This is a pretty bullshit way to talk about protests, Feedly 😒 We like free speech, remember? This framing centers the small minority of protesters who damage property.
@tracydurnell I wish more people would punch up at those privileged few making the decisions than blaming immigrants. Good on them, is what I say.
@tracydurnell What am I missing? What's wrong with tracking a business threat? Are you assuming that the tracker will then escalate to suppression of free speech?
@ReaderJohn It's fine for business owners to care about their property, but I am unhappy with Feedly's framing of protests. Their marketing team said "how can we springboard off current events to promote our products?" and decided that the most important news to talk about was protests, and that they should focus on the property damage risk of protests.
But, two of the sample posts listed are about workers going on strike, the other is a boycott. Picketing is very different than a riot, with a very low risk of property damage (and boycotters just stay home so there is no risk). It feels like scaremongering for Feedly to focus on property damage given the actual content.
The way headlines are worded is important because it shapes how we think about events. The vast majority of protesters do not damage things, but the story often focuses on the handful of people who do rather than the tens of thousands who didn't. That misrepresents the truth and the risk.
If we always associate workers striking and protesters demanding accountability with property damage, that can erode public support for organized labor and human rights protests. It is a way of dismissing the (often valid) complaints of the people exercising their freedom of speech. It distracts from their message by focusing on the priorities of those who hold the power and the maintenance of the status quo. It casts protests as something to be endured rather than an expression of society's wishes or a catalyst for change.
@tracydurnell Interesting that the original post that sparked all this off seems to have been removed by Feedly ...
https://blog.feedly.com/how-to-track-protests-in-your-market-with-feedly-ai/
A more populated thread on this topic for those with interest
@tracydurnell I was unaware when I asked the question that the unrest in mind was organized labor-related. I'm still unoffended, but your objection now makes sense to me.
@JohnPhilpin thanks for sharing! Yeah, it's actually worse than I originally thought, I didn't realize they'd built a special tool specifically for protest surveillance, I'd assumed they just used that as marketing copy for a product that could follow a variety of topics 😳😬 The CEO's explanation is semi plausible, though if accurate they should probably fire their marketing team because they shouldn't be so totally oblivious to the ways people would interpret their wording. I'm super not thrilled with them lumping strikes and riots together. My dad's union got locked out when I was in middle school so I'm pretty sensitive to anti-labor tactics.
@tracydurnell Viewed from a very great distance, The US appears to have extremely poor work conditions, along with a history of pernicious subverting of trade unions ('Change my mind', as they say on Reddit). I'm very concerned about this Feedly post because it's the tip of the massive surveillance iceberg. We all know it's happening, though it's convenient to ignore it. But not when they throw it in our faces.
@writingslowly agreed -- it seemed like workers made a little bit of progress during the pandemic but now companies are cracking down, reminding workers who's in charge. Here in Seattle, Amazon just laid off a bunch of people, flooding the market with job seekers (along with Microsoft and Meta's layoffs), then told everyone who was left they'd need to be in the office three days a week -- if they lived too far away to commute they'd need to move or quit.
@tracydurnell
Misconstruing words and intentions is an integral tool for fascists, reflected in the importance of ‘doublethink’ in Orwell’s 1984. Here, a powerful politician pretends not to be aware of the difference between a peaceful protest and an insurrection. With his comparison, he equates using a megaphone and peacefully occupying a space (potentially on recess?) with showing up at the nation’s capital with weapons and zipties while calling for the head of the politician charged with peacefully transferring power from one elected leader to the next. The silenced, disenfranchised populace making themselves heard by the politicians theoretically representing them (but not due to horrendous gerrymandering) are equivalent to a lynch mob seeking to subvert the will of the people by blocking execution of electoral results. At once, he is dismissing the validity of protest and making protest out to be more dangerous than it is. Casting protest as something alarming rather than a very American exercise of First Amendment rights — particularly when led by two young Black men.
(This is the perspective that makes Feedly’s new AI tool lumping together protests and riots alarming.)
Having conflated a minor rules violation with a treasonous attack, he could justify subverting democratic representation by casting out the troublemakers under the guise of decorum. He can claim to be on the side of democracy by dismissing the democratic tactic of protest as disruptive to the legislative process of “representative” democracy, and may righteously return to ignoring gun control now that he has invalidated the protestors and distracted from the purpose of their protest.