No, posting alone won't save Palestine but you should do it anyway
Saturday, July 26, 2025Last month, Natalie Wynn, creator of the hugely popular (and generally very good) YouTube channel ContraPoints made a post defending her lack of public commentary on Palestine. A few years back, Wynn was associated with the "BreadTube" community — a fan label for a loose collective of progressive and left wing YouTuber creators, named after Kropotkin's The Conquest Of Bread pamphlet — and other creators within that grouping have either made Gaza a primary focus of their channel, or have made at least one piece of content raising awareness on Palestine, or have done some kind of fundraiser towards relief efforts. After she got into a spat on X about antisemitism on the left and right, her fans increasingly questioned why she had been silent on this topic for almost two years.
Wynn's response seems to have satisfied most of her fans, but it's not a good response. At first she basically says the topic isn't suitable for her artsy comedy style of presentation, which I would strongly agree with. But with a platform like hers, she has means to raise her voice other than making a full video in her usual style. She could tweet, for example, or do a fundraiser.
The bulk of her response is essentially that... speaking out about it won't change anything, and if anything, it might be perceived as contributing to antisemitism, so it's better that she doesn't.
I don't mean this to be a post dunking on Wynn. Really, I mean for it to be an encouragement not to fall into this way of thinking. Firstly, public pressure is already having some impact, and has the potential to have even more. The way to create public pressure is to create an atmosphere where it is clear this is what people care about. If everyone's social media feed, YouTube channel, blog, etc had at least one post expressing solidarity with Palestinians, it would be increasingly difficult for politicians to ignore this sentiment.
Public support for Palestian liberation has literally never been higher. We are already seeing some impact — even right-wing newspapers who have previously taken Israel's side and repeated its propaganda are now raising the alarm about the famine. Given that the lives of Arab people have not traditionally been a concern of our press, public outcry has clearly played some part in this shift. And when the press start piling on the pressure, we all know how Starmer responds. Political change can happen very quickly when there is enough public outcry, as we have seen many times in the last century, and Wynn is dead wrong to say nuclear war is the only way Israel could fundamentally change.
Raising your voice also acts as a bulwark against any attempts to rewrite the narrative. In 1984, the Ministry Of Truth is able to rewrite the past in part because the range of publications is relatively limited — essentially books and newspapers. These days, we can all publish and share links. If there is ample evidence — in the form of posts — that the majority of the population were aware of and opposed the genocide and demanded our leaders do something, it will be harder for those complicit in the genocide to escape accountability.
As for the parts about contributing to antisemitism by conflating it with anti-Zionism, I don't know, just word things carefully in a non-antisemitic way? For someone who works as a media creator Wynn seems to have little faith in her ability to express herself and be understood. Is it really so hard to say you oppose a genocide that you're seeing in your feeds every day without sounding like a racist?
Anyway, all this is to say, it's worth posting about this. It's a small thing, with a small impact. But it all helps to shape the narrative — we think this is wrong, and we will not allow these crimes to be forgotten. Other things that are worth doing are contacting your MP (or representative, or whatever) to let them know how strongly you feel about this, and donating money to relief organisations. Join protest marches. Other, riskier, actions are available, but these are the minimum you can do to speak out against this horror.