1. This thread might help you stay ahead of regime enablers who are working to silence democratic voices that are critical of the regime. Basically, understand it as a “war” and as the wise general Sun Tzu said, a key rule of war is that you must know your enemy and its ways.
2. ZANU PF enablers know that there are certain things that are excluded in the discourse which is controlled by social media companies. By “discourse” I refer to statements that are considered acceptable which implies there are statements that don’t qualify and are excluded.
3. If, therefore, you make statements that are outside the permissible social media discourse, you may be excluded. Either the social media algorithm will pick your “unacceptable” statements and mark you as excluded or the company will know if you are reported by another person.
4. What then is unacceptable discourse? An example is abusive conduct, although this is quite broad. It could be statements that are considered racist, sexist, tribalist, homophobic, religious hate, violent, etc. If your statements display these traits you may be excluded.
5. Hence I often tell people to exercise caution with statements that seem acceptable in our context but are considered abhorrent in others. Unfortunately, standards by which judgment is done on social media are set by the dominant discourse, which is largely Western discourse.
6. You will say, but social media is free! That is a fallacy. But we are not going to analyse Foucaldian power theory here ;-) Just know that there is a kind of invisible/subtle power and that we are in a kind of Panopticon (jail) where we are constantly under surveillance.
7. The outcome is we are governing ourselves, reminding ourselves what we can do/say and what we cannot do/say. Discipline. The discourse I referred to is a manifestation of power. But authoritarian regimes are exploiting it, thereby using social media to “govern from a distance”
8. They have worked out that they can monitor & shut down critics by identifying & compiling evidence of conduct that they know will be considered unacceptable discourse by social media companies. So if you consistently post about tribal issues, you might fall foul of “tribalism”
9. Likewise if you consistently post about men or women, depending on the language you use, you might end up being considered sexist. So be careful when you use those cliches! They may seem harmless to you or even to be a bit of banter, but it can easily be weaponised against you
10. All it takes is for someone to write to the company saying A posts things that violate rules against XYZ and you are done. They can’t silence you for being critical of ZANU PF, but they can get the same result by reporting you for being a “tribalist” or “homophobic”.
11. This is how users have been suspended from social media platforms. Enablers have been compiling reports alleging that so & so is violating social media rules. Critics have probably done the same against some enablers but enablers have been more dedicated & focused!
12. Therefore, be wary of what you post and imagine how it might be manipulated against you. I can hear some of you saying if they did it, why can’t we did it too?!😅 I leave that to you, although maybe ceasefire is a sounder option now that they have been found out!
13. The more perceptive amongst you will say but Alex you are urging us to be docile bodies! You have a point, but I’m merely reflecting what social media makes of us. We’re operating in environments that produce docile bodies. My “advice” is how to survive in treacherous terrain
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