"There is politics before the internet, and politics after the internet. Liberals are floundering, the right are flourishing, and what of the left? Well, it's in a dire state. This is despite the fact that the key political problems of the last decade rising inequality and a cost of living crisis are problems leftists claim they can solve. The trouble is, reactionaries and rightwingers steal their thunder online, quickly spreading messaging that blames scapegoats for structural problems."
"Back when Twitter was still the town square and Facebook a humble social network, progressives had an advantage: from the Arab spring to Occupy Wall Street, voices excluded from mainstream media and politics could leverage online social networks and turn them into real-life ones, which at their most potent became street-level protests that toppled regimes and held capitalism to account."
Politics shifted dramatically with the rise of the internet, producing a landscape where liberals falter, the right expands influence, and the left struggles despite claiming solutions to inequality and cost-of-living crises. Reactionaries and rightwing actors rapidly propagate scapegoating narratives online, capturing attention and undermining structural critiques. Social media originally enabled excluded voices to mobilize into real-world movements and hold power to account. Platform design pivoted from limited friend/follower feeds to algorithmic recommendation and short-form virality, removing natural engagement caps. These changes allow small creators to reach massive audiences and have been exploited to amplify far-right and reactionary messaging.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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