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Title: The Importance of Print Media Author: CrimethInc. Date: August 8, 2019 Language: en Topics: alternative media, censorship Source: Retrieved on 17th June 2021 from https://crimethinc.com/2019/08/08/the-importance-of-print-media-and-the-digital-censorship-to-come
In a time when digital media is the dominant form of communication, we
remain passionately committed to print media and other forms of
communication that intervene in the offline world. It is catastrophic
that massive technology companies control so many of the channels
through which we communicate with one another. While we acknowledge the
importance of utilizing these channels, we recognize that it puts us in
an extremely vulnerable position to depend on state-regulated capitalist
institutions for our access to each other.
Already this year, we’ve seen several of our posts removed from social
media sites on the pretext that the material violated their content
policies. Across the board, these content policies are hypocritical and
incoherent—for example, providers claiming to prohibit advocacy of
“violence” yet gladly providing a venue for the US military, among the
most murderous and destructive institutions in human history. Obviously,
we shed no tears when sites like The Daily Stormer and 8chan are refused
a platform via which to recruit white supremacists. We believe that no
one should be under any obligation to provide services to racists or
other advocates of oppression. But while we celebrate the digital
de-platforming of the far right, history shows us that the next thing
that will happen is that these tactics will be used against those who
challenge the state and capitalism in favor of genuine liberation.
As a general principle, top-down control of communications
infrastructure is chiefly useful for maintaining the status quo. The
precedents set for de-platforming those who are trying to change things
for the worse will also be used against anyone who wants to change
things for the better. The vast majority of the agenda of the far right
does not conflict with the hypocritical content policies of our digital
overlords: they don’t consider it “advocacy of violence” to campaign for
more state violence against immigrants, for example. If, indeed, those
who seek liberation from capitalism and the state are the next to be
de-platformed, the resulting vacuum will make it easier, if anything,
for authoritarians whose proposals fall within the confines of those
content policies to present themselves to the general public as the only
ones who have any sort of proposals for social change whatsoever.
As fascists shift their attention from maintaining their own publishing
efforts to trying to force those who hold corporate and state power to
shut down ours, we can expect more and more repressive clampdowns in the
future. There are many things we can do to push back against this. We
have to do everything in our power to popularize our perspectives, while
de-legitimizing capitalism, the state, and anyone who would like to make
it impossible to speak freely about radical social change.
One of the ways we can prepare for this sort of repression is to
continue to focus on print projects and other ways of communicating that
do not depend on digital media services. We have been a print project
from the very beginning. The first CrimethInc. projects took place
before the prevalence of digital communication. We collaborated by means
of the postal service and landline telephones. Even if one day we find
ourselves entirely banned from online activity, it would be impossible
for any corporation or government to track down and destroy every single
one of the hundreds of thousands of books we have distributed, or the
literally millions of posters and zines we have put into circulation.
We will continue to focus on print as a medium that is less vulnerable
to the whims of capitalist gatekeepers. But we can’t do this without
your help. While we produce books for sale, we also offer free digital
versions of zines and posters with the hope that you will print and
distribute them. If you have access to a printer, you are a
micro-publisher—you can spread these materials and anything else that
you consider important.
Likewise, you can order stickers from us and put them up whenever and
wherever, on every lamp post, in every bathroom. In a strictly legal
way, of course!