This is, predictably, the only thing that could've been done: because the redditors aren't doing anything (technically) illegal, merely upsetting the social balance of power, the only power that can be exercised is the power over the platforms that enable their action. (1/n) https://twitter.com/motherboard/status/1354797875969064960

What should be noted, and what anyone who studies internet communities will tell you, is that the thing we should be paying attention to is the dramatic difference between how platforms reacted to WSB and how they reacted to white supremacist terrorists organizing. (2/n)

WSB's subreddit and the platforms they've relied on to execute their action were both limited within 72 hours of their action picking up steam and causing real problems for the power majority. That is, the speed with which the hammer came down on WSB is unprecedented. (3/n)

In contrast, r/thedonald and white supremacist terrorist accounts across this platform, facebook, and reddit have been allowed to languish for years, despite documentation of the violence they've incited and directed at marginalized people, and this was before Jan 6. (4/n)

And even the exercise of platform based power over those who organized and directed Jan 6. was met with pushback and outcry over the supposed "censorship" and "silencing" of the participants, yet the same people who are concerned about "free speech" have said nothing here. (5/n)

It's almost as if "free speech" concerns online are only leveraged in support of the powerful, or those who align with their interests, and not generally. Otherwise, we might see folks rallying to restore the ability to trade on robinhood and other such platforms. (6/n)

Put simply, what we should learn from this is not something about reddit or redditors, we've known about this. Rather, we should learn from this something about the exercise of control over online platforms, when it is deployed, and against whom, and for what reason. (7/n)

More importantly, we should learn that most news media and most political actors know fuck all about the intersections of our technosocial culture, and are largely operating from ignorance when they attempt regulation or other mechanisms of control. (8/n)

Which basically means that the folks in charge, the folks responsible for organizing our society, don't know what the fuck they're doing re: legislation or other mechanisms to deal with our technosocial culture, and its encroach upon all aspects of our lives. (9/n)

Nor are they interested in learning how these things function. That being said, until these folks actually learn something (or folks who know what they're doing are allowed to advise or run things), we're going to continue to have things like WSB and Jan 6. (10/n)

Which is not to say that Jan 6. and WSB are the same thing: it is to say that they are both products of a technosocial culture that our politicians barely understand and are attempting to legislate from a position of ignorance.

In short: we're fucked. (fin)