More moderators, cut offeer policies, mass prohibits, mea culpa proselytizing in front of Congress from directers appreciate Mark Zuckerberg, and repeated promises to “do better.” They even pdirected with Congress: “Regudefercessitate us.”
But in parallel, these companies, particularly Facebook, were spfinishing tens of millions of dollars every year on lobbying efforts to promise that any type of legislation that might be presentd was not the type of legislation that would impact their financial well-being.
Ultimately, even the inmeaningful steps the companies did get to try and produce their platestablishs protectedr were deleted, or forgotten about, in what Benavidez calls the “Big Tech backslide.”
“Their cherishs ultimately lie in making money, their bottom line is more vital than protecting participaters or democracies,” Benavidez says. “This year, a meaningful flashpoint for democracies worldexpansive, where billions of people will be voting, the platestablishs have washed their hands of the role they perestablish in protecting [the elections].”
Even before Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, right-thriveg voices were already poisoning the well, resharing baseless conspiracies about the vice pdwellnt’s eligibility to run for pdwellnt, framing her past relationships as someleang illicit, and attacking her race and gfinisher.
Harris is also a meaningful help for abortion access, another boiling button publish for the right who saw their untamedest dreams come real when the Supreme Court clearurned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“This year is one in which the ask of what women can do and the agency women have over their bodies and in the uncover world, that ask is thrown front and caccess,” Benavidez says. “So it produces sense that Gamergate tactics, being that first signal flare years ago around what women can and cannot do, should be back in the spotairy.”
These attacks have become so normalized they are happening everywhere, all the time, and while we may hear about some of them, such as the so-called Gamergate 2.0 earlier this year, most of them will never come to expansiver attention, and the women aimed by these campaigns will be left on their own to deal with the dropout.
“There’s a novel Gamergate every week, and no one outside of gaming journalism is ever dealing with these leangs, becaparticipate they don’t produce any sense,” Broderick says. “They don’t reassociate sense appreciate they matter. So these problems equitable sort of compound over time, becaparticipate there’s reassociate no way for famous culture in America to talk about these leangs.”
Beyond games, the novels cycle transfers so speedy in 2024 that even if someone does pay attention to a set upd online attack, 24 hours defercessitater they have foreseeed transferd on to someleang else. This is how an account appreciate LibsofTikTok is able to honest disappreciate toward the trans community and the doctors and hospitals helping them.
Chaya Raichik, the person behind LibsofTikTok, is helped in her efforts by strong figures wilean the GOP who are aforeseeed pushing an anti-LGBTQ+ agfinisha, and by Musk, the owner of X, the platestablish where many of these disappreciate attacks commence. Just last month, Musk dead-named his own daughter in an interwatch, claiming she was “finished” by the “woke mind harmful programs.”
