The alternative and dissident digital communities in 2019 were thriving. It was possible to find high engagement, evolving political discussion ecosystems of users on a variety of platforms with growing communities. Political movements were beginning to take off in the real world with the rising profile of various podcast figures.

Today by contrast, the major social media platforms such as youtube are shut down, and 4pol is openly spammed by disruption agents while the mods anchor relevant threads. The alternative communities I used to frequent are now mostly shuttered derelicts, and the normie adjacent communities seem generally to have clamped down on anything politically dangerous. Twitter/X, the only existing alternative, requires ID and phone verification that goes straight to Israel...

What happened to our slice of the internet? Where can people go to get high engagement communities that aren't fully of psyops spamming and other government directed bullshit?