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There's nuance here about "how do we use platforms owned by the fascists". You *have to understand the political purpose of the platforms* in order to use them to subvert authoritarians. For the most part, Americans simply do not. Centrists (including DNC consultants) do not. Major media does not.

We're seeing it right now in tech; a number of prominent tech commentators (all coincidentally happen to be wealthy & influential white men? huh!) have all just endorsed returning to Twitter again. But they weren't content to just _be there_ — they also insisted it's not a hostile environment.

So there's no self-awareness. They can't understand that they were targeted for outreach just as much as Black and trans people were targeted for abuse. Which makes it impossible for them to be part of using such a platform for political pushback, even if they don't think of themselves as fascists.

Is it possible to put out effective messages on hostile platforms? Sure! Zohran went on Fox and charmed them. But is a fash-apologist moderate gonna go on NewsMax and just... make things better through the pureness of his heart? (Which is apparently the centrist theory of change.) Demonstrably not.

Truthfully, one of the biggest challenges is hubris. *Everybody* thinks they're good at comms,everybody thinks they know exactly how to persuade people, virtually everyone has zero experience. Even fewer know how to do it online. And most resources go to the folks with almost no history of success.

One of the biggest challenges in our discussions with our thirteen year old about online dangers is getting through to him that abusers/fraudsters ARE GOOD AT IT. We all want to think we won't be the sucker. But the biggest tell that someone will be conned might be their believing they can't be.