Tech libertarianism & the rise of white supremacists online
our picks from last month around the web
our fave long(er) reads:
If I was an evil techbro...
by
What it’s asking: What if this Substack Nazi shit is all part of their plan... and not in the way we've all been worrying about?
Favorite quote:
A friend of mine in academia said something to me last week that was totally unrelated to this “Substack has a Nazi problem” topic that I began to realize is probably related after all. He basically said that he was taking his academic research into the corporate realm because unlike academia with its rigorous standards that just slow the process of research down while you are made to comply with tedious bottlenecks like “consent” and “ethics” rules, there are no such barriers on the business R&D side because it's not considered experimenting anymore, it's just marketing research. And marketing research doesn't have to concern itself with pesky roadblocks like consent and ethics.
On Substack Nazis, laissez-faire tech regulation, and mouse-poop-in-cereal-boxes
by
What it’s asking: What role does tech libertarianism play in the rise of white supremacist rhetoric on digital platforms?
Favorite quote:
This is why every tech CEO loves the libertarian approach to speech issues. Tech libertarianism holds that someone else (or no one at all) should expend resources on setting and enforcing boundaries for how your product is used. The essence of the position is “I shouldn’t have to spend money on any of this. And I shouldn’t ever face negative consequences for not spending money on this.”
There Aren’t Too Many Endings in ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’
by Kyle Wilson
What it’s asking: Is 27 minutes really too long to ask to wrap up a 12 hour epic?
Favorite quote:
To spend such time on the torturous burden of this object and end with its mere destruction and the coronation of Middle-earth’s new king would be a betrayal of the audience, and of the source material. For as much as the dissolution of the Ring brings a grand finale to this epic spectacle of fantasy, it’s these last 27 minutes that hammer home the film’s principal theme: How do we move on?
Shaun King’s history of ‘disruptive claims’ and why it matters to the modern civil rights movement
by: Madelyn Gee
What it’s asking: How does Shaun King use the current environment of digital activism to platform himself–and what is it doing for activist movements as a whole when we engage?
Favorite quote:
King was also called out by activists back in 2019 for his alleged “mishandling” of fundraising in the case of Jazmine Barnes (who was killed in 2021 at seven years old in a drive-by shooting) and not following through on promised rewards. Instead of taking the criticism, he threatened legal action towards the “young, Black and, in at least two cases, queer writers and activists,” Meagan Flynn wrote in the 2019 Washington Post article about the matter.
our picks from instagram:
Palestinian accounts to follow: queersinpalestine, byplestia, wizard_bisan1, hindkhoudary, and motaz_azaiza
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