It's not just "fake news" or just crude propaganda. It's something more subtle and more dangerous:
It is the art of making the exploited end up defending the exploiters.
It is to numb our class consciousness so that, instead of uniting against the exploitative system, we fight amongst ourselves for a few crumbs.
The bourgeoisie no longer needs to censor exclusively with bayonets. It suffices for them to shape what we feel, what we see, what we believe is possible. And for that, they use science, data, and above all: the platforms we use every day.
Networks are not neutral: they are factories of meaning.
If the owner of any factory decides what is produced, how, and for whom... why would it be any different with digital platforms?
The algorithm is not an impartial device: it is a social relationship crystallized in code. Its job is to keep us hooked, not well-informed.
Your attention is their raw material: every like, every scroll, every minute on screen generates value for them. We all work for free so they can gain money and power.
Polarization is at the heart of the business: if we are divided, angry, and confused, we cannot organize. And if we cannot organize, the system will remain unchanged.
Class consciousness does not "appear" on its own.
Lenin stated it clearly: revolutionary consciousness does not arise spontaneously from discontent. It requires study, organization, and political leadership.
Today, the digital environment makes that transition more difficult:
- It shows you a thousand injustices, but it takes away the tools to understand their common root: capital.
- It invites you to "activate" with a click, but it distances you from collective, radical, strategic construction. It offers you fragmented identities ("I am from this side", "I hate that group") so that you forget the fundamental belonging: we are the working class.
And what about the "zone of proximal development"? Is it useful to us?
Vygotsky spoke of how we learn with the help of more expert individuals. In revolutionary terms, this translates as follows: The gap between what we understand today and what we need to understand to transform reality is not crossed alone. It is crossed through organization, with theory, with practice, with colleagues who lend us a hand.
The problem is that today, on social media, the "expert" who guides you is not a trained professional who challenges the system, but an algorithm designed to sell you something or mislead you.
But be aware: the tool doesn't have the final say. What matters is who controls it and for what purpose.
- Under bourgeois leadership: platforms fragment us, tire us, adapt us.
- Under popular direction: they can serve to connect struggles, share analysis, organize actions.
Technology is not the enemy. Capitalism is.
So what do we do?
Simply "disconnecting" isn't enough. The battle is for awareness, and that's where we need to be. Some key points:
- Study to avoid being manipulated: read, discuss, train cadres. Theory is not a luxury: it is a weapon.
- Organize, don't just voice opinions: indignation without strategy is fleeting. Let's defend our real structures: unions, assemblies, the party.
- Contest the means of "mental production": let's not allow platforms to be just enemy territory. Let's create counter-information, popular networks, and revolutionary digital pedagogy.
- Uniting struggles without erasing differences: the cognitive war wants us to be pitted against each other (worker vs. migrant, woman vs. man, urban vs. rural, white vs. black). Our real strength lies in anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist articulation.
