If you're so furious at right-wing fuckery that you're sharing live links directly to it, then I am sorry to say so but your anger has blinded you to the fact that you're doing them a favor. #sadbuttrue
^^ I am increasingly convinced that this is the entire strategy behind modern "conservatism."
Make us furious enough to start talking about their bullshit, so that we won't talk about how things have improved under a Democratic POTUS or how things would improve further with a Democratic majority.
It's the shiny squirrel of outrage technique, and holy shit does it ever work like a charm. #sadbuttrue
I set a social media policy for myself in January 2017, not to post about a certain politician directly, or otherwise signal-boost anything that gave air to the toxicity.
Instead, I'd focus on signal-boosting the community leaders working to better our world, or the specific groups affected by the policies/actions of said politician.
Seven years later, there's still plenty of media giving oxygen to the wrong social narratives. It's depressing--but the policy still stands.
We press on.
@MLClark I'm not sure that the overarching strategy is very well understood by the folks who consume political news.
I see a lot of people furthering evil with the best of intentions. That they're being used doesn't seem to occur to them at all.
I suppose it doesn't help that social media everywhere else rewards them for their outrage. It's extremely lucrative for them.
Feels like an important, yet impossibly uphill battle.
Unwitting participation in outrage is key! I'd also add another dimension: trauma.
A lot of mainstream news relies on traumatizing its audience with visions of the world going to hell, rather than empowering civic participation by providing info that can be meaningfully applied in viewers' and readers' lives.
Once you've got a viewer cranked up, the addiction cycle takes over. They start seeing you as *the* place to go to have their fears further affirmed, and you rake in your profit.