Those that know me know that social media is not something that I spend much time preoccupied with, and therefore may be surprised to see me commenting on a resolution that is primarily concerned with the chapter’s social media accounts. While I still do not believe that the revolution will be made through tweets, I do believe that the chapter’s official social media is a tool that should be operated in accordance with the democratic will of the chapter, and there should be adequate oversight to ensure that that happens. I have come to see the way that structural control of social media confers a lot of power over the strategic disposition of the chapter in a way that can both unilaterally make strategic decisions for the chapter in an undemocratic fashion and also override the democratically determined strategic decisions that the chapter has already made.
For the past year or so, the Comms Committee has operated our social media on the model of having an appointed social media captain each day, with the captain being given authority to post whatever they deem appropriate during their shift. In general, I trust our members to operate our social media, and believe this arrangement is not inherently problematic or fundamentally undermining of the chapter’s will, so long as there is some acceptance on Comms that they operate under oversight. I believe that when a post is made that oversteps the decision making authority of Comms, it will most likely be an innocent mistake that could have been made by anyone. Furthermore I have no doubt that the vast majority of our members, if they took on the role of social media captain, would be receptive to criticism, and be willing to make adjustments when requested by concerned members making grounded arguments. We are strong enough to not be undone by these kinds of mistakes as long as we can confront them with the maturity and humility that I have come to admire in almost all of my comrades in DSA.
Unfortunately, in the past year, there have been instances in which a portion of the leadership of Comms has been resistant to criticism and oversight of social media activity. There have been multiple incidents in which the chapter social media was used to signal-boost neoliberal capitalist politicians and orgs when they were offering narrow, left-leaning lip-service on an issue of the day. This signal-boosting was done without providing critical context to make it clear that we do not believe they should be trusted just because of one good take, which may be totally disingenuous. Multiple members of the chapter expressed concern on such occasions that these actions by Comms provided left cover for these right-wing politicians at best, and in some cases may have amounted effectively to an endorsement by the chapter. I agree with many of these criticisms, but I do not believe these mistakes were inherently as bad as they may sound to some, if there had been willingness to accept the criticism, correct the mistakes, and learn from the experience. From what I am aware of, the opposite happened in many of these cases, and this is the real cause for concern.
When confronted with disagreement about this use of the social media, some portion of Comms leadership asserted that it should be within the absolute authority of the social media captain of the day to use the chapter’s social media however they want, free of oversight. That is not acceptable for use of any chapter resource, and I believe that most of us intuitively understand that. Social media accounts and any other tools belonging to the chapter should serve the strategic purposes of the chapter as democratically determined by the membership. When membership believes that any of the chapter’s resources have been misused, the will of membership should prevail over the appointed individual manager of the resource. The problem in these cases, is that there did not already exist an agreed upon democratic method for asserting the will of membership.
In my opinion, Bylaws Amendment 4: “Democratically Determined Guidelines for Public-Facing Media” adequately formalizes the authority of the greater membership over social media and provides a mechanism of oversight. I believe the best thing about this model is that it fosters accountability by encouraging proactive involvement of the members. Any member can propose a resolution to change the guidelines and support or oppose the resolution at a general meeting. Any member can join the Comms Committee to make their voice heard if they perceive an issue and organize for accountability in an open, organic, and democratic fashion. On the occasions when the Steering Committee has to adjudicate a dispute, they are already accountable to membership and their decisions can be overridden by membership at a subsequent general meeting under existing bylaws. By encouraging more participation from our members, I believe we encourage democracy. If this model proves effective, it could also be utilized in the oversight of any of the chapter’s strategic resources in the future. This is as good a place and time as any to try something like this out, and on the exigent issue of Comms oversight, I believe it is also of imminent importance to get something in place. I encourage all of my comrades to vote for this bylaw amendment.
From Matt O