My mind works in odd ways. I know of few people who can find the late Nelson Mandela and World Wrestling Entertainment star Jeff Hardy equally admirable, and be able to explain what they have in common.
So when fans of my high school alma mater got to complaining about how local media rarely covers their American Football games, and I read about the Facebook purge, I realized that both problems may have the same solution. I'll be getting to that.
Some reading of social media on the purge revealed that a lot of the targeted sites were in what might be called "Police Accountability". Since Ferguson, many sites have appeared dedicated to monitoring police officers. There has even been reference to a "Ferguson Effect", where police are afraid to do their jobs lest they be caught on camera. Police server the community, or at least they're supposed to; in my opinion, the community has every right, within reason, to scrutinize those who claim to "protect and serve".
This may only be the beginning, though. I could see the Facebook pages for groups like One People's Project, one of America's major Anti-Fascist sites being shut down, or media outlets like It's Going Down or Unicorn Riot. This could spread to other networks as well; as Twitter and YouTube may follow suit.
So where are these groups to go. One logical place are sites like SteemIt or Minds. However, these sites seem to be full of the type of authoritarians that CopBlock and One People's Project are opposed to. They may be good ways to find folks to gather intelligence on for potential doxxings, but any information may simply be drowned out in din of memes.
A better solution may be along the lines of what I'd like to see my high school do. Set up their own network. In the case of my high school, I mean create a streaming site where the students would "broadcast" the games. It would be a great way to bring some STEM; science, technology, engineering and math, to my predominately African-American alma mater.
But how could this be extended to a police accountability network, or to AntiFa? A tool like Mastadon could be used to create local instances that could communicate with each other. A police accountability project in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania could be in contact with similar groups in Baltimore, Maryland, etc. Videos and pictures could be shared, and actions be planned.
The saying goes, "Don't like the media, become the media". Why not do the same for social media?
