Re: <nettime> The fascist occupation of downtown Ottawa

[carlo von lynX <lynX@time.to.get.psyced.org>]

Hurts me to hear of your reports. This madness is happening in
nearly all countries, binding well-meaning people to the wrong
leaders, at different degrees of threat to the physical vicinity
or even the remainders of democracy.

On Wed, Feb 02, 2022 at 06:32:06PM +0000, Alessandro Delfanti wrote:
>                               The People's Party of Canada (PPC) was
> started only a few years back on a Trumpian nationalist agenda. It
> got less than 5% of the vote in the federal elections last
> September, but is now polling above 10%. It is 100% invested in the
> fight against public health regulations and vaccines.
> [...] 
>                      we have seen polls (for what they are worth)
> showing 30% of the population are in support of the "truckers".

10% ... 30% ...!!!

Why didn't these kind of things actually happen in previous decades?
Why is it all happening now? Is it all just because of covid, or is
it because the Internet has turned into the ultimate mass manipulation
tool the fascists never had before?

Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but I think we need to
regulate this much better than a NetzDG or Digital Services Act.
We need to understand the sociology and psychology behind how the
manipulation works. How the "public space" as coined by Habermas
has been torn down by moderated chatrooms and forums where the
moderator gets to decide what the apparent truth should be. And
how these chatrooms can scale up to let very few people decide
what their truth shall be for millions of casual visitors.

We are letting a high percentage figure of the population turn
into manipulated proto-fascist covidiots. Should we shut down
such chatrooms, or should we find a technological way to enforce
the "public space" principle of Habermas, ensuring fair and open
fact-based and democratic discourse on all chat systems and
forums on the Internet?

If you look at the previous mail I wrote about platforms (in the
Varoufakis thread), taking such a next step to enforce democracy
on the Internet isn't actually completely absurd. I have some
ideas in that regard, and you may have some, too.

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