META to ban “Z” Word as “Anti-Semitic”? This Could Harm Efforts – and An Argument to Build New Tools
See WaPo report at this link – unless you get paywalled!
The potential of this decision could bring a hammer down on Insta based support efforts. This is not to be over alarmist because what exactly is going on needs to be clariified. Insta provides tools that are definitely helpful to organizing and they have been used effectively to struggle against genocide. There are other limitations of the tool but Insta is certainly a necessary evil for the struggle right now – especially for all of the work and support being facilitated there.
But if indeed this suggestion were to occur it could and likely would make continuing this work on Insta – a META platform – either impossible or like trying to organize on top of a glass roof. It will definitely be confounded.
I do not know enough to discern what exactly is going to happen and how deleterious it will be to the Insta facilitation but I will offer the following:
Nothing like that can or will happen to FightBackBetter.com. All of the information that is being sourced in Insta can be platformed on FightBackBetter – much of it is already there and indexed.
I am trying to operate parallel to the Insta network in FightBackBetter facility – sourcing all of the postings to the Insta sources – a portal. It does seem like it can help with news generation, there are some beginning indications of that. For example if your event is posted at FightBackBetter you can basically use it as a press release – refer the reporter to our link to whet their appetite on the story and to show that some of the reporting work has been done for them.
I would like to ask for help if you have a set of slides ready for an Insta posting – you let me know where they are or send them my way as well. I would like to give folks direct access to enter their own postings but its a hard sell initially since folks are primarily using Insta for the primary means to organize – though there are WhatsApp as well as Discord and likely other means.
All of it is good as well as Insta – it is amazing what has been done with Instagram. I am always frustrated because I am trying to get people interested in a forward facing news site and there is not an easy way to embed links – so Insta keeps folks caged from jumping out easily. That to me serves no useful purpose to organizing – we need to be able to easily move from one connection to another.
Even if you click a link from a message – frigging Insta asks you “Are you sure you want to leave Instagram?” – like there is great danger out there.
I am not suggesting though that anyone stop doing things that they are doing but I am suggesting that you might need a back up plan and the good news is FigthBackBetter already is serving that purpose – it does not have everything out there featured yet – but it is getting there. With a little help in providing the content and even helping to get some of it entered – it could easily get into the 90% range of full coverage.
Another advantage of FightBackBetter – at least when it comes to checking on activities is that the indexing is conducive to organizing. So in theory folks can spend less time looking around Insta for detail – since the menu structure can help you get the information quickly.
So keep an eye on this and maybe give me a little bit of a hand building this resource so if Meta becomes impenetrable for us – we have a place where we do not have to worry about that issue AT ALL!
And meanwhile – use the site and see if it helps you.
And I did get this message from Facebook today coincidentally – I have no idea what piece of content they are referencing to though – Zionism is a thing that comes up when discussing the news of Palestine support in NJ.
To repost on twitter:
META to ban “Z” Word as “Anti-Semitic”? This Could Harm Efforts – and An Argument to Build New Tools
The potential of this decision could bring a hammer down on Insta based support efforts.https://t.co/i9AFjEZShI pic.twitter.com/V9IRDlcLdl— FightBackBetter (@fightbackbettr) February 10, 2024
