NFB NOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA: HELP US OUT!

NO RETREAT, BUT A REGROUP: NFB EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE STATEMENT 23/9/24

Astute readers of Notes From the Borderland (is there any other sort?) know we have long had a problem with the internet generally and AI specifically. Lest that be in doubt check out Verona Silenda’s article in the current issue (12) or Wikipedia: A Digital Cess-Pit by Heidi Svenson on this site.

For reference (but please read the whole article before you act), we are located

Verona Felinus (@nfbmagazineverona) • Instagram photos and videos (Verona is flying the NFB Flag on Instagram & has already got off to a flyer, despite Instagram barring her usual Nom de Plume Verona Silenda, for reasons these AI Muppets have not deigned to explain. Whatever!).

Facebook (sorry about the huge logo: presumably Zuckerberg’s ego?)

Notes from the Borderland | London Notes from the Borderland, London, United Kingdom. 1 talking about this. Welcome to the online portal of Notes F…

Notes From the Borderland Magazine (@nfbmagazine) / X

To enhance our visibility we really (urgently) need from you

1. 1. Likes
   2. Shares
   3. Comments
   4. Retweets
   5. Reposts
   6. Following Us

You should bear in mind:

1. • There will be posts on these channels that divulge things not in the printed magazine
   • As we all have lives we will not respond/post all the time, and trolls will be vaporised where we can do that.
   • We have not at all abandoned our belief in the primacy of the printed word! See below for an explanation of our current foray into the digital swamp. 

                                               OUR CRITICISMS OF THE INTERNET/SOCIAL MEDIA

To summarise, our critical attitude is based on a number of things:

1. 1. We are convinced increasing reliance on the internet is and will be fatal for any self-reliance: economically, politically and in terms of information (read Verona’s article)
   2. Everything being on the internet makes censorship very easy indeed, more so than any previous era
   3. The onward march of the digital, including potential abolition of currencies, makes it again easy to victimise political dissidents of any stripe, turning them into non-persons.
   4. The transient attention span the internet facilitates wreaks havoc on the ability of individuals to understand complex ideas, especially those that demand sustained concentration
   5. Instagram being primarily picture-based and Facebook similarly encourage the development of limited attention spans, false connections (Likes/Friends/Follows etc).
   6. Twitter (X) of course is the arena where virtual mob culture reigns supreme, and people are encouraged by anonymity/distance to say things, often atavistic, they probably wouldn’t in real life. Twitter also, however, under the idiosyncratic control of Elon Musk, is a threat to rival bastions of corporate power and even governments (look at Brazil).
   7. Social Media also makes permanent comments in the past that were fleetingly expressed in real life, and moved on from. Now, people may never be allowed to.
   8. AI creates additional problems, digitally institutionalising racism, misogynism and other equally unpleasant discriminatory and arbitrary algorithms, as well as reducing human contact, and, we believe, will in time accelerate brain atrophy. Hence our catch-phrase Accelerated Idiocy.

                                                              WHY HAS NFB CHANGED COURSE?

We could say more, but you get the drift. In which case, why has NFB suddenly decided to open social media accounts on three fronts, the very ones mentioned above: Facebook, Instagram & Twitter/X? While we could simply say this is an experiment (it is) and subject to detailed review in due course (true), that is no explanation as such. Nor is it to say that we now have an extensive, impressive and (dare we say it) interesting website. The reasons for our altered stance strategically (not philosophically) are two-fold, but overlapping: the current objective situation we are faced with, and our long-term strategic goals.  Taking each in turn:     

                                              THE CURRENT INFORMATION LANDSCAPE

Back in the day, there were numerous bookshops where magazines were sold, and always the possibility if a story was picked up by the mainstream media and due credit given sales might follow.  For example, the now sadly defunct Open Eye magazine, with whom we worked on a couple of stories, had sales of 1,500+ after some were so credited. Agreed, attribution has always been a problem for NFB itself: thus, we have been ripped off by The Guardian (on C18), Nigel Farage (on Hope Not Hate funding) and outlets too numerous to mention (including academics) on the ITP’s Spanish Village story. But anyway, even if a potential model in its day, no longer it seems.  Though an important caveat: today, the first recourse of anti-fascists often seems to be doxxing (publicising home/work details) of fascists.  The media are happy to do this, but it hardly provides answers to political questions. While supportive of counter-demonstrations and other ‘street actions’ NFB has never approved of this tactic, nor are we interested in trimming our perspective to produce anodyne sound-bytes. Hence us being given favourable media mentions, while not impossible, has always been unlikely. There are of course magazine distributors (Central Books and Magazine Heaven do a fine job) but people have to be aware of a title already to be motivated to buy it. Best place to do develop awareness is in a bookshop.

The very quality and in-depth nature of our research is a double-edged sword. Wisely, those we feature usually ignore our coverage in public, however damaging, so as to deprive us of the oxygen of publicity. Which means many who might be interested remain blissfully unaware of our existence even.

There are also changes in the political scene: take the question of anti-fascist intelligence for example. While in the end both Anti-Fascist Action and Red Action got wise to the fact Searchlight magazine/organisation were spying on/disrupting the Left in the state’s interests (see SEARCHLIGHT FOR BEGINNERS: EXTRACT), this collective memory has now vanished. Nor has there been much acknowledged take up of our research into the Hope Not Hate behemoth headed by Nick Lowles. Though David Miller (the Bristol academic sacked on a bogus charge of anti-Semitism) seems to have read it, which is good. In any event the decline in Left publications (no Black Flag or Freedom in hard copy, the disappearance of the SWP’s Socialist Review etc.) means there are few who could review us, even if they wanted (or felt able) to.

Those of us who want to change the world need an appreciation not just of where we want to go, but where our audience actually is. Like it or not, many get their information primarily from social media, even news.  We do have a loyal core of subscribers (thank you!) but currently not enough to sustain the publication or pay contributors: not that we are in it for the money (just as well).

While the above might sound like a doom-laden expression of defeatism it isn’t: just realism. As Gramsci said, pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. Read on.

                                                     WHAT WE BELIEVE/WHERE WE WANT TO GO

NFB was set up in 1997 (when one of us was barely born!) to do a number of things

1. 1. Explore rigorously from an anti-fascist perspective what the Far Right is actually up to, to inform those combatting it
   2. To fill a gap (now a chasm!) due to the dearth/poor quality of what passes for ‘investigative journalism’ both in print and documentaries etc. There is some good work done, such as Open Democracy’s Dark Arts strand uncovering just who has bought and paid for the Starmer regime. Our maxim though is we look either at the stories nobody else will, or if they have been covered elsewhere, in a new way.
   3. To analyse/call out the malign unaccountable activities of the likes of Special Branch (as was: now part of SO15) MI5 MI6 and similar, including their placing of stories in various media. On the one hand, MI5 has ostensibly dropped the pursuit of ‘subversion’, but this has been a mere cover (as we have argued since 1998 in issue 2) for the reclassification of subversives as ‘terrorists’. Having been trialled with the sad losers of National Action, it is now expanding to include the likes of Palestine Action.  That there seems currently no articulate critic of spooks in the Commons, or the media, shows the vital importance of our perspective.
   4. Nonetheless, provide a nuanced evidence-based critique: thus where some section of the powers that be act honestly and honourably (eg Fiona Wilcox/Jackie Sebire in relation to Gareth Williams or the Anti-Terrorist Squad over the 1999 Soho Nail-Bombing) we are not afraid to admit this. And of course conspiracy theorists hate us (see our coverage of 9/11 & 7/7)
   5. Provide an auxiliary force in where the political Left (especially the far left) should be: in (to use Gramsci’s words) an ideological war of position, as it is not (yet) time for a war of manoeuvre.

We could fully itemise how each aim has resulted in specific stories in both magazine and website, but you can (hopefully enjoyably) do that for yourself!

The precise trigger leading us to now try social media is the Soho Nail-Bombing Scandal. While the mainstream media quite rightly still feature the 1993 Stephen Lawrence murder, there seems to date no interest in the fact Nazi David Copeland was allowed (due to state foreknowledge/inaction/information suppression) to plant a bomb in Soho that killed three people in 1999. To date, relevant organisations. Media outlets and even individuals with past first-hand knowledge, seem content to look the other way. Well we aren’t having that, and hope some of the new people we reach on social media will feel the same way, once they know the facts. We are particularly interested (as Nick Lowles/Dave Rich/The Community Security Trust will never come clean) in pressurising those who made the atrocious Nail-bomber Manhunt documentary to tell what they know about the gestation of this deceptive production. Can others in their field encourage the likes of Daniel Vernon/Colin Barr via social media and otherwise to make this happen? Hope so.  They were hoodwinked by disinformation experts: no shame in admitting that.

It seems (experience may prove otherwise: we hope not) that entering the social media world potentially introduces a new audience to our distinct and we believe still relevant perspective. All the more important in that we critique from the Left, not the Right. There has been a seismic political shift whereby it was the Left in the 1970s who were sceptical of the security state, whereas today it often seems to be the right, who have sought to appropriate concerns about the ‘deep state’.

We are under no illusions as to the platforms we have chosen: already Verona has had her ability to comment restricted for a week ‘to protect the community’, just after she posted a story about Soho. We expect at some point if our profiles gain traction to be barred elsewhere, at which point we will seek other outlets.

The initial aim is simply to encourage people to visit the Notes From the Borderland website, see what we offer, and become immersed in/sympathetic to, our worldview. Countless times over the years people buy one publication, a couple of weeks later some more, and weeks after that absolutely everything! This is because they realise (often for the first time) what proper investigative research from Left field really is. It is of course, not about money, but providing people with a political education, along the way (by use of detournement/humour) showing being on the Left can be fun, really it can!  Starmer and his cabal are not, of course, on the Left.

So, if you spot us on social media, come along and say hello, comment/follow/like etc. etc. and of course we welcome both information and new writers: see Notes for Contributors.  Contact us not just electronically (nfbmagazine@yahoo.co.uk) but also by real mail: Notes From the Borderland BM Box 4769 London WC1N 3XX