Social networking radically increases the...
- pace (in aggregate, it radically lowers the latency of communication)
- bandwidth (the amount of information conveyed per minute), and
- scale (number of simultaneous conversations + one to many broadcasting)
of communication beyond all historical measurements. Simply, this change is rewiring us. Not only that, with Facebook already at over 2 billion daily users, it is rewiring us all at once.
This isn't a voluntary change. It doesn't matter if you aren't connected when nearly everyone else is. Moreover, we can already see the results of this new wiring. The most obvious is the constant drumbeat of political chaos all around us. Social networking is is shattering the fictive kinship (our center of gravity) that allows us to operate as a cohesive country.
Not only that, it has created the opportunity for new forms of authoritarianism to emerge online. An authoritarianism that threatens to usher in a long night of repression and darkness. So far, I've identified three authoritarian movements (significant departures from the forms we've seen in the past), each dangerous in their own way:
- An open source insurgency,
- a socially networked orthodoxy, and
- an algorithmic lockdown.
The best way to understand these movements is to dive into how they wage war and exercise power.
Sincerely,
John Robb
PS: This is the topic of December's Global Guerrilla Report. Hope you'll join me. BTW: November's GG Report on Reflexive Control is out. It demonstrates how primed the US is for authoritarianism. It surprised me when I wrote it (always a good sign of a great report).
PPS: I'm going to publish a podcast or two for patrons in December. Should be fun.