Posted by toshi January 29, 2026War and Peace, Surveillance Society, Critique of Capitalism
In the era before the internet, when newspapers, radio, and television dominated the information landscape, the one-sided dissemination of information by mass media significantly influenced people’s political views and lifestyles. Neither labor movements nor anti-government activities could match the information-dissemination power of mass media, which spread vast amounts of information unilaterally and uniformly. Social movements could barely manage to rely on existing print media and publishing distribution systems, while broadcast media remained entirely out of reach, shaping the postwar era. In Japan, despite the broadcasting license system being an unconstitutional regime infringing on freedom of speech and expression, it was rarely challenged in court, and a pirate broadcasting culture never took root. Postwar Japanese social movements entered the internet era without having built their own independent media movement.
From the 1990s onward, communication represented by the internet enabled individuals to possess information dissemination capabilities equivalent to those of large corporations and governments. Government websites and personal websites came to coexist in an environment where everyone could access them equally online. Communication costs were drastically reduced compared to print. Many social movements leveraged email and mailing lists, and by establishing websites, the people—for the first time in human history—gained the power to disseminate speech and expression on equal footing with those in power.
Unfortunately, however, the hacker culture—which resisted entrusting the computer communication technology underpinning this equal information dissemination power to government and corporate monopolies, instead sharing and developing it as public knowledge—failed to take root within Japanese social movements.
Email became a means, much like a home mailbox, for unilaterally sending unwanted and annoying advertisements. While anyone could set up a website, there remained a certain technical barrier. Moreover, the probability of someone finding your site among the countless websites worldwide rapidly diminished. Email was ill-suited for mass communication, and the web had the drawback of being passive—you could only “wait” for someone to access it. Furthermore, as smartphones became widespread, both email and the web, developed in the PC era, became increasingly cumbersome to use. The third medium, free social networking services (SNS) like Twitter (now X), Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Line, emerged as a third option. These platforms offered an easy-to-use, smartphone-friendly way for anyone to reach a broad, undefined audience.
People flocked to SNS, making them the mainstream of the online information landscape. SNS also became a crucial tool for spreading information in social movements. Everyone began relying on these platforms as essential tools for announcing and spreading information about demonstrations and gatherings. Of course, the far-right extremists and xenophobes I detest also began leveraging SNS to rapidly expand their violence, visible in every country and region worldwide. Simultaneously, platform giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, while providing people with free means to disseminate information, secretly collected and analyzed vast amounts of data on a global scale using methods imperceptible to users. They then utilized this data for various purposes, from AI development to weaponry.
The major difference from the era of traditional mass media is the development of mechanisms linking people’s communications to corporate profits. This system makes even seemingly free information sharing manipulable within a framework prioritizing platform profits. For instance, hate speech and disinformation become systematically overproduced, aligned with corporate interests or government agendas. Conversely, detailed tracking and analysis of people’s communication patterns and activities now enables prediction of future behavior. This capability is used not only for consumer behavior and election voting patterns but also as a tool for government censorship and propaganda. Furthermore, it has become an essential means for identifying targets for airstrikes, as seen in the Gaza War, transforming into an indispensable weapon of war. While it may feel like free posting and dissemination, a sophisticated information landscape has emerged where diffusion is either suppressed or, conversely, excessively encouraged. This landscape is now being exploited in information warfare. Compounded by the sudden emergence of troublesome issues like generative AI, the current situation at the start of 2026 is one of uncertainty, with the potential for drastic changes in the information environment ahead.
Focusing on Japan’s situation, as the nation embarks on building full-scale cyber espionage and cyberattack capabilities, and the Self-Defense Forces also strengthen their cyber units, the question arises: how will anti-war peace movements and anti-surveillance movements counter this? The government is beginning to adopt a total war system, mobilizing the private sector to cooperate in warfare. Not only are government organizations being restructured from a national security perspective, but companies in the information and communications sector—the backbone of the Japanese economy—are also undergoing a major shift toward operations dependent on national budgets. War is no longer solely the domain of the Self-Defense Forces. It is being advanced through a system that integrates government and private sectors, turning cyber space—which is itself a fundamental right to communication—into a battlefield that encompasses everyday life.
In this context, a crucial challenge for us, alongside a movement opposing legislation and government initiatives, is how to reclaim the online realm from governments and Big Tech and transform it into a space that does not contribute to war. A crucial battleground will be reducing our dependence on SNS and various services that governments and Big Tech exploit for surveillance in cyber space, information gathering, and manipulation. Creating alternative spaces for information dissemination that neither participate in nor support war will be essential. This fight will be far from easy. Platform operators will attempt to prevent users from leaving existing SNS platforms by leveraging their information dissemination power and locking in followers. Governments seek to criminalize technologies and movements resisting online surveillance. Vast information collection and surveillance systems, lacking tangible impact on people’s lives, often go unnoticed. Many may be mobilized for war without realizing it.
On the other hand, boycotting Big Tech complicit in war crimes and government surveillance is a practical action that can start small with fellow activists. It is also a struggle to transform our online lifestyles. This struggle to transform our culture and daily life is something the generation that fought against the industrialization of agriculture and food, for energy independent of nuclear power, and against regional development prioritizing efficiency and convenience for capital, should already be familiar with. What is needed now is to bring this into cyber space, where lifestyles are centered around PCs and smartphones. I believe 2026 can be the year we connect these small acts of resistance and open up new possibilities for social movements unlike anything before.
Original in Japanese
https://www.alt-movements.org/no_more_capitalism/blog/2026/01/29/small_is_enough_to_resist/
