Big Tech holds a near-monopoly on internet traffic, and it’s well known for deplatforming conservative and libertarian voices. The censorship carries an unintended consequence: it lends a kind of validity to the cause being silenced. After all, why would a message need to be suppressed if it were built on faulty logic? It’s a well-worn lesson that banning an idea only draws more attention to it. TED Talks learned this when it banned author Graham Hancock’s presentation on revisionist history. Rupert Sheldrake faced the same treatment — his talk on The Science Delusion, which questioned the unfounded assumptions underpinning academic science, was pulled as well.

Activist accounts are typically targeted for censorship not through outright bans alone, but through limited exposure — throttled reach and tactics designed to inhibit a group’s growth. Effective online activism has to work around this. Guerrilla marketing offers a useful model: novel, efficient ways of networking and spreading a message rather than relying on a platform’s own reach. Some of the largest available audiences live in large, like-minded Facebook groups. Think about who resonates with your message, and what else that audience is likely to care about — a conservative base, for instance, often overlaps heavily with gun rights and self-sufficient/homestead living.

Even where conservative content gets suppressed on these platforms, one thing remains: the ability to network and connect. The most effective way to do that is by giving real attention to other people’s posts — a thoughtful reply, a share, an intelligent comment. A comment that draws engagement from others tends to be appreciated even more by the original poster. Building these small alliances across platforms, over time, creates the openings for real conversations — and keeps drawing attention back to the cause.