I’ve seen this with my dad. He started watching YouTube shorts and I have to consistently remind him and try to counter what he’s watching sometimes.
He doesn’t fully go down that pipeline, but he’s interested in adjacent things that tend to be gateways into right wing stuff.
For example, he’s interested in space and then also interested in the potential of aliens or other myths and legends. But that quickly goes into conspiracy and then alt right BS. With AI fakes popping up I’ve caught him watching fake AI videos, stopped and said “hey this isn’t right. This is trying to manipulate us” and showed him how to check for AI video and audio generation.
He’s kinda catching on but it’s super tricky because if you willingly or unknowingly watch anything AI on youtube it seems to also feed you more of the same.
I honestly feel like I’m the parent trying to monitor my kids content they interact with now, but unfortunately I can’t cut them off from certain things LOL. Thankfully he’s still willing to have a conversation with me and I think mostly trusts my political takes and opinions. I think if he didn’t he would be at risk of going down some alt right bs
You spelled surveillance capitalism wrong
LOL, it’s any and all news, media and social interactions that are controlled by big money that is driving people to the right regardless of their age.
Only those boomers with money are looking rightward, which is the minority of boomers. For what it’s worth I think using “the internet” like it’s a real person or entity is bullshit. Dystopian money power crap is setting the pace, not the internet. The internet is just a delivery method, a messenger.
Thanks for setting the record straight. Generational divides are not the real problem. Class divides are. Most boomers have been pushed down by the wealthy just like the rest of us. Blaming boomers, white people, rural people, etc is falling into the same “divide and conquer” trap the wealthy have been using to keep us fighting amongst ourselves for scraps.
It’s “social media platforms such as X or Facebook” that are driving people of all ages “to the right.” By now you’d think word might’ve spread further that there’s more to the Internet than that kind of disreputable backwater.
Late to the party, Jacobin. Who doesn’t already know this?
The same people ago told me as a child that television would “rot my brain”, turns out, has no information literacy or critical thinking abilities when it comes to what the Facebook told them.
