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I have *a lot* to say about tech platforms, but I don't have the right words to say all of them just yet. But the long and short of it is that social media was necessary in making today happen, but I don't just mean Twitter, Facebook, etc. The signs were all there.
What happened today wasn't purely just because these folks knew how to use social media better than the rest of us, it's also because the existing platforms lend power and direct support to their politics.
I've seen some folks say, "Why haven't leftists been able to organize like this?" And the reason is because there is no leftist-only platform the way that things like Parler, 8chan, etc. exist. This is not because leftists don't understand how to create websites of our own.
We have to talk about money, power, & access. It takes tremendous resources to run platforms. A lot of leftists simply don't have these means. But so much of the tech world directly funds White supremacists, the alt-right, neo-Nazis, and folks who sympathize with those politics.
What do I mean by this? Look at VCs like Peter Thiel and their politics. Look at how Google employed James Damore and still has people inside it who share those beliefs and get paid six-figures for it. *That's* access. *That's* money they can utilize to do what we saw today.
When these folks are themselves working on these tech platforms, yes these platforms become biased, but it's more than that. They gain skills and money they can use to support other projects, fund trips to DC, buy kevlar, etc.
The fact that we *know* Google has actively worked to prevent Black folks, trans folks, etc. from working there isn't just a culture problem. It's a way to control who gets access and material support. Tech work made today possible.
There's a reason why folks like the Black Panthers had to operate so much outside of the law. If there was a leftist-only counterpart to Parler, it would be stopped in its tracks immediately. There's a reason why leftists on Twitter get banned so easily, while Trump's still here.
A lot of folks are asking how this could have happened or why folks on the left don't have the same sorts of platforms for mobilizing. These takes miss the fact that it takes power and institutional support to make what we saw happen today happen.
Everything is connected. Advocating for these institutions to change directly affects the potency of these movements. When Milo was deplatformed, it had a very clear and very tangible difference on his ability to organize and draw attention to his work.
One of the things the Black Panthers knew they needed to do was figure out how to be self-sustaining. Part of self-determination is to own the platforms that you're using. They trained their own engineers. We don't hear about that as much as we should.
All this to say, we need folks with money and wealth to support others in the creation of leftist platforms. It's not enough to work within the system. We need to invest in long-term, sustainable anti-capitalist alternatives. That's step one.
By the way, one example of this was Nipsey Hussle supporting the tech architect Iddris Sandu. Iddris has been using the skills he's gained from the system to then step out of it and make his own platforms, his own architectures, his own operating systems. We need more of this.
This is only one example, but this is someone who's set up a blueprint for what working towards owning your own tech platforms looks like. But it doesn't happen outta thin air. Someone has to invest in us. And a lot of folks with money are simply not doing that.
