Dear rabble readers,
A few months ago, whilst having a casual catch-up with my twenty-year old brother, he suddenly started reciting some far-right xenophobic rhetoric. Astounded, I caught my breath to ask him, where on earth have you heard this? He answered: TikTok.
I quickly deep dived into this realm of the online news cycle, attempting to understand how he’d been exposed to such extremism. The messaging was concerningly easy to find.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised—after all, we are in the age of (dis)information. The sheer volume of news that the average internet-using person consumes each day can easily make it difficult to filter out truth from fabrication. And those behind political extremism know this.
We see it all across the globe. In the UK, the far-right Reform UK party boasts more TikTok followers than all other political parties in the country combined—a worrying statistic that has in no doubt contributed to their claim of around 25 per cent of the population’s voting intention in recent polls. The same goes for Alternative für Deutschland, Germany’s radical nationalist party, who have used TikTok extensively in their campaigning. And then of course, you have the US, where the official social media pages for The White House and Homeland Security are busy meme-ifying mass deportations and making light of a truly dark political climate.
In all honesty, this is an undeniably efficient method. The deliberate attempt to manipulate a highly impressionable audience works, and it works well. Misinformation thrives off of media illiteracy. It trivializes and normalizes far-right, violent ideas to the point when previously un-radicalized people are sleepwalking into fascist ideology.
Or, if misinformation isn’t manufactured for political gain, it’s done for profit.
A sad reality in the news industry is the ubiquity of fast, cheap content designed to capture attention by any means necessary. Clickbait, ragebait, sensationalism. Whatever you want to call it—it’s all in aim of cutting costs and boosting clicks. Bye bye journalistic integrity.
All of this is why we need independent media like rabble. No matter how challenging it may be for smaller news outlets like us to compete with corporate-backed legacy media or billionaire-controlled social media algorithms, our team remains committed to giving you the facts. You can rely on us to deliver thoughtful journalism that speaks truth to power, always.
But to do this we need your help.
Our readers are our lifeline, and we know that you care as deeply as we do about getting the truth out. So, this summer, support us in whatever way possible. Donate whatever you can. Share our news with the people in your life. Tell your younger relatives to log off X and start reading rabble.
For news you can trust, support rabble.ca today.
In solidarity,
Mads Bayliss
Administrative assistant at rabble.ca
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