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can anarchist use _____ for anarchy? should _____ exist in the first place? what for and how is _____ mostly being used? how has it mostly been used historically? what have been the consequences and implications?

you could ask this of anything; hammers, plows, knifes, firearms, bombs, roads, mines, factories, farms, agriculture, controlled fire, the internet, etc.

the internet is different in one important way, with A.I., it's not just some dumb tool that simply does your bidding, it can potentially think and adapt quicker than you and in ways you cannot understand or control. using social media feeds these algorithms and they make choices with all that information, fine-tuning how to nudge people online and irl.

"What is social media good for?" gathering big data about all people, for surveillance and research to further control via politics and marketing, the terms almost seem antiquated when referring to the way algorithms are being used to target people, with ads for products, or disinformation campaigns, propaganda, psyops, experiments

"How do you use it for what works for you, how do you remind yourself what your goals are for using it, and when do you know that you've lost the thread? What are the ways you use it that you would call anarchist, and why would you call them anarchist? Or are anarchy and social media on two different planes that don't intercept each other for you?"

being able to send messages at close to the speed of light is handy. but let's not kid ourselves, there's no "goal" when mindlessly scrolling and knee-jerk reacting to things online. it's a mindless time-leech that feeds on your attention.

"I am starting to be on a social media platform that I've never used before, and it's making me think about these things: what is the point of adding a vote to something that's already got hundreds or thousands of votes?"

adding statistical power by giving them a larger sample size, it's not just one data point your giving away either, but many variables.

"What kind of intimacy is it possible to have, or desirable to have, on such a platform?"

some people can feel intimate with a mannequin or a chatbot, no surprise they will be able to do so with people from afar, whether catfish or parasocial

"Does having multiple accounts make that different for the multiple-accounted, since it allows at least for breadth, if not necessarily more depth?"

people that have multiple alts are pathetic and should spend less time online.

"And for those who make mistakes, get overly vulnerable, misinterpret something, share too much, whatever the mistake might look like, how does one recover?"

this happens irl too, social dynamic are complicated, from gracefully recovering from a faux pas, to apologizing for a mistake or bad behavior.

"How do you recognize that you've gone too far, what even makes something a mistake in this context? (Perhaps cancelling..."

since people don't literally overdose on internet, there's almost no bottom to the "too far" that people can go to

"Accepting that anarchistnews is a social media forum (even if you don't use any others), all of us here are implicated in these questions. How do you use social media anarchistically/anarchically?"

if anews comment section is anything to go by, it's best to stay away from social media. obviously this is common to many comment sections and threads in different social media platforms

i think the internet as a whole is a self-perpetuating & aggravating irredeemable waste of time and resources that serves as a girder & highway for all the ecocide, wars and slavery that make up the economy. it's silk handcuffs and a gilded cage.

do anarchists have use for prisons? no, but prisoners can sometimes send & receive letters if they're fortunate. interesting to note how some anarchist have used social media from prison, even made podcasts. and those are the crumbs many of us who "are free outside of prison" settle for