By Zach Klonoski
Imagine the early 1940s with today’s technology and media environment. “Relocation camps” trend on TikTok, framed by official accounts as “re-education centers.” Guards post curated “day-in-the-life” videos. Survivors upload smuggled footage that is quickly labeled “deepfakes” by the same platforms hosting the clips. Nightly Fox News segments dismiss the stories as Fake News and focus instead on fabricated stories against the Führer’s perceived enemies.
And the Führer himself? He doesn’t deny on state radio. He posts on a social network at 3 am:
“TOTAL WITCH HUNT! Nobody has done more for these people than ME. The camps are a HUGE SUCCESS! Deep State lies! SAD! #MakeEuropeGreatAgain”
What once required secrecy would today require only an algorithm.
This is not idle speculation. We have real world examples, test cases for how today’s algorithm fueled media environment deals with crises and atrocities. In Gaza, extreme famine and mass death are streamed in real time, yet millions dismiss the images as propaganda while children die of starvation. ICE raids detain parents in front of their children on U.S. soil while viral clips are repackaged as “border security wins #ThankYouPresidentTrump.”
The MAGA faithful cheer and laugh as Donald Trump describes the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz, a makeshift concentration camp for migrants rounded up by ICE and denied due process.
In Ukraine, evidence of mass graves competes with entire online ecosystems insisting the war itself is fabricated or, at the very least, started by Ukrainian provocation #DeNazifyUkraine.”
Never forget that Trump’s initial reaction to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine was to call Putin “genius” and “savvy.”
And, as I write this, we have an unprecedented example playing out in real time: the Epstein scandal and ongoing cover-up, where thousands of pages of evidence remain sealed, and the public and media is told not to ask questions, and the Trump administration does everything in its power to change the conversation going so far as to fabricate scandals accusing President Barack Obama of treason.
The coordination between the Trump administration, the FBI, the DOJ and intelligence agencies to contain the story is not just about one man; it is about power demonstrating its ability to erase reality in plain sight. If an international network of exploitation of children can be buried, why not systemic violence? Why not camps?
The danger of our current media environment is not invisibility but disbelief. We live in a fractured reality where atrocities can be seen and simultaneously denied by millions. Auschwitz with wi-fi, smart phones and social media doesn’t need secrecy. It needs only a feed optimized for engagement by algorithms controlled by a handful of billionaires reliant on Trump to keep the money flowing and government regulation and investigations at bay.
What, then, can be done?
• Break the bubbles. Seek out credible reporting outside your ideological lane. Understanding competing narratives is essential to rebuilding shared reality.
• Support investigative journalism. Subscribe, donate and share work that takes months, not minutes, to produce. Without it, accountability collapses.
• Engage deliberately. Outrage drives disinformation. Resist the reflex to amplify falsehoods; elevate verified sources instead.
• Vote for reality. Support leaders committed to evidence-based governance and transparency. Mobilization is the only antidote to manufactured confusion.
• Build coalitions. Authoritarianism thrives on isolation. Form alliances across political and cultural divides to defend truth and resist governments that commit atrocities while denying they exist.
• Gather with people in real life: take your political activism and civic engagement off-line and engage with people in real life. Meet, protest and show up and speak out on the issues of the day at public forums (i.e. townhalls, city council meetings, etc).
We must also confront the infrastructure that enables this crisis. Platforms like Meta, X, TikTok and YouTube have become reality-shaping engines. Their algorithms prioritize outrage and monetizable division over facts. They are not neutral hosts; they are participants in the construction, or destruction, of shared truth. Just look at the vast power Elon Musk was exercising in Washington before his falling out with Trump. The richest man in the world governing the country as if it were his side-hustle.
In his final address as president, Joe Biden issued a warning that now reads less as parting rhetoric than as diagnosis: “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead… The free press is crumbling. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.”
The line between historical atrocity and future repetition is not drawn only in textbooks. It runs through the code curating our feeds, the incentives driving our attention, and the coalitions we are, or are not, willing to build.
The question is not whether we would see the next Auschwitz. It is whether we would still be able to believe it, and whether we could act together before the algorithm buries the truth forever. Trump and his goons have already crossed countless red lines and now it is up to all of us to ensure his reality after the mid-term elections is filled with a democratically controlled Congress and investigations into his corrupt and criminal conduct. Let’s get to work.
Zach Klonoski lives in Eugene with his wife and two kids, and practices law at the Center for Nonprofit Law.