noticed this prior to 2016. I know at least one step in how they accomplished this. They built a network. They made some accounts like parent nodes connected to child nodes, and each one would build networks and sub networks in different areas. Then once those accounts had a good amount of real human followers, they connected the human followers together. Now they had a logistical supply line to disseminate information rapidly. The parent node drops a story and within hours its posted everywhere. Then your Dan Bonginos and Charlie Kirks and Shapiros boost it.

      It isn’t organic. It didn’t just build itself, it was forced, and the left didn’t do anything similiar.

      There were multiple steps where I saw the right building something, and to this day they’re still doing it. Why the fuck is there a Bobs Burgers group on Facebook who only posts about trans people in bathrooms. There’s one for every cartoon.

      What i said is hyperbole sure, but like this api issue, I feel like things are oddly silent and I’m worried while the right are building things, we’re destroying them thinking we’re building them.