The Capitalist Capture of the Anti Caste Internet

Ever  since the Arab spring erupted in Egypt and its  neighbouring countries, the victory of democracy was touted as possible only because of the internet revolution, which at that time was the role of twitter in acting as an alternative form of Media, which had little or no control of the dictatorial regimes in the Middle East.

The message it sent across was that newage social media is the solution to the social injustice prevalent in non-western societies.

At that time, even Facebook shifted from a photo-sharing website to a powerhouse of debates and discussions, which promised an escape from the mainstream media

Slowly advertising and marketing took hold of these social media giants and the  promise of offering a voice to the voiceless turned into a ruthless

‘market-pace of ideas’, where the more u can advertise and  sell yourself, the more is  the worth of your opinion. There was no place left for organic thoughts, but just a capitalistic battle of advertising and marketing

These social media giants started becoming monopolistic  and captured the attention of the people to advertise incessantly.

The bait that was set, to sell democratic platforms to give voice to social justice, was successful and, the well meaning pursuit of social  justice rolled backwards into a somersault , into a highly capitalistic notion of selling your own self  creating a brand out of your own selves. This idea of selling your own self pitted  every individual against each other into the realm governed by market ideology, the more you can advertise, the more is your revenue, the more your revenue, more the worth of the opinion you have, which you can use as a means for propaganda to your own niche audiences These social media platforms turned into large-scale advertising monopolies, which now dictate and even fraudulently influence their users for or against anything, totally based on the fact, that whatever generates more advertisement will generate more revenue, so they started selling themselves to whoever could be the highest bidder, be it Donald Trump in USA or Narendra Modi and the BJP in India. It was now all about advertising and generating revenue, and further use it to indoctrinate social media users for or against a certain ideology. Again, there was no place left for meaningful discourse, and what mattered was, how much money you can create, which you can use to further increase advertising revenue, And in doing so,  you stuck to pay allegiance to anyone who can pour in or provide you enough capital

This was pretty much similar to the 1970’s  Pepsi’s advertising commercials, which promised  anti-racist gestures and a commitment to the civil rights movement, to brand itself against coca cola’s market share.

This is what has happened with the Anti-Caste world too. The hollow promise of fighting for social justice  against caste has been captured by the market forces. It doesn’t matter, what your niche market reach is, it could be  mushrooming of new age anti-caste you tube channels, blog websites or for that matter instagram influencers who promise you a commitment to the cause of social justice.

The idea was never about a well meaning policy, but more about capturing the attention of its niche users and sustaining within the advertising model of technofeudalist giants like Meta (Facebook).

There came websites run by NGOs powered by academic cheerleaders run by academics who sought a new place in the highly saturated social science academic world, which often talked about and showcased atrocities against Dalits, Muslims or other marginalized identities.

There came instagram influencers, who promised a commitment to their community.

There came YouTube channels which specifically catered to atrocities against Dalits and discourse centred there upon and created their user base, just so to earn revenue from the advertising model of these techno feudalist MNCs.

The more you can sell your ideas aggressively through  advertising the more you can create a place amongst your niche audience.

Although, it is the anti caste realm, I am referring to here, this is not limited to this world. This is just a limited fraction of the entire marketplace of ideas, which has something to everything for someone to everyone belonging to any social identity or ideological location.

In short, the well meaning discourse of social justice saw a gradual death and re-incarnated itself as a model based on market preferences governed by algorithms generated and pushed by techno feudalist giants.