While Telegram has plenty of channels and groups dedicated to apolitical subjects like Bollywood movies and Miami’s tech scene, it has proven particularly well suited to activism. Its blend of private messaging and public channels makes it a perfect organizing tool: ideal for evangelizing in public and then plotting in secret. “I call it the one-two punch,” says Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University in North Carolina who studies Telegram. “You can do both propaganda and planning on the same app.”
Oh no, not organizing! Basically as long as the right people organize on the platform it’s ok. This is western freedom of speech in a nutshell. People are free to say whatever they like as long as it doesn’t actually challenge the system.
The reason western propagandists were able to push the whole freedom of speech narrative is because life in the west used to be better than the rest of the world. Now that material conditions in the west are declining, people are starting to become angry at their governments. This is a big problem for western state propagandists, because all of a sudden people are exercising their free speech in a way that challenges the system.
People have been guzzling this kool aid all their lives, and now they’re seeing that you can’t just challenge the government the way you’ve been told that you could. They’re seeing the veneer of democracy peeling off.
Please do not post links to sites that do not give full article without at least giving an alternative link in the comment with a FULL ARTICLE.
Uhm, I’ve been able to access the full article no problem when it was published. I guess they paywalled it later. I will add the archived article link
Relevant discussion courtesy a cat and me https://lemmy.ml/post/61839/comment/51884
