4mo ago

Why do anarchists stay on reddit or other corporate-run platforms?

I know these federated communities exist as well as raddle, but it still seems like most people will stay on toxic and corporate-run platforms like reddit or Twitter. I'm far from perfect myself and I still use reddit sometimes, especially for more niche communities, but when it comes to ideologically strong communities like the anarchist ones, it just feels wrong that the majority still hang out on reddit. Or you know, moving to something like Bsky when Twitter became too toxic but which is still run by a large, for-profit corporation (if they moved in the first place). What are your thoughts? Is there any justification for this?

73 comments

"Why do anarchists live under capitalism if they hate it so much?"
Bro, sometimes you don't have a choice. They might not know about Lemmy or other Reddit alternatives that aren't corporate owned piles of dogshit. For a while, there weren't any; that's why I was there for so long.
It's also hard to just up and leave a community. Even if it's in a bad neighborhood. Your friends are there. Unless they come with you, you're much more inclined to stay.

If you want to be heard, wouldn't you go to the most crowded plaza instead of the mostly empty one with people who already agree with you?
- The crowded plazas owner might restrict you tho. Various well known anarchist accounts such as crimethinc where banned by corporate social media. Also you have to follow many rules to not get banned.
  (I still think its valid to be on corporate social media to spread propaganda, but its not as easy as an actual plaza where you can directly communicate with people)
  
  life is messy: you always play by someone else’s rules (often even when you disagree with them) when you interact with other people… you rarely enjoy the freedom to truly do whatever you like. you either deal with that, or you don’t interact with people

Most people don’t know about lemmy. And as an anachist, the fact this place is dominated by authoritarian MLs is quite off-putting.
Also a lot of anarchists aren’t as terminally online as a lot of us here :).
- I think the web in general has a problem with authoritarian MLs domineering the discussions. To be fair it feels like a lot of them are chronically online, because I've never seen as many chaotic tankies IRL as I have seen on the web.
  
  Some don't even seem to sleep, with the amount of time between comments.
  
  CCP/Kremlin social media “guerilla influence campaigns” as they are referred to. Chiefly push, when they are targeted at the left, ML, Stalinist, and Maoist agendas.

Hi! Recovering Reddit anarchist here! Although if I’m honest it probably wasn’t until after leaving reddit I really started to understand what anarchism meant, and more openly align with it.

Look, yelling in the basement of your local bar late at night is all well and good but sometimes you gotta set up on the street corner and scream at the normies to get the message across.

Sadly i think a lot of them are deluded into thinking they have to take care of the reddit community or "someone worse is going to take over". I don't quite get it myself but I know some of these mods were struggling a lot to get control of their subs (i.e be the top mod)
- In all honesty there's probably some merit to trying to maintain a more public anarchist online space to try and make it anarchy more visible to non anarchists. I generally agree with not quite getting it though, it's not a project I'd want to invest energy in personally.

A bunch of anarchists who do end up leaving Reddit use Raddle, a different alternative to Reddit. This is probably why there's so few of us on Lemmy.
As for why so many do stay on corporate social media like Reddit, it's a similar reason a bunch of socialist orgs organise on Facebook: that's where the people are.

Raddle is literally run by insane people who admit to using sockpuppets and have incoherent beliefs
- Yeah it's really not great, I've seen a lot of bad stuff over there. It's much more inactive now, but I've still seen many bad takes.

Town square vs a bush behind the abandoned lighthouse.
Lemmy doesn't have a large userbase. The few that moved I feel are dedicated here. Most people won't know what Lemmy is if you ask them or what federated social media is. Alternates aren't viable for most people.
- Town square vs a bush behind the abandoned lighthouse.
  "Town square"? More like shopping mall food court. What self-respecting anarchist wouldn't go for the abandoned lighthouse instead? It can only be that they're unaware that it exists and even has working plumbing sometimes.

Why does anyone go to a community they don't necessarily agree with? Either to start shit or to convert. If your goal is to get other people to see the world your way, or even just to have an argument with someone who doesn't agree with you, first you have to be where people don't agree with you. I think this is probably a far sight better than people living in echo chambers, personally.
Alternatively, most people pick the least friction option, it's only us weird, passionate people who go through the added inconvenience to be on a platform that more aligns with our ideals.

I don’t think it’s an ideological choice for most people. Use of social media is largely habitual and people are just sticky with their platforms. We see influxes of users when other platforms are down for extended periods of time and when one of them does some kind of ideological purge.
- True, we're creatures of habits...

Good question but I assume its becase thats where the people are and /or they are unaware of alter natives and/or theybdobt give a shit?
Same same with X and all things Meta for that matter

Most online anarchists aren't anarchists at all. They neither read anarchist theory, do anything IRL, nor adhere to basic anarchist principals - because they don't know what they are, they just know memes and a skimming of Kropotkin. They also define themselves through a liberal-filtered understanding if what they are not, rather than who they are and what they are working towards.
If you do organizing work IRL you will meet actual anarchists and they are much cooler as they are not just LARPing liberals that happened upon an aesthetic that lets them pretend to be radical while acting virtually perfectly in line with the status quo.
Funny enough, the highest concentration of actual anarchists I've seen is on hexbear, a place another commenter said would be offputting to anarchists. Perhaps they are thinking of the "anarchists" that just watch YouTube videos to get angry at "the tankies" based on a misunderstanding of history in the 1920s and never saw a NATO putsch they couldn't defend.
- Hexbear can indeed be very offputting to anarchists, especially those who learned from history that "left unity" isn't. It's why slrpnk.net has outright blocked hexbear and they also managed to alienate all the admins of dbzer0. Likewise they get very little respect from anarchists in places like kolektiva.social.
  In fact, the only people I've seen who keep insisting there's totally a lot of anarchists in hexbear is MLs in lemmy.ml and hexbear.
  
  Hexbear can indeed be very offputting to anarchists
  You should ask the anarchists on the hexbear anarchism comm. I'm sure they will share some reasonable criticisms but also explain something similar to my general sentiment.
  especially those who learned from history that “left unity” isn’t.
  Which decades or so?
  It’s why slrpnk.net has outright blocked hexbear
  slrpnk.net preemptively blocked hexbear by fiat of admins and without any kind of vote. A very, very funny thing for an "anarchist" instance to do, don't you think?
  and they also managed to alienate all the admins of dbzer0
  So you mean yourself when you were acting like this? https://hexbear.net/post/2489084/4892908
  
  the kolektiva.social that gave all its user and direct message info to the fbi? I'm sure hexbear anarchists are really missing a honeypot mastodon instance
  https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/fbi-seizure-mastodon-server-wakeup-call-fediverse-users-and-hosts-protect-their
- It's true, you should go ask on their anarchism comm. You will find delightful and well-read people.
- I don't really engage that much in anarchist debates on the net but I feel that it's nice to have an internet community surrounded by like-minded as well. There are spaces near me, but there aren't really that many anarchists around. Most are state socialists in one form or another. I don't mind hanging out with them, but at the same time I'm not a big believer in "left unity". If it matters I'm not based in the US where the scene might be a lot different.
  
  Of course, there is nothing wrong with having a group of more like-minded people to have as a home base. Well I said nothing wrong, but I think it is actually very good to have such a space. While we have more power in unity, it is important to develop identity and improve positions through comparison to what we are not, or at least through critique, and that is easier to do if you get together with your closest-minded comrades. This begins to define who you are vs. who everyone else is and you can begin to experiment through the improved capacity for unity in action via consensus, whereas you may be pretty limited in action in coalitions or similar spaces.
  Left unity is very important, though. It does not need to be complete, but we are much stronger together. Coalition building is essential to achieving anything when the left is as small as it is in most places. To disregard it is to massively limit the scale at which an action can be realized, sometimes the difference between mobilizing hundreds of people vs. 5 and the difference between having full cover for a very legal direct action wink wink and being completely exposed to police surveillance.
  I'm sure where you are is both different and similar to the US in various ways. Capitalism is global and the police state with it.
- Most online anarchists aren't anarchists at all.
  what year are you in? Are people still offline irl when you are?
  "Most online anarchists aren't anarchists at all" 🤣
  
  I think it's absolutely hilarious this person is excommunicating people from his Church of Real Anarchy, like, get the fuck outta here with your bullshit
  
  what year are you in? Are people still offline irl when you are?
  The self-described anarchists who engage in actual work tend to be better informed and know what anarchism is and organize accordingly. Most people who self-label as anarchkst on the internet do nothing at all outside of comment and post. They also don't read, not even about anarchism. They are not anarchists, they are left liberals that confuse each other and the wider public online.
  Occasionally they do pop up in organizing spaces, usually as new members. They are the ones wasting time trying to make an anarchist org "more horizontal" by which they mean "I get to be on every committee and speak for 20 minutes at every meeting". I cannot tell you how many times my anarchist comrades have had to explain the difference between (situationally) just and unjust hierarchy to such folks.