Thread by @Flat6forever

The thing about the #TwitterFiles2 is while the noise right now is all about how the extreme Right is being treated, the real story will be the extent to which dissenting leftist voices are routinely silenced, as is always the case.

As with all freedom of speech attacks, it starts with the most obviously odious types - Alex Jones, LibsofTikTok, whoever. And liberals (and even some on the left) applaud what they consider reasonable censorship in the name of safety or whatever.
It's a trap.

Folks rarely realize the same restrictions that keep them "safe" from digital "harm" will also target them and silence them for dissent - after all, they're being reasonable! They're not bigots! They just want healthcare, or real action on climate change, or a war to be ended.

But LibsofTikTok etc. pose far less threat to the neoliberal economic / global order than organized labor and activist networks - networks that can obviously be severely hampered when denied full & free access to build solidarity and organize on platforms such as Twitter.

Vast popular movements organized via Twitter simply haven't happened, despite everything we've endured in the last few years. Yes there have been popular protests organized via social media, but they have been relatively small given the power & reach of digital platforms.

Do you really think the famous great firewall of China, or the mobile internet shutdowns in Pakistan, Iran, Uganda etc. in times of protest simply couldn't or wouldn't happen in the US too? We're in an era of a resurgent labor activism in the US, but just as the establishment

media chooses not to report on industrial disputes, or when it does, frame them as actually harming hard-working people (the ones who don't happen to work at Amazon, Starbucks or on the railroads), so too is the digital world being used to undermine labor to favor capital.

The throttling of these activist voices has a chilling effect on the whole population, as individuals are led to believe they're in a tiny minority after all and question their opinions, despite knowing they're overwhelmingly popular in opinion polls - think Medicare for All.

Furthermore, Twitter can easily elevate the most obnoxious voices in any group and hide the most reasonable, in order to slander the whole group and cause people to question their allegiances. Recall how the "Bernie Bros" became the face of the Sanders campaigns in both '16 & '20

People ended up distancing themselves from comrades to avoid being associated with the negative stereotype. Think of all the people went from Bernie '16 to Warren '20 simply because they didn't want to be ostracized by other liberals who had fallen for the "Bros" narrative.

Twitter has a significant role in public life and as such, has inevitably become a tool of the establishment, just as biased & manipulative as traditional media. Far from bringing us all together as it could, social media is being used to keep us apart, divided & weakened.