As anyone who remembers the 90s/00s can remember, the internet was supposed to liberate us. Free access to information meant everyone would be educated and informed, and able to freely communicate and organize.
That’s not what happened. Corporations turned it into a tool of oppression. Technology has never and will never save us from capitalism on its own. Since the early 1900s we’ve been capable of providing food, housing, and medical care to everyone but we don’t. Technology cannot change that.
Social media is a particularly vile tool. It allows corporations to totally shape the reality of people who use it. To the point where people are so divided it’s all but impossible to oppose the government.
Decentralized social media might be better, at least for now. But it’s still removing the human element from our lives. Instead of talking to each other we create little echo chambers for ourselves. The Fediverse will not fix that.
The only real solution is to reject social media entirely. Which was happening, but now I fear decentralized social media is pulling people back in.
Could be, not would be. They still can be. But they won’t be.
No the people turned it into a tool of distraction from the pain of life using the tools corporations were happy to provide.
Capitalism isn’t the reason that free access to information hasn’t educated and informed everyone. Exactly the same indifference to education and organisation would exist in the absence of capitalism. The limitation isn’t capitalism, the limitation is the suffering that life necessarily implies. In the face of relentless suffering, most people are not motivated to learn beyond what’s necessary to survive.