And I think that hits the core issue. There's a lot of "eat the rich" on reddit and imgur and undoubtedly other platforms, but that's like #kony2012: clicktivism and online LARPing as revolutionaries.
Riots are always a possibility, a sports event can be the cause, and so may be severe economic issues, but I doubt that they will be widespread and large. If they happen, I expect swift and violent suppression, and since they won't be bi-partisan, that suppression will find a lot of support in the population.
I imagine that the distributed nature of the internet is actually what hurts it in this case - you riot over sports because your team won and the energy is palpable when you go out into the streets to join the crowd. There's less physical ___location to share this unrest, so it's largely just spent harmlessly online.
That's my impression as well, and online excitement is a bad predictor of offline activity. It's one thing to comment "smash the system" below a picture of a guillotine, it's quite another to go out to tango with the riot police or national guard. One of can have very real consequences, and that'll filter out the large majority.
Now, what happens when that expands to 1/10 of citizens due to lack of food, people getting evicted, no work, and more? Covid-19 is only accelerating the road we're currently on, in a very quick fashion.
And there's a reason why police departments were buying military surplus. They view us citizens as the enemy. There's nary a reason why you need APCs with 50cal's mounted for the local police force, or armed with a variety of grenades, or microwave cannons, or acoustic weapons.
Whatever it is that's forming and coming to a head, it doesn't look peaceful. At. All.
> Can we riot on the internet?
And I think that hits the core issue. There's a lot of "eat the rich" on reddit and imgur and undoubtedly other platforms, but that's like #kony2012: clicktivism and online LARPing as revolutionaries.
Riots are always a possibility, a sports event can be the cause, and so may be severe economic issues, but I doubt that they will be widespread and large. If they happen, I expect swift and violent suppression, and since they won't be bi-partisan, that suppression will find a lot of support in the population.