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Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
@carolecadwalla
Nov 10 • 6 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
Please read this. It's literally been 8 years in the writing.

The first wave of tech disruption of democracy 2016-2024 is over. What starts now is something much, much worse: the age of information chaos.
1/
 theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
It's exactly 8 years since I published this on Nov 6, 2016. My first step down the rabbit hole that became Facebook/Cambridge Analytica. And if you still think that's a 'conspiracy', I have a social media platform to sell you.
2/
 theguardian.com/technology/201…
Oh no, that's right. The world's richest man already bought it. Remember Marshall McLuhan, 'the medium is the message'? Well the medium now is Musk. And he's the shadow head of state of the world's greatest superpower. That’s the message. Have you got it yet?
3/
Trump is cholera. He's the bacillus in our drinking water. But there's worse coming. Because this platform - all the platforms - are stinking toxic sewers. This is Victorian London before sanitation. Our information system is sick, sick, sick.
4/
This is Steve Bannon's world now: 'Politics is downstream from culture.' The young men who voted for Trump? Did they? Or for protein shakes and deadlifts? For YouTube shorts & Twitch? Because this is culture now. Curated by algorithms owned by broligarchs.
5/
Please just read the piece. And if you're as panicked as fuck - as you should be - pls sign up to my new newsletter. I don't know what the answer is but I've spent the last 8 years trying. The only thing I know is that we can't do this alone
6/
 open.substack.com/pub/broligarch…Image

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More from @carolecadwalla

Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Nov 28
This is an incredible short film. If you want to understand why the Guardian & Observer journalists are fighting for our survival, please watch it. It gave me the chills.

Winnie Mandela on how the Observer helped save Mandela's life & the ANC leadership
What I find so fascinating film is the parallels to our own time. In the film, the son of legendary editor, David Astor, describes how it was witnessing fascism in Germany that made his father alive to the danger & evil of apartheid. A fact that informed his whole editorship.
And, here we come full circle, with the Observer under mortal threat. Just as apartheid bleeds again into fascism. Because it's 2 men, raised in apartheid SA, with their hands on the steering wheel of the world's superpower & coming authoritarian state: Elon Musk & Peter Thiel.
Read 6 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Nov 25
If you’re a Guardian or Observer reader, please share this. The need for a strong, free & independent press couldn’t be greater. Yet, here it is. The billionaire Scott Trust is preparing to push a core part of the Guardian over the cliff into the hands of speculators & profiteers
If you haven’t heard about this, it’s probably because you’re a Guardian or Observer reader. The one place you won’t read about the turmoil. Or as @paulfwebster - the Observer’s editor until week ago calls it - the betrayal of everything we represent

broligarchy.substack.com/p/how-to-speak…Image
@paulfwebster Thank you to everyone who’s written. If you have views on the sale you can write to observer.readers@observer.co.uk. And/or or copy me in: Carole.Cadwalladr@theguardian.com. I think what makes us feel so sad & naive is that we had this ‘implicit trust’ too. Image
Read 4 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Nov 17
NEW: The great Trump-Musk crackdown is coming. And it will hit hard & fast. Journalists will be first. But everyone else is next.

I urge you to read my 20 lessons in How to Survive the Broligarchy, inspired by & featuring the great @TimothyDSnyder.
1/
 theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Lesson 1: When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

This week, Trump told us who he is. Believe him. If his adminstration picks look like a plan to destroy America from within, it likely is.
2/ Image
2. Journalists will be first. But everyone else is next.

How do we know this? Because it always is. It's the authoritarian playbook.

Lawsuits are first. Prosecutions are next. America needs to learn these moves fast. It's already later than you think.
3/ Image
Read 5 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Nov 1
Many people have asked me what is going on at @guardian & @observer. The answer is a lot. To be clear, this isn’t an ‘internal dispute’ between 700+ journalists & their management it’s a struggle for the soul & future of UK journalism.

telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/…
An archived version here. (Also pls support @waybackmachine which is another vital journalistic institution under mortal threat)

archive.is/2024.11.01-082…
And this just in: an overwhelming display of support from UK's authors, writers, poets & illustrators who understand the threat to UK journalism.

thebookseller.com/news/authors-i…
Read 4 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Oct 27
Democracy *will* die in darkness. If a journalist isn’t telling you what’s happening...who will?

Crisis has hit @washingtonpost. Its journalists are in revolt. But here's what you don't know: it directly links to another journo crisis...at @guardian
1/
 theguardian.com/us-news/2024/o…
The @washingtonpost has refused to endorse a presidential candidate. Legendary ex-editor @PostBaron calls it an act of profound 'cowardice'. The paper, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos & led by ex-Murdoch man, Will Lewis, is now, in effect, a Trump collaborator.
2/
WaPo journalists are appalled. It’s a moment of profound shock. Meanwhile @guardian journalists in same WTF shock after discovering management is seeking to sell off a chunk of org…..to Will Lewis’s old friend & Murdoch stablemate, James Harding

3/theguardian.com/media/2024/sep…
Read 8 tweets
Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Oct 6
Journalists are meant to speak truth to power. That's our job. But what do you do when that power is your own news org?

This thread (professional suicide note?) is about @guardian & @ObserverUK's future. Because it turns out you can’t believe everything you read on a poster..
1/ Image
Since 1993, @ObserverUK has been owned by @guardian. Which is owned in turn by the Scott Trust set up in 1936 to preserve the financial & editorial independence of @guardian "in perpetuity"

But perpetuity ain't what it used to be. And 2 weeks ago, a bombshell lands: Tortoise Media is in talks to buy @ObserverUK.
2/
 news.sky.com/story/guardian…
If you don't know, @tortoise is a plucky media start-up founded in 2019 by James Harding, an ex-ed of @thetimes & a big beast of UK news.

But the thing is...it's like @guardian says, 'Thanks to reader funding, we're not for sale'.

So…what gives?!?
3/ Image
Read 21 tweets

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