One of the interpretations advanced to explain the unexpected NO victory in the referendum is that the electoral preferences expressed on March 22nd and 23rd are the product of a network in which human will, interface architecture, and computing infrastructure operate in an inextricable, intertwined, and mutually dependent manner, capable of exceptional results. The logic of this system is geared toward producing highly arousing emotions and capturing the subjects' attention. The NO camp, according to this interpretation, would have benefited from the divisive, oppositional, and indignant demands that constituted its emotional underpinning, and which were more congenial to the dynamics of the algorithm.
With respect to this interpretation, it is worth considering that the architecture of the networks on which social media reside and the algorithms that make them function can be considered the structure of a sector, that of the communications industry, in which the mechanism of value production and surplus value extraction is analogous to that at work in manufacturing. We are therefore faced with a piece of the "structure" of society, which produces its effects on society's political and ideological "superstructure."
The capitalist mode of production cannot survive without continually revolutionizing the instruments of production, and therefore the relations of production, and therefore the entire set of social relations. Previous modes of production, on the other hand, were based on the preservation of the traditional mode of production. This incessant revolutionization of production brings with it the equally incessant upheaval of all social conditions, all the stable and rusty conditions of life, with their entourage of opinions and beliefs, made venerable by their persistence over time. Bourgeois society, therefore, presents itself as unstable and less capable than previous generations of maintaining the pyramidal structure of society. This instability is accentuated by the growing inability to valorize capital, ensuring income for the privileged classes based on the exploitation of the labor capacity of the vast majority of the population. The ongoing transformation of the means of production is particularly intense in the high-tech, communications, and information technology sectors, shaken by constant innovations in materials, equipment, and procedures.
Scientific literature recognizes the importance of search engines in orienting the human subjects who interact with them. Psychologist Robert Epstein has suggested, as early as 2015, that a search engine manipulation effect (SEME) exists. Epstein's experiments suggest that partisan search rankings can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more; The shift can be much higher in some demographic groups, and these rankings can be masked so that people are completely unaware of the manipulation.
These effects, which can even manipulate voting patterns, are facilitated by the transmission of highly emotional messages. Emotions such as amazement or awe, anger, moral indignation, fear, or pleasure at the misfortunes and humiliations of political rivals are stimulated by the algorithm and, in turn, stimulate the algorithm.
Based on these considerations, it is legitimate to believe that the algorithm played an important role in the NO victory in the referendum, just as it did, on another level, in the mobilizations following the Israeli military seizure of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which included several Italian citizens.
Conversely, we can offer some reflections.
The management of search engines by governments and large monopolistic groups makes them a powerful tool of social control, but their intrinsic instability, resulting from the constant revolution in information technology, infrastructure, and network protocols, makes them incapable of ensuring the long-term stability that is a prerequisite for social preservation. The same pursuit of maximum profit, which primarily motivates monopolistic groups, pushes them to convey popular and therefore potentially profitable demands, regardless of their consistency with the overall project.
Another consideration concerns epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. An epistemic bubble is a social structure that limits exposure to diverse information, leading individuals to receive only content that confirms their preexisting beliefs. This phenomenon is particularly prominent in social media. The echo chamber, in turn, is a closed communication space that arouses no interest in outsiders or rejects their input.
It remains to be seen whether these epistemic bubbles and echo chambers that would have favored the NO victory were born in response to the electoral message or whether they pre-existed and merely bounced this message. Naturally, this depends on the type of bubble. The WhatsApp or Telegram chat of such-and-such a collective obviously pre-exists the flow of information about the referendum, which penetrates it and provokes different reactions in participants. In this sense, the algorithm accelerates and amplifies aggregation, perhaps directing it, but does not generate it. To understand the genesis of these aggregations, we must step outside of virtual reality and return to analyzing social reality. Social movements originate in their contradictions, not in the architecture of computer networks.
The unusually high turnout in the referendum means that many people who did not participate in the last elections went to vote. We are witnessing a mass mobilization in defense of the constitution, or rather to bring down the Meloni government. We are therefore witnessing a form of mobilization comparable to that in support of the Flotilla, though obviously less confrontational. Both the Flotilla and the referendum are mobilizations whose themes, one is solidarity, the other freedom, albeit vaguely understood. This is as far as it gets from the immediate and visceral reactions catalyzed by the content that the digital architecture, designed for this, systematically rewards and amplifies.
A final consideration concerns the extent to which revolutionary movements, and anarchism in particular, can interact with search engines. For my part, I believe that the algorithm's operating mechanism is intrinsically incapable of performing any emancipatory function, understood as the ability to build collaborative relationships between subjects and develop critical attitudes toward the messages it conveys. In reality, the algorithm's functioning reproduces, in an updated manner, traditional government practices, which tend to keep the masses in a state of subjection.
The way in which some supporters of the "NO" front have presented their issues has often been crude, based on an emphasis on legality and the demonization of their opponents, especially those who supported abstentionism, branding them as objective allies of the right.
Social critique represents an essential element of a reconstruction of revolutionary subjectivity, outside and against the logic of domination. A critique that, by uncovering the mechanisms of exploitation and oppression, restores to the revolutionary subject the ability to understand, if not control, the explosive contradictions that shake bourgeois society. This critique must question authoritarian and violent practices within grassroots movements and organizations, starting with the toxic rhetoric that uses denigration of others as a tool to assert one's own views. But to do all this, as we have seen, the digital architecture of social media represents more of an obstacle than a help: we need to step outside of cyberspace, put our feet on the ground, and engage face-to-face with our social contacts.
Our goal is not to win a few more votes in the next elections; our goal is to build the forces and organizations to create a new society.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/vittoria-dellalgoritmo-reti-digitali-ed-attivismo-sociale/
_________________________________________
(en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #11-26 - Algorithm Victory? Digital Networks and Social Activism (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Date Mon, 11 May 2026 06:06:42 +0300One of the interpretations advanced to explain the unexpected NO victory in the referendum is that the electoral preferences expressed on March 22nd and 23rd are the product of a network in which human will, interface architecture, and computing infrastructure operate in an inextricable, intertwined, and mutually dependent manner, capable of exceptional results. The logic of this system is geared toward producing highly arousing emotions and capturing the subjects' attention. The NO camp, according to this interpretation, would have benefited from the divisive, oppositional, and indignant demands that constituted its emotional underpinning, and which were more congenial to the dynamics of the algorithm.
With respect to this interpretation, it is worth considering that the architecture of the networks on which social media reside and the algorithms that make them function can be considered the structure of a sector, that of the communications industry, in which the mechanism of value production and surplus value extraction is analogous to that at work in manufacturing. We are therefore faced with a piece of the "structure" of society, which produces its effects on society's political and ideological "superstructure."
The capitalist mode of production cannot survive without continually revolutionizing the instruments of production, and therefore the relations of production, and therefore the entire set of social relations. Previous modes of production, on the other hand, were based on the preservation of the traditional mode of production. This incessant revolutionization of production brings with it the equally incessant upheaval of all social conditions, all the stable and rusty conditions of life, with their entourage of opinions and beliefs, made venerable by their persistence over time. Bourgeois society, therefore, presents itself as unstable and less capable than previous generations of maintaining the pyramidal structure of society. This instability is accentuated by the growing inability to valorize capital, ensuring income for the privileged classes based on the exploitation of the labor capacity of the vast majority of the population. The ongoing transformation of the means of production is particularly intense in the high-tech, communications, and information technology sectors, shaken by constant innovations in materials, equipment, and procedures.
Scientific literature recognizes the importance of search engines in orienting the human subjects who interact with them. Psychologist Robert Epstein has suggested, as early as 2015, that a search engine manipulation effect (SEME) exists. Epstein's experiments suggest that partisan search rankings can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more; The shift can be much higher in some demographic groups, and these rankings can be masked so that people are completely unaware of the manipulation.
These effects, which can even manipulate voting patterns, are facilitated by the transmission of highly emotional messages. Emotions such as amazement or awe, anger, moral indignation, fear, or pleasure at the misfortunes and humiliations of political rivals are stimulated by the algorithm and, in turn, stimulate the algorithm.
Based on these considerations, it is legitimate to believe that the algorithm played an important role in the NO victory in the referendum, just as it did, on another level, in the mobilizations following the Israeli military seizure of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which included several Italian citizens.
Conversely, we can offer some reflections.
The management of search engines by governments and large monopolistic groups makes them a powerful tool of social control, but their intrinsic instability, resulting from the constant revolution in information technology, infrastructure, and network protocols, makes them incapable of ensuring the long-term stability that is a prerequisite for social preservation. The same pursuit of maximum profit, which primarily motivates monopolistic groups, pushes them to convey popular and therefore potentially profitable demands, regardless of their consistency with the overall project.
Another consideration concerns epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. An epistemic bubble is a social structure that limits exposure to diverse information, leading individuals to receive only content that confirms their preexisting beliefs. This phenomenon is particularly prominent in social media. The echo chamber, in turn, is a closed communication space that arouses no interest in outsiders or rejects their input.
It remains to be seen whether these epistemic bubbles and echo chambers that would have favored the NO victory were born in response to the electoral message or whether they pre-existed and merely bounced this message. Naturally, this depends on the type of bubble. The WhatsApp or Telegram chat of such-and-such a collective obviously pre-exists the flow of information about the referendum, which penetrates it and provokes different reactions in participants. In this sense, the algorithm accelerates and amplifies aggregation, perhaps directing it, but does not generate it. To understand the genesis of these aggregations, we must step outside of virtual reality and return to analyzing social reality. Social movements originate in their contradictions, not in the architecture of computer networks.
The unusually high turnout in the referendum means that many people who did not participate in the last elections went to vote. We are witnessing a mass mobilization in defense of the constitution, or rather to bring down the Meloni government. We are therefore witnessing a form of mobilization comparable to that in support of the Flotilla, though obviously less confrontational. Both the Flotilla and the referendum are mobilizations whose themes, one is solidarity, the other freedom, albeit vaguely understood. This is as far as it gets from the immediate and visceral reactions catalyzed by the content that the digital architecture, designed for this, systematically rewards and amplifies.
A final consideration concerns the extent to which revolutionary movements, and anarchism in particular, can interact with search engines. For my part, I believe that the algorithm's operating mechanism is intrinsically incapable of performing any emancipatory function, understood as the ability to build collaborative relationships between subjects and develop critical attitudes toward the messages it conveys. In reality, the algorithm's functioning reproduces, in an updated manner, traditional government practices, which tend to keep the masses in a state of subjection.
The way in which some supporters of the "NO" front have presented their issues has often been crude, based on an emphasis on legality and the demonization of their opponents, especially those who supported abstentionism, branding them as objective allies of the right.
Social critique represents an essential element of a reconstruction of revolutionary subjectivity, outside and against the logic of domination. A critique that, by uncovering the mechanisms of exploitation and oppression, restores to the revolutionary subject the ability to understand, if not control, the explosive contradictions that shake bourgeois society. This critique must question authoritarian and violent practices within grassroots movements and organizations, starting with the toxic rhetoric that uses denigration of others as a tool to assert one's own views. But to do all this, as we have seen, the digital architecture of social media represents more of an obstacle than a help: we need to step outside of cyberspace, put our feet on the ground, and engage face-to-face with our social contacts.
Our goal is not to win a few more votes in the next elections; our goal is to build the forces and organizations to create a new society.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/vittoria-dellalgoritmo-reti-digitali-ed-attivismo-sociale/
_________________________________________
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten