There’s a chance that your #TBT post this week might get a few less likes than you’re used to. Well, that’s if Wikipedia co-founder Dr Larry Sanger has his way. Throughout June, Sanger has been ramping-up his anti big social media rhetoric crescendoing in his recent call for a strike of all social media platforms for 48 hours.
After testing the water with his twitter following earlier in the month, Sanger took to Change.org to spread #SocialMediaStrike. From there, the movement has started to pick up some support with Sanger speaking with Fox host Tucker Carlson for an interview soon after the announcement.
Sanger’s motive behind the strike is to send a message to the social media giants that the people want change.
Sanger also wants to take things further, adding his voice to those calling for a decentralised social media platform, that is, a direct peer-to-peer platform as opposed to one mediated by a private organisation. Basically, how things were in the wild, wild web days of the 90s.
Along with the strike, Sanger has also shared a Declaration Of Digital Independence, which he urges all strikers to sign.
A noble cause, for sure, but as always theres more to the story; an arch that is very relevant to Australia, as we fumble our way through the current debate surrounding Israel Folau and his social media statements declaring homosexuals will go to hell, and his subsequent firing from Rugby Australia.
While you’d be hard pressed to find any social media users who are thrilled with the current landscape; it’s fairly obvious a small number of organisations shouldn’t hold so much power over society, plus there’s the whole selling off user data nonsense, Sanger’s movement feels wrong, largely on account of his issue with social media platforms cracking down on hate speech.
In a previous blog post titled Why should we have more restrictions on “harmful” speech on social media? and addressed to his “liberal and progressive friends”, Sanger discusses his issue with social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter banning accounts who they deemed to express hate speech.
Of course, the majority of those accounts belong to conservatives or right-wing leaning people.
The strike may raise valid concerns about users ability to retain their own data, but there’s a strong background radiation of self-victimisation. In the blog post, Sanger seemed to display a willing ignorance on why hate speech is an issue and while he appears to attempt to open up a dialogue with his “liberal and progressive friends” the questions seem tainted, manipulative and in bad faith.
At the time of publish, 1,294 people has signed the petition. Should all of them actually commit, the big social media companies will hardly notice. It’s safe to say that most people who took issue with them have already logged off.
That’s far from critical mass, but in a world where conservatives often surprise with their ability to show up, it’s going to be an interesting few days to see who sympathises with Sanger’s cause.
