Deletefacebook and Hashtag Activism in a Perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis

Master Thesis (Two-Year)

#DeleteFacebook and Hashtag Activism in a Perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis

Student: Greta Bühring

Semester: Spring 2021

Supervisor: Dr. Michael Krona

Examiner: Dr. Bo Reimer

Malmö University Abstract

This thesis aims to conduct an in-depth study of the activism surrounding the #DeleteFacebook hashtag by applying Critical Discourse Analysis. By theorizing framing, digital colonialism, power relations, and antagonism, this thesis examines the qualitative analysis of 1.987 Tweets posted on Twitter between 20 February and 4 March 2021. This study identifies the key thematic content of these Tweets and then conducts an in-depth critical analysis. These questions will be addressed in the research: “What are the principle discourse typologies and their intertextual interpretation of hashtag activism #DeleteFacebook?”, “What were the key themes that emerged during the #DeleteFacebook hashtag movement?” and “How can we interpret the online engagement with #DeleteFacebook as hashtag activism?”. This thesis presents an analysis of #DeleteFacebook related Tweets through coding and then reveals an intertextual analysis of it, including the social context. Also, this study provides a thorough review of the related literature concerning the costs of connection, social movements, hashtag activism, and collective identity. Finally, it concludes with a discussion reflecting on the role of digital colonialism and the power of Facebook.

Keywords: #DeleteFacebook, Hashtag Activism, Digital Colonialism, Power Relations, Antagonism, Critical Discourse Analysis, Framing

List of Figures

Figure 1. Meme about data harvesting on Facebook ...... 9

Figure 2. Brian Acton tweets #DeleteFacebook...... 11

Figure 3. Frequency in use of #DeleteFacebook ...... 39

Figure 4. Framework for CDA ...... 45

Figure 5. Visual representation of the key themes ...... 48

List of Tables

Table 1. The Scope of Tweets analysis ...... 38

Table 2. The #DeleteFacebook campaign chronologically ...... 40

Table 3. Coding of the Tweets ...... 41

Table 4. Coding stages ...... 42

Table 5. Quantitative representation of the key themes ...... 49

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... 2

List of Figures ...... 3

List of Tables ...... 3

Table of Contents ...... 4

1. Introduction ...... 6

2. Background of #DeleteFacebook ...... 8

2.1. Celebrities and #DeleteFacebook ...... 10

2.2. Critics ...... 12

2.3. Twitter ...... 13

2.4. #DeleteFacebook in Australia ...... 14

3. Literature Review ...... 16

3.1. The Cost of Connection ...... 16

3.2. Social Movements ...... 18

3.3. New Social Movements ...... 20

3.4. Hashtag activism ...... 21

3.5. Other studies of Hashtag activism ...... 23

3.6. Collective Identity ...... 26

3.7. Resistance Movements ...... 18

4. Theory...... 27

4.1. Framing of Social Movements ...... 27

4.2. Digital Colonialism ...... 29

4.3. Power Relations ...... 30

4.4. Antagonism ...... 31

5. Research Design ...... 33

5.1. Research Problem...... 33

5.2. Research Question ...... 34

5.3. Research Paradigm ...... 34

5.4. Limitations ...... 35

5.5. Ethical Considerations...... 36

6. Methodology ...... 37

6.1. Quantitative Analysis ...... 37

6.2. Qualitative Analysis ...... 44

6.2.1. Critical Discourse Analysis ...... 44

6.2.2. Why CDA? ...... 46

7. Key findings and Analysis ...... 47

7.1. Presentation of Quantitative Content Analysis ...... 47

7.2. Presentation of Qualitative Content Analysis ...... 50

7.2.1. Encouragement to Delete Facebook ...... 50

7.2.2. Resentment or antipathy expressed towards Data Privacy issues 57

8. Further Study ...... 62

9. Discussion ...... 63

10. Conclusion ...... 65

11. References ...... 70

1. Introduction

This thesis aims to present and analyze the discourses that emerged during the #DeleteFacebook hashtag movement. The research will focus on the theoretical frameworks of framing, digital colonialism, power relations, and antagonism. Through the quantitative research method of coding and the qualitative method of critical discourse analysis, the main research question: “What are the principle discourse typologies and their intertextual interpretation of hashtag activism #DeleteFacebook?” will be addressed. In order to accomplish that, two subsidiary questions have been added:

1. What were the key themes that emerged during the #DeleteFacebook hashtag movement?

2. How can we interpret the online engagement with #DeleteFacebook as hashtag activism?

The following is how the study is structured: the history and meaning of the #DeleteFacebook movement are discussed first. The second step is to review the relevant literature, including studies on the cost of connection, resistance towards power relations, social movements, hashtag activism, and collective identity. The thesis is supported by a two-part methodological framework: coding as quantitative analysis and critical discourse analysis as a qualitative method of in- depth analysis. The findings are then interpreted in accordance with the theoretical context. Finally, I give some concluding remarks as well as some implications for potential research in a discussion.

The #DeleteFacebook online movement emerged after the 2018 Facebook- Cambridge Analytica scandal, where the profile data of 270,000 users was leaked and used for various purposes. This study analyzes the most recent spike of this movement‘s activity and presents a critical discourse analysis of the Tweets posted by the participants urging the boycott of Facebook.

The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the study of Media and Communications. There is no need to say that social media is a big part of everyday life; there is much research done about social media with different theories, methodologies, and approaches in academia. My research provides a clear structure that could be in use for future researchers. For social media analysis, especially hashtag movements, where the researcher can identify a specific topic, the combination of quantitative (coding) and qualitative (critical discourse analysis) could be in use. Also, this research contributes to the data privacy issues in the social media discourse; therefore, it could be interpreted intertextually.

All in all, I firmly believe that a structure and combination of theoretical and empirical frameworks in which critical discourse analysis is deeply integrated will be an inspiration for other scholars of media and communications. Moreover, social relevance also plays a significant role, as the imprint being made upon the Internet is insufficiently regulated and underprotected by the law. This thesis could provide another lens for politicians to view how unregulated tech corporations can manipulate the public and the choices of individuals.

2. Background of #DeleteFacebook

“Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in the major data breach” (Cadwalladr, Graham-Harrison, 2018). It was the headline of the article jointly published by the Guardian, New York Times, and Channel 4, which shocked the world in March 2018. The collection of data from 87 million Facebook users was enabled through a Facebook app called This Is Your Digital Life, created by Global Science Research (GSR) in collaboration with Cambridge Analytics (CA) (Afriat, 2021: 115). Its origins came from an academic research project, where paid users took a personality test. However, this was taking place at a time when Facebook still allowed for third-party applications to collect the data from users’ friend accounts - unless they had intentionally changed their privacy settings. Thus, this collected data had contributed to CA‘s research.

CA and GSR then used this information to determine which users they should approach and, further, how to influence their behavior and thoughts based upon the data collected about their political views and personality traits (Rehman 2019). Primarily, they utilized the data to influence the political sphere, which aided Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign (Cadwalladr, Graham- Harrison, 2018). 270,000 users ended up participating in the aforementioned personality test. Here, the users shared not only their private data but also that of their friends. CA and GSR were accused of violating Facebook’s terms of service by a number of interested parties because none of these users nor their Facebook friends chose to give their data to a third-party company for marketing purposes (Cadwalladr, Graham-Harrison, 2018). Facebook was fined as a result of the backlash, and Mark Zuckerberg, its founder and CEO, was called to testify before the US Senate (Brewster, 2018). The mass media coverage of these events went worldwide. Following the scandal, pundits and editorial pieces predicted the “beginning of the end” for Facebook (Bogle, 2018), citing polls indicating a marked drop in Facebook user confidence (Beck 2018; Insider Intelligence 2020).

This marked a turning point where journalists and academics began to question if this would lead to protests and resistance from Facebook users (Griggs 2018; Golbeck, Aral 2018). The data privacy scandal gave birth to the

#DeleteFacebook campaign, urging people to boycott Facebook. The phrase “Delete Facebook” matches the aim of the movement - a straightforward statement calling for users to delete their Facebook accounts. #DeleteFacebook seeks to address the data privacy practices of Facebook and all other digital companies that utilize their users’ private data (Golbeck, Aral 2018; Griggs 2018). This aside, there is a subtle irony to this movement - as it uses another social media platform, Twitter, to encourage people to delete Facebook.

As a part of the #DeleteFacebook movement, many users created memes about Mark Zuckerburg and Facebook (Figure 1). Many of these memes focus on consumer data protection, suggesting that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook spy on their users and steal their information without consent. Through the use of memes, the anti-Facebook campaign eventually gained a massive online presence.

Figure 1. Meme about data harvesting on Facebook

The fiasco had a significant effect upon investors, widely due to the hashtag’s negative influence, and Facebook’s stock dropped by around 24%, or $134 billion. However, it recovered within three months (Mirhaydari, 2018). The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) concluded an audit a year after the data leak and fined the corporation $5 billion for violating their customers’ data privacy (Davies, Rushe, 2018).

The European Union was the first government to respond to the data leak, passing the General Data Protection Regulation in May 2018, requiring businesses to be more transparent about their handling and use of customer data (European Data Protection Supervisor, 2021). Users received emails and notifications from many companies, including Twitter, Slack, and Instagram, telling them that their “Terms of Service” or “Privacy Policy” has been updated. Mark Zuckerberg initially defended his company’s activities, yet he urged regulators to impose more controls on the big tech firms.

While some news sources speculated (Hern 2019; Statt 2018) that the scandal would lead to users disconnecting from the platform, the actual number of Facebook users increased the same year the CA scandal broke (Afriat, 2021: 116). In December 2018, Facebook‘s platform had over 1.52 billion unique daily users, yet in 2021 the platform has 1,8 billion daily users (Statista, 2021). Pew data (Perrin, 2018) also showed little evidence of user disengagement — only 9% of users took advantage of the new privacy setting Facebook put in place post- CA scandal, which allows the user to download all information it had collected about them (Afriat, 2021: 116). While the topic was broadly covered and discussed, the number of Facebook users keeps increasing, even though the #DeleteFacebook movement has been receiving media coverage and active supporters since 2018.

2.1. Celebrities and #DeleteFacebook

When the #DeleteFacebook hashtag grew in popularity, celebrification occurred. Many Hollywood stars, including Cher, Will Ferrell, and Jim Carrey, started posting on social media about deleting their Facebook accounts (Leskin, 2019). In addition, influential tech executives such as Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak also announced they were deleting their Facebook accounts (Leskin, 2019). Christopher Wylie played a crucial role, as he was the one who leaked documents to journalists revealing Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook user data collection and its use in targeted political ads (Ma, 2019). In his book, MINDF*CK:

Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America, Wylie revealed that the campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz each paid the company more than $5 billion (Wylie, 2019). He also points out that the firm was already exploring these concepts in 2014, before Trump’s presidential campaign (Wylie, 2019).

One of Whatsapp’s (which also belongs to Facebook) co-founders, Brian Acton, created the #DeleteFacebook with his hashtag as a driving force (Gilbert, 2018). He published a Tweet saying that “it was time” to delete Facebook, as this former ally turned against the organization. His statement showed the gravity of the scandal (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Brian Acton tweets #DeleteFacebook (Source: Twitter.com)

Mark Zuckerberg was on the other side of this movement, as he was dealing with the fallout from the data crisis and the #DeleteFacebook backlash. Since many users believe it was Zuckerberg’s duty to protect their data, he has emerged as the scandal’s central figure of blame. Rather than fighting the anti- Facebook campaign, Zuckerberg accepted responsibility for the “breach of trust” between the app and its customers. He admitted that the firm had made errors and claimed that in order to correct Facebook’s mistakes, the company would

take steps to ensure fair policy changes to better protect user data (Gilbert, Ma, 2020).

#DeleteFacebook participants are not a homogenous single audience based on gender, ethnicity, or sexual preference, unlike many other social media movements. Since it is primarily an online campaign targeting a social media platform, the #DeleteFacebook movement sets itself apart from many others. While there were some physical demonstrations, such as people congregating outside Facebook’s headquarters and satellite offices, physical protests were not an integral part of the campaign (Wong, 2020). #DeleteFacebook did not organize or emphasize large-scale in-person protests to accompany their online presence in comparison to other social movements.

2.2. Critics

One critique of the campaign was that it failed to motivate enough people to take action. Although the hashtag #DeleteFacebook gained a presence, critics argue that many users never deleted Facebook (Mahdawi, 2018). According to this critique, people have become so dependent on social networks, such as modern-day phone books, that it is impossible to withdraw from them. As a result, the data shows that users were not always able to forego Facebook’s advantages. Mark Zuckerberg also said in 2018 that he did not think “a meaningful number of people” had taken the step to remove Facebook (Kharpal, 2018). Facebook has thus consolidated its role as a vital social media site. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center (2018), only one-quarter of respondents reported removing the app entirely in the months following the controversy, with around half of them simply changing their privacy settings.

Not only was the campaign lamented as unsuccessful, but opponents have said #DeleteFacebook was based on taking the wrong steps (Daub, 2018). Some argue that the best way to change Facebook’s data privacy policy is to “press for greater democratic control over the sit” rather than simply deleting accounts” (Courtney, 2018). Critics argue that the campaign is “self-defeating” because

removing an account does not inspire changes in the way other approaches could more effectively encourage positive growth on the platform.

Critics point out another disadvantage for businesses having less access to data (Lemieux, 2019). Heightened data protection regulations impose additional costs on companies. These burdens may result in higher market prices, directly influencing customers or users due to the need for companies to grow. Furthermore, there is a claim that fewer data points equal insufficient accuracy. The fewer details organizations like Facebook have, the less personalized applications and utilities would be for the needs of individual users. In short, improved data protection may result in higher costs and decreased productivity.

2.3. Twitter

Twitter plays a vital role in the #DeleteFacebook social media movement. In mass media, it is even called a “movement on Twitter.” This social media platform has transformative potential for group advocacy. It also serves as a platform for sharing knowledge and information about social justice (or activist) movements and user-to-user discussion on a specific social justice issue (Konnelly, 2015: 1).

Although social media made it possible for people to share the most ordinary aspects of their lives, these spaces are also important sites for expression and political discourse. As Highfield (2016) claims, “social media allow different groups, including citizens […] to contribute to, discuss, challenge and participate in diverse aspects of politics in public, shared context” (Highfield, 2016: 10).

Twitter is social publishing or microblogging platform where users publish, share, and like information called Tweets, comprising 140 characters or less. Hashtags were created as a bottom-up feature by Twitter users before being formalized by the platform, yet the feature has become a widely used tool for social media users connecting on existing topics, gaining visibility for their expression, and coordinating action (Holtz-Bacha, Zeh: 2016). Hashtags are an essential tool for political expression, as they can help boost visibility and draw 13

broader public attention (Highfield, 2016). The hashtag has proven to be exceptionally strong in its capacity for “cultural generativity” and the “diverse, artistic, social, and communicative practice” in which users participate, according to Bruns and Burgess (Burgess, 2012: 41). Retweeting, favoriting, and @replies are just a few of Twitter’s communication conventions, but the hashtag is arguably the most effective.

While it is a great place to express an opinion, it also has irony in the #DeleteFacebook movement, as one social media platform is battling against the other. Theoretically, third parties could use data from Twitter as well.

2.4. #DeleteFacebook in Australia

This thesis focuses on one peak in the #DeleteFacebook: the social media movement and hashtag activism in Australia. It was a resistance movement aroused following Facebook’s controversial news ban in Australia, where people again boycotted the platform.

On 18 February 2021, Facebook blocked all the pages of Australian news agencies. Over 17 million Facebook users could neither see nor share posts made by local and international news pages on the platform (Ryan, 2021). Facebook has also imposed brand new restrictions preventing people from outside Australia from accessing Australian news pages via their platform. The Australian government proposed new legislation that would require Google and Facebook to pay news outlets for their content in the same way they pay for advertisements, prompting Facebook’s news ban. The idea was that Facebook and Google both benefit and profit significantly from news outlets and should compensate them for their services.

Facebook claims that its platform helps social publishers more than what they benefit from these news outlets. As a result, they are banning news pages on the web in the hopes that the Australian government will retract their new proposed legislation (Ryan, 2021). People reacted by boycotting Facebook similarly, hoping that the company would rethink its decision and unblock Australian news outlets. 14

The #DeleteFacebook hashtag has since the scandal in Australia gone international, with thousands of people tweeting in support of the boycott. It shows that people are willing to resist the tech giants such as Facebook and Google, who exercise too much power and undermine the public good by allowing hate speech and misinformation to proliferate. This study aims to determine what key issues people address in their Tweets with the #DeleteFacebook hashtag and explains it through Critical Discourse Analysis (later - CDA).

3. Literature Review

3.1. The Cost of Connection

At the very beginning of the Internet’s existence, the whole digital existence seemed innocent. Nevertheless, with time, the potential for exploiting private data and some profiteering actions performed by capitalist-driven corporations quickly gained public awareness. Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias explain how tech companies see their end-users in terms of potential monetization in The Costs of Connection.

The authors present that each Android user creates $363 in value for its parent company, the average Facebook user is worth $233, and for WeChat, each user represents $539 (Couldry, Mejias, 2019: 37). The Costs of Connection is part of a larger body of work in the field of media studies that examines the controversial political and cultural ramifications of digital media technologies. For example, Tarleton Gillespie’s Custodians of the Internet (2018) examines the cultural implications of social media content policies, Sarah T. Roberts’ Behind the Screen (2019) examines the human labor of content moderation, and Safiya Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression (2018) examines the inherent disparities in online search engines. Similarly, The Costs of Connection recognizes that digital media has implications and offers a complex prism to comprehend the full potentials of online networking technologies. The biggest strength of this book is that it provides unpopular views on the digital world and the consequences of being connected. It inspired me to write this thesis and made me consider what Facebook being in power means to all of us. However, the authors do not go into specific methodologies or analysis; instead, they present their philosophical and historical views on a matter.

The Costs of Connection takes a colonial approach to contemporary data interactions, providing useful structures and terminologies for critics and practitioners alike. Couldry and Mejias describe “data colonialism” as “an evolving order for the appropriation and extraction of social capital for profit through data”

(Couldry, Mejias, 2019: xix). To explain the relationship between individual users and massive data companies, the authors weave together historical colonialism, cultural imperialism, and capitalism as a whole (Couldry, Mejias, 2019: xix). Couldry and Mejias argue that data colonialism and its associated philosophy, dataism, have become instruments for influencing user experiences and corporate influence in the online world.

They explain how “the machines of data colonialism form and mold the space around us, creating the new geographies of the Cloud Empire” by drawing a comparison with conventional colonialism’s exploitation of natural resources (Couldry, Mejias, 2019: 45). The so-called Cloud Empire encompasses the social quantification market, data colonization by private and public bodies, and the process of datafication, or the transformation of all aspects of life into data. The strong philosophy of dataism appears in tandem with the normalization of interaction as a requirement (Couldry, Mejias, 2019: 17).

Couldry and Mejias explain the mechanisms that serve data colonialism, as well as the impact on individuals. They claim that social spaces can no longer exist outside of datafication’s scope in the face of data hegemony. Couldry and Mejias also suggest something special about digital settings that allow data colonialism without thoroughly explaining why it would not be possible under normal or “offline” circumstances.

In terms of monetizing their customers, Facebook plays a vital role in the market. It is a monopoly that collects its own user’s data and then sells it to third parties. The #DeleteFacebook movement is the resistance movement addressing this situation, and Couldry and Mejias’s colonialist critique of this issue further broadens the spectrum of the critical arguments that address this problem. In the light of my research, Couldry and Mejia’s approaches were the basis for the argument about Facebook as the colonial power. However, they did not provide any methodology as it was a more philosophical approach to the concept of digital colonization. For this part, I have used other examples by other authors, which will be explained in the section of other studies of hashtag activism.

3.2. Resistance Movements

Digital Colonialism is a form of colonialism; therefore, the concept consists of two parts: colonialists and colonized. In such a relationship, a bottom-up resistance is unavoidable. Digital platforms provide a standard user interface for contemporary forms of political or social protest and resistance. Protest movements organize and mobilize via these interfaces, whereas media activists and online subcultures aim to impact public discourses through hashtags and visual strategies. Still, new pathways accompany the visibility and a battle over attention. Collective action and digital communication infrastructures sometimes tend to form a relationship of tension.

Foucault sought an answer to these problems in the concept of power relations: any information (as both a field of discourse and a field of visibility) is an integration of power relations, which Foucault defined as a capacity to affect and be affected – or what he called “governmentality” elsewhere, which occurs before any given government is formed (Smith, 2016: 265). Foucault analyzed two primary modes of governmentality in his middle works: “disciplinary power” or “anatomy-politics.” Awareness and visibility, but it is the exercise of power relations that makes knowledge possible, and it is their changing relations that account for the discontinuities between formations of knowledge (Smith, 2016: 266). The dilemma of resistance emerged at the end of Foucault’s considerations of control – this is the second major flaw in his thinking. The issue of resistance emerged at the end of Foucault’s considerations of the question of power. Is it possible to change or adjust these power relations if power is dominant, occupying the entire social sector and if these power relations provoke and condition our information types? (Smith, 2016: 267). The response to this question arose in Foucault’s final works: force becomes active when directed against itself, rather than against another exercise of power (Smith, 2016: 267). Resistance becomes present in one’s relationship with oneself, in one’s willingness to influence oneself, in one’s effect.

These views will be drawn on precisely in a section of theory. I think that the resistance movements, therefore power, are a driving force for change and awareness, especially in the case of #DeleteFacebook.

3.3. Social Movements

Power relations and the tension between two parts can lead to organized mass movements. Those which fight for socially relevant issues are presented as social movements. One of the goals of this thesis is to answer the question of how #DeleteFacebook can be interpreted as a social movement. Several academic papers and books help support this claim, primarily Social movements: an Introduction by Della Porta and Diani.

Throughout history, social movements have proven their potential to influence individual perceptions of particular social problems. Issues that were once considered “unthinkable” have hence taken front and center positions in political discourse, and through this process, the way people think has changed on many issues. According to Diani, “social movements are a process whereby several different actors come to elaborate a shared definition of themselves as part of the same side in a social conflict” (Diani 1992: 2). Early social movement research focused on how a movement could achieve connectivity, power, and social change. The approaches emphasized the importance of resource availability and political opportunities (McAdam, 1982; from Khazraee, Novak, 2018: 3).

In the late 1960s, the world was experiencing deep, dramatic transformations – even social-political revolutions (Della, Porta, Diani, 1999: 12). There were civil rights and anti-war demonstrations in the United States, the 1968 May uprising in France, and there were student marches in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. There was also the “Hot Autumn” in Italy 1969-70, where workers went on strike and students formed coalitions. Further, there were early signs of the feminist and environmental movements along with the rise of critical Catholicism from South America to Rome, which came to dominate the new

politics of the 1970s (Della, Porta, Diani, 1999: 16). All of these phenomena suggested that social progress was in the making.

According to McCarthy and Zald, a social movement is “a set of opinions and beliefs in a population that represents preferences for changing some elements of a society’s social structure and reward distribution” (McCarthy, Zald, 1977: 1217). Different schools of theory differ in their emphasis. Castells characterized social movements as being “purposive collective actions whose outcome, in victory as in defeat, transforms the values and institutions of society” (Castells, 1997: 3). Porta and Diani (1999) defined social movements as “informal networks, based on shared beliefs and solidarity, which mobilize about conflictual issues, through the frequent use of various forms. of protests” (Della, Porta, Diani, 1999: 16). Diani later refined the definition as “networks of informal relationships between a multiplicity of individuals and organizations, who share a distinctive collective identity and mobilize resources on conflictual issues” (Diani, 2000: 387).

As the aforementioned definitions demonstrate, the main goal of social movements is to seek social change and alter power relations. While these definitions certainly do not entirely reflect the richness of contemporary debates on collective action and social movements, they play a significant role in shaping critical discourse, especially in the light of this thesis.

3.4. New Social Movements

Social constructs and movements are evolving and changing with the time, and there is no exception to social movements. In the mid of 1960s, scholars associated with the New Social Movements (NSM) approach reflected upon the innovative forms and content of contemporary movements (Della, Porta, Diani, 1999: 9). Scholars of NSM agreed that conflict among the industrial classes decreased relevance and similarly that the representation of movements as largely homogeneous subjects was no longer feasible (Della, Porta, Diani, 1999:

9). NSM varies from traditional social movements in that it focuses on community or collective identities, beliefs, and lifestyles rather than economic concerns.

Actors in NSMs are primarily from the middle class rather than the lower classes, which are characteristic of industrial-era social movements (Melucci, 1995). NSMs are loosely structured social networks with supporters rather than locally or regionally organized members. Rather than serving as an instrumental weapon for the state, NSMs act as a platform for civil society and cultural or social collective action. NSMs focus on a specific issue or a small number of issues related to a more prominent theme, such as the environment (Melucci, 1995). Non-materialistic movements exist in the industrial era, and materialistic movements still occur in the post-industrial digital economy, according to critics of NSM; however, few characteristics are unique to modern social movements (Melucci, 1995).

Historically, technologies have constructively influenced social movements. For example, social movement organizers could widely distribute their ideas with the press, and better coordinate their activities (Tarrow, 1998). Scholars are still debating the role of social media in the context of social movements. Shaw (2012) argues that online dialogue can be a “form of activism,” despite the fact that most research on social movement actors’ use of digital media focuses on protest logistics. The rise of “e-movements” and new modes of “e-protest” and “e- activism” has signaled the Internet’s significance as a tool for social change activists to organize and mobilize (Earl, Schussman, 2003).

In this thesis, #DeleteFacebook represents a new social movement; however, it performed on social media, specifically Twitter, and has a particular form of NSM – hashtag activism. The details of it will be explained in the next section.

3.5. Hashtag activism

One part of new social movements is hashtag activism because it is performed on social media. In academia, hashtag activism, or hashtivism, refers to “discursive protest on social media united through a hashtagged word, phrase or 21

sentence” (Yang, 2016: 13). They typically take the form of hundreds of comments, retweets, and related news/stories posted in response to the online protest and its associated hashtag/s. According to Papacharissi and Oliveira, hashtags on Twitter serve a dual purpose (Papacharissi, Oliveira, 2012: 278), By their power to label social and political issues as they unfold and simultaneously invite affective language for mobilizing digital publics (Jackson and Welles, 2015).

Three key categories characterize hashtag activism on a linguistic and genre level: narrative agency, intertextuality, and emotionally charged expression. The ability to generate stories or “microstories” refers to a narrative agency (Giaxoglou 2018). This co-production of narratives involves the hashtagging by individuals of their thoughts, emotions, and stories (Yang, 2016). Through hashtags, the microstories are transportable across contexts and may function as legitimization for one’s view, as an “appeal to authority” (Giglietto, Lee 2017). According to Yang (2016), in the most persuasive cases of hashtag activism, hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter have full sentence structures that express a sense of action and force through concrete speech acts like protesting and requesting. The narrative type of hashtags, on the other hand, is evident not only in the hashtags’ syntactical structure but also in the rhetorical devices used in the micro-posts. By hashtagging their thoughts and stories, users construct a larger, collective narrative, which can then be reappropriated and reversed to create counter- narratives that delegitimize the main one.

In terms of intertextuality, because social media platforms like Twitter are based on sharing, retweeting, and linking to other online material, hashtags themselves can help convince the audience of one’s point of view. “Intertextual meanings are especially significant in social media environments, given the propensity of reproduction of picture, video, and written text at rapid rates and high volume,” according to Zappavigna (2018: 73). Since hashtags connect “a wide range of Tweets on a given topic or disparate topics regardless of whether, from a given viewpoint, these Tweets have something to do with one another,” their intertextual capacity must be carefully considered (Bonilla & Rosa 2015: 5). Re-appropriation, reversal, and recontextualization are all possible for hashtags in this way.

Finally, the vocabulary used in micro-posts shifts in response to strong feelings. Indeed, the “controversial and polarizing” nature of politics tends to trigger sentiments that draw public attention (Stieglitz & Dang-Xuan, 2013: 218). “Emotional discourses in the media or politics have a greater impact on hearers/readers, a strongly emotional discourse is more likely to hit people’s hearts and contribute to political action than the ordinary technical and consensual discourse,” according to Chiluwa & Ifukor (2015: 273). Public opinion thoughts and emotions, as a result, have a significant impact on public sentiment. What is crucial to emphasize, however, is that “emotion and affect do not necessarily belong to individuals and are not merely a personal matter; rather, emotions are collective and socially created” (Lee & Chau 2018: 23).

Hashtag activism is a powerful tool to reach a change, mainly because it is accessible for everyone. However, it is hard to differentiate where is true and who is right with a diversity of opinions. Critical views and evaluation are necessary in order to reach a consensus for your own mind. At the end of this CDA study, I will consider these views and explain why the #DeleteFacebook could be determined as hashtag activism and what different discourses were placed in open communication.

3.6. Other studies of Hashtag activism

In the following, the research presents two examples of hashtag movements other than #DeleteFacebook and draws on the research done on these hashtag activisms. I am interested in the advantages and disadvantages of the theories and methodologies other researchers draw on to build my own framework.

A key example of hashtag movement is #BlackLivesMatter. The hashtag appeared in 2012 in response to George Zimmerman’s after the acquittal of the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon (Hall 2018, Gallagher et al. 2018). The hashtag grew into a campaign against police brutality and other racially motivated violence against black people. The American Dialect Society named #BlackLivesMatter, a

“Word of the Year” that year, showing how hashtags can gain cultural significance (D’Ambriozo, 2015: 1).

Borysovych et al. (2020) looked at #BlackLivesMatter signs and the system of images involved in BLM activists’ sculptures that were photographed. The study employs a critical semiotics approach based on Roland Barthes’(1964) semiotic model of degrees of signification. The study also employs a multidisciplinary CDA approach to analyze and reveal power dynamics, inequality, domination, and injustice in social practices for a detailed theoretical understanding. This research takes hashtag activism and applies it to the offline world (Borysovych et al., 2020). The most extensive knowledge which this research provided is the usage of CDA in analyzing social movement online. Even though the focus of the movement is visual materials, the approach to this thesis is similar. The authors are paying attention to power relations and how it is portrayed in public discourse. Similar to this thesis, the study uses CDA as a method. However, visual rhetorics is the primary tool, different from this study, which concentrated mainly on the textual expression of the Tweets and then applied CDA. By looking at the visuals, while the hashtag movement is digital and spread by word, I consider it a weakness of the study. In my study, I focus primarily on the language as it is the movement's roots and connected directly to the analysis.

D’Ambrosio (2019) performed the analysis on #BlackLivesMatter, analyzing a collection of micro-posts obtained from Twitter, including #BlackLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter, and #AllLivesMatter at both vocabulary and grammar levels. This study used the tools of CDA and a systemic-functionalist approach. The survey findings showed how sociopolitical discourses are organized, debated, and contrasted in social media. The analysis demonstrated that hashtags are powerful linguistic and semiotic resources. However, the research does not explain how the author chose the Tweets to reproduce the research. Also, the researcher uses textual part analysis of CDA, not explaining discourse or interpretation level of analysis. Even though the study inspired me to do Tweet analysis, only analyzing the textual aspect of the Tweets did not provide a complete view. Therefore, I read an original paper about CDA by Foucault (1972) and van Dijk (1993) to understand how the analysis could be done. It became

clear that it is impossible to see what is behind the words just by doing a textual analysis. Behind the text, in intertextual, social interpretation begins a deep understanding of the issue.

Another hashtag activism that appeared through the Tweet was #deleteuber. In 2017, President Trump signed an executive order banning US entry to nationals from seven Muslim majority nations (Isaac, 2017). The following day, officials detained people from the seven countries arriving in New York and other US cities. Protests against the ban erupted at John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) and other US airports. By that evening, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) called for a 1-h work stoppage of taxis at JFK in solidarity with protesters and the detained nationals. Thirty-six minutes after the strike ended, @Uber_NYC tweeted that they turned off surge pricing at JFK. Twitter users interpreted the announcement as Uber’s attempt to profit from the executive order and break the strike.

Williams et al. research (2019) revealed how mobility discourses help understand mobility topics beyond transportation, and it provided a glimpse into the consciousness of some social media users reeling from significant political change. The authors conducted a thematic and mobility discourses analysis of 3611 Tweets. The research suggested that the hashtag produced various mobility discourses debated among an affective public disgusted at the company’s actions or the call to action implied by the hashtag. However, the authors could have gone beyond the context of transportation to broader social and political contexts, which is valuable for an interdisciplinary field. The inspiration of this study gave me a clarification on what scope would be valid to conduct Tweet analysis. Also, how the analysis was made step by step allowed me to design my own study. The CDA and power relations were also the lens researchers were looking through. However, this study did not give any insights thematically as it was based on mobility topics.

These studies are similar to the #DeleteFacebook hashtag activism movement because they also used Tweets or the consequences of the hashtag activism. Combining frameworks of framing, digital colonialism, power relations, and antagonism theories, #DeleteFacebook and CDA of the Tweets provides a

unique contribution of its structure on analyzing hashtag movements in the Media and Communication academic field.

3.7. Collective Identity

Digital colonialism leads to power relations, and the tension between the power and depowered gets a form of social movements, or today more usually with hashtag activism. People say out loud why they are not happy with some social problem or suggest a solution, proposal. What does it mean for people who participate in those movements? One area of interest of social movements is constructing collective identity. The study by Khazraee and Novak contributes to this discussion by investigating how online campaign pages on social media contribute to forming collective identity and constructing a campaign narrative (Khazraee and Novak, 2018: 1).

They examine the case of an Iranian women’s rights campaign page on Facebook called “My Stealthy Freedom” using textual and visual content analysis. The authors investigate how Facebook campaign pages contribute to creating collective identity (Khazraee and Novak, 2018: 4). Khazraee and Novak use Melucci’s framework, where the process of collective identity formation necessitates the creation of shared meaning, interactive relationship activation, and emotional investments (Melucci, 1989). In this study, these processes are discursive and enacted processes of collective identity formation. Regardless of the medium and channels used by movements or campaigns, these processes are part of collective identity building (Khazraee and Novak, 2018: 4).

Milan (2015) also argues that social media has been a participant in the development of collective identity and meaning in recent years and that it has generated space with a specific mobilization dynamic known as “cloud protesting.” Cloud protests manifest, allowing for visible social interactions, which individualize stories and defines boundaries between “us” and “them.” Also, it enhances community bonds through impression management and ensures the movement’s long-term viability through regular interactions. 26

Frames aid in the comprehension of the sense of events and thereby aid in the organization of perception and the direction of action (Goffman, 1974). Actors are given significance about the social structure through collective action frames. As a result, collective action frames are “action-oriented collections of values and meanings that encourage and legitimize a social movement organization’s actions and campaigns” (Benford, Snow, 2000: 614). Actors need frames to understand “what is going on” or “what should be going on.”

To define the problematic situation and its attributions, decipher who or what is to blame, and propose a solution, movement participants must use meaning- making and mutual knowledge to build collective action frames. These practices are referred to as core framing tasks by Snow and Benford (1988), who define three types: (1) a diagnosis of some event or aspect of social life as problematic and in need of alteration; (2) a proposed solution to the diagnosed problem that specifies what the participants of the movement have to do; and (3) a call to arms or rationale for engaging in ameliorative or corrective action. (Snowm Benford, 1988: 199).

Hashtag movements or any social movement include collective identity. The participants have one goal or try to solve the problem or find a solution. This theoretical framework allowed me to understand that in the #DeleteFacebook movement, participants are looking for the feeling of belonging. Hashtag movement participants fight for the idea and spread it to others with a sense of collective identity. It is the only way to collaborate while fighting against one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

4. Theory

4.1. Framing Theory

The main goal of this thesis is to answer the question of the main discourse typologies of the hashtag activism campaign #DeleteFacebook. In order to do that, the frames of how the participants of the moment are portraying why they were deleting Facebook must be identified. #DeleteFacebook hashtag

movement, as any other expression on the Internet, can be understood differently. Therefore, the theoretical framework of framing helps structure the Tweets’ perspective and their function in the CDA perspective.

The definition of the frame first appeared in Goffman’s (1974) work in the study of social movements. Frames, according to Goffman, are “schemata of perception” that allow people to “locate, perceive, define, and mark” events in their personal space and the larger world (Goffman, 1974: 21). Frames assist in making incidents or experiences significant and also serve to coordinate experience and direct action. Through simplifying and condensing facets of the “world out there,” collective action frames often serve this interpretive role, yet in ways that “intentionally organize potential followers and voters, elicit bystander support, and demobilize adversaries” (Snow & Benford 1988: 198). Collective action frames are sets of principles and meanings that empower and legitimize the activities and campaigns of a social movement group. “Collective action frames are not simply aggregations of individual behaviors and expectations, but also the result of negotiating mutual context,” according to one key feature that distinguishes them from the schema and other related cognitive constructs (Gamson 1992:111).

Social movements are carriers of existing concepts and interpretations that emerge naturally from structural structures, unanticipated events, or pre-existing ideologies. Instead, movement participants actively signify agents involved in creating and preserving sense for constituents, opponents, and bystanders or observers (Snow, Benford: 1988). This refers to an active, processual phenomenon that implies agency and contention at the level of reality construction. This framing activity produces “collective action frames.”

Since social movements aim to improve or change a problem situation or issue, directed intervention identifies the source of causality or blame. This attributional aspect of diagnostic framing focuses blame or obligation on this role. Prognostic framing, the second core framing activity, involves articulating a proposed solution to the problem, or at the very least a plan of attack, as well as the methods for executing the plan. Motivational framing, the final core framing practice, provides a “call to arms” or rationale for taking part in ameliorative

collective action, providing persuasive vocabularies. Frame analysis looks at how social movement movements help people build collective cognitive understandings.

For this research, framing as a theoretical lens provided structure and clarity of the Tweets. I was able to see how people are framing Facebook as an issue and their statements about leaving Facebook in a clear manner. This theory was employed as a statement but lacked the insights of how these frames can be interpreted. For a deep analysis, digital colonialism, power relations, and antagonism were used. The provided structure of the frames was a part of the analysis of #DeleteFacebook CDA.

4.2. Digital Colonialism

Social media channels are an irreplaceable part of our lives. Personal updates, businesses, self-expression are all that make these channels so important. However, with all information that a case of this thesis Facebook has, it becomes “God-like,” seeing everything. To see the risks and evaluate the status of this social media platform, the theoretical framework of digital colonialism will be used. In particular, to analyze one of the key themes that emerged in Tweets and find how this discourse is emerging within the frames communicated by the users.

To explain digital colonialism, I will draw on hitorical colonialism. For example, essential infrastructure, such as railways, was built by foreign imperialists to serve the mother country rather than the indigenous people. The production architecture was created to serve immediate European needs, not to support local residents (Kwet, 2019: 7). External forces, led by the United States, plant infrastructure engineered for their own needs under digital colonialism, allowing economic and cultural dominance while introducing privatized forms of governance (Kwet, 2019: 7).

Unlike historical colonialism, data colonialism requires everything to be measured, which has important implications for human autonomy and personal space. To achieve this mission, major companies design digital technologies to 29

control vital functions in the tech ecosystem. Instead of conquering the land, Big Tech corporations, including Facebook, are colonizing digital technology. “Data colonialism,” defined by Couldry and Mejias as “an emerging order for appropriating and extracting social resources for profit through data” (Couldry, Mejias, 2019: xix). Digital colonialism and its associated philosophy, dataism, become vehicles for influencing consumer experiences and corporate influence in the online world.

Corporations and governments pursue God-like omniscience to manage the population using sophisticated statistics and artificial intelligence to make sense of massive amounts of data (Kwet, 2019: 13). The cloud’s centralization allows for a large portion of the data processing. The intervention of Big Tech multinationals expands surveillance capitalism’s scope to its citizens, with the US empire at its core (Kwet, 2019: 13).

The monopoly power of multinational corporations is used for resource extraction through rent and surveillance - economic dominance. Big Tech firms monitor computer-mediated interactions by controlling the digital environment, granting them imperial control over political, economic, and cultural spheres of existence.

Digital colonialism as a theoretical framework helped to lay a basis for interpreting the first identified key theme (Encouragement to delete Facebook). With the two sides - colonialist and colonialized, I could construct the arguments supporting why Facebook has power, and it will have it as soon as they have access to code and knowledge.

4.3. Power Relations

The theoretical framework of digital colonialism naturally leads to the concept of power relations. The main goal of this thesis is to find the principle key themes and the discourses of #DeleteFacebook. Power relations, to have power, and to be under power are the main concepts I construct my arguments in this thesis.

Giddens (1982) suggests that to be a human agent is to have power and make a difference in the world. In any relationship in a social system, the most seemingly “powerless” individuals can mobilize resources whereby they carve out “spaces of control” regarding their day-to-day lives and respect more powerful activities (Giddens, 1982: 198). In the case of the #DeleteFacebook movement, there are two main agents: Facebook and society. Facebook is a digital colonialist; therefore, it has power. The digital community is taking resist against Facebook and try to change its power role.

In the delicate power dynamic that Karl Marx is well known for, Giddens describes powers of dominance (Giddens, 1982). Like Marx, Giddens claims that resources are the vehicles of influence. On the other hand, Marx is more interested in the relationship between capitalist societies' ”means of production.” Giddens wants to recognize control as a means of interaction between the actor and the structure. Resources are a type of authority represented by a boss and an employee in this relationship (Lamsal, 2021: 112). The data of the individuals is the resource for Facebook to generate profits, sell it to third parties, predict future behavior, and manipulate people with the power they have.

The agency’s ability to act, or its ability to act, is continuously engaging with authority. Big Data is a system of global surveillance capitalism that violates the sanctity of privacy and concentrates economic control in the hands of US corporations (Kwet, 2019: 3).

The power relationship is the central construct, allowing me to analyze digital colonialism relations in this thesis. However, simply stating that there is dominance or control does not solve a problem, that is why agonism and antagonism are used to support my arguments in the qualitative analysis.

4.4. Agonism and Antagonism

Power relations lead to resistance and a group of people who disagree with the existing situation. Antagonism is the academic concept, and this research will frame the division between “us” and “them” or friend/enemy. In this case, the 31

division between the audience and Facebook. This will also be key discourses within the Tweets, especially in the light of power relations.

The terms antagonism and agonism are used to describe the logic of conflict, the creation of self and others, and the relationship between conflict and democracy in several scholarly fields, including Media and Communication Studies (Dahlgren, 2005; Carpentier & Cammaerts, 2006). Although several theorists (Facoult, 1972) have contributed to the development of these two concepts, Mouffe (2005, 2013) is one of the most important (from Carpentier, 2018: 146)

The aim of democratic politics, according to Mouffe, is to change an “antagonism” into “agonism’ (Mouffe, 1999: 755). There are three nodal points in antagonistic debate: 1. the need to defeat the enemy, 2. differentiation and distance from the enemy 3. the self’s homogenization. The definition of the Other as “an enemy to be destroyed” (Mouffe, 1999: 755 from Carpentier, 2018: 148) immediately brings to the notion of destruction (and violence). Others must be seen as allies, not rivals to be defeated, whose right to protect their ideas will never be challenged in democratic politics (Mouffe, 2013: 185). If we use the antagonism description to reflect on agonism, the first point to note is that not every self and other interaction has to be a self and enemy-other relationship. To paraphrase Mouffe's words: “The political is grounded in self and other relations, but “such a relationship is not necessarily antagonistic” (Mouffe, 2013: 185). In Agonistics, Mouffe (2013: 109) argues that agonism expresses the relationship between self and other as a “we/they relation where the conflicting parties, although acknowledging that there is no rational solution to their conflict, nevertheless recognize the legitimacy of their opponents” (Mouffe, 2005: 20). In other words, an agonistic conflict allows both sides to have a different understanding but finds common ground, unless antagonism, where “the enemy has to be destroyed” as Facebook has to be #Deleted.

When it comes to political ideologies, which are often group identities, we are concerned with creating a “us” that can only exist by being distinguished from “them.” It means that this us/them relationship could turn into a friend/enemy relationship at any time. It occurs when those previously thought to be different

begin to be viewed as questioning our identities and threatening our existence. Any us/them relationship, whether religious, racial, or economic, becomes an antagonism locus from that point. Antagonism is, therefore, an ever- present possibility (Mouffe, 2018). However, the mindset of hashtag movement participants would have to be changed into an agonism to find a compromise, even though not agreeing with each other completely.

Current hashtag movements are the call for big tech companies. What people demand are better, more transparent data regulations. To satisfy their demand for voice, existing tech companies should transform or establish new ones. Also, they would have to create the conditions for an agonistic confrontation in which digital citizens would have alternatives. Compromise from both sides is the best way to come from “we want to destroy you, Facebook“ into “let us find a common solution.“ This part of the theoretical lens allows not just to observe the current situation but also to evaluate what is needed to be done to neutralize the conflict.

5. Research Design

5.1. Research Problem

The research problem of this thesis is:

#DeleteFacebook as hashtag activism on Twitter: Discourses and Intertextual Interpretation

This research aims to find out the intent of the Critical Discourse Analysis in the Tweets between 20 February and 4 March 2021.

5.2. Research Question

In this thesis, I have one main and two subsidiary research questions to narrow down the outcome of my research. “One research question is required to solve the research problem,” writes N. Blaikie and Jan Priest in their book, “and subsidiary questions will include those that deal with context information or problems [...] although not central to the project” (Blaikie, Priest, 2019: 92). I was able to narrow down my topic questions by following the lead of another scholar, D. Layder. “Unlike problem questions, which are broad in scope, topical questions focus on specific issues related to the subject or study field” (Layder, 2013: 10- 12).

Therefore, my main research question:

What are the principle discourse typologies and their intertextual interpretation of hashtag activism #DeleteFacebook?

My subsidiary questions:

1. What were the key themes that emerged during the #DeleteFacebook hashtag movement?

2. How can we interpret the online engagement with #DeleteFacebook as hashtag activism?

5.3. Research Paradigm

I will outline a research paradigm applying to my research in the following. According to Blackie and Priest, “paradigms provide a broad framework of philosophical and theoretical ideas within which research is conducted” (Blaikie, Priest, 2019: 124). This study aims to answer the questions “What were the key

themes that emerged during the #DeleteFacebook hashtag movement?” and “What types of discourse appeared within the two biggest key themes of the #DeleteFacebook hashtag movement?”. The study adhered to the interpretivist research paradigm. In interpretivism, the “social reality is regarded as the product of its inhabitants; it is a world that is constituted from the meanings participants produce and reproduce as a necessary part of their everyday activities together“ (Blaikie, Priest, 2019: 127). Interpretive researchers claim that reality is made up of people’s subjective perceptions of the outside world; thus, they can follow an inter-subjective epistemology and the ontological assumption that reality is socially constructed. Interpretivists, according to Willis, are anti-foundationalists who feel there is no one-size-fits-all approach to understanding (Willis, 1995: 5). In this research, I stress that my research role is subjective, and the results could be interpreted differently.

5.4. Limitations

It is necessary to acknowledge that this research does have limitations. The study’s main limitation is a limited time frame. I examined the Tweets for only 14 days (20 February to 4 March). The whole #DeleteFacebook campaign may not reflect the pattern for the campaign in a more extended period. Also, I concentrated on one peak of the #DeleteFacebook movement, which happened in Australia, which could not identify the whole movement's primary themes and discourses.

Another drawback of this analysis was that it was limited to a single social media site, Twitter. A more extensive study will be needed to fully comprehend and analyze the effect of the #DeleteFacebook main themes that emerged, including other mediums such as pictures or videos, mass media, and interviewing the movement participants.

Furthermore, one of the study’s most important limitations is that it examined the hashtag in the sense of some digital regulation. Analyzing the larger political,

social, and cultural context would have yielded various conclusions and interpretations.

Last but not least, the time scope of this study was also limited as a part of Media and Communications Studies at Malmö University. The time constraints influenced the sample size and method.

5.5. Ethical Considerations

I will go through a few main ethical concerns raised by Norman and Priest (2019) to see how I can approach ethical issues in my study. They first raise the issue of privacy and publicity when conducting online research. The Internet’s tools, programs, and events isolated private e-networks present new opportunities and challenges for social researchers compared to traditional offline social research (Blaikie, Priest, 2019: 266). Before extracting the Tweets from Twitter, I got the official confirmation that I can do it for research purposes, even though users confirm that their Tweets are publicly available before registering the Terms and Conditions of Twitter.

Second, private and public spaces converge in cyberspace, posing challenges to the researcher in determining the degree to which individual privacy must be protected (Keller, 2018: 37). A name, age, sex, or other personal related information is not published in this thesis, and it provides complete privacy to the authors of the Tweets.

My researcher’s position must be evaluated critically. “In a qualitative textual study, the researcher plays an active role by bringing her or his interpretive techniques to bear on her or his work” (Brennen, 2012: 206). It is important to note that as a researcher, I worked on socially divisive and challenging issues where both the presentation and the interpretation are subjective.

6. Methodology

The final element of a research design is the specification and justification of the methods to reduce and analyze the data. This study employs qualitative data into quantitative data by coding and revealing the most repeated categories. In short, quantitative methods focus on counting and assessing aspects of social life, while qualitative methods focus on providing discursive explanations and analyzing the meanings and interpretations of social actors (Blaikie, Priest, 2019: 226).

This study employs a mixed-methods approach to the key themes of #DeleteFacebook, principle discourse typologies and their interpretation. The two methods used are coding and critical discourse analysis. They work as complements to each other, addressing the content in question and addressing its surrounding context of production and consumption.

6.1. Quantitative Analysis

This study uses coding as a part of the quantitative analysis. It produces quantitative generalizations and qualitative descriptions based on codes. In qualitative research, coding is “how you define what the data you are analyzing is about” (Gibbs, 2007). It is a process of identifying a passage in the text, searching and identifying concepts, and finding relations between them.

The data at the basis of this case study were derived from 362.326 Tweets, including the hashtags #DeleteFacebook, retrieved from Twitter between March 2018 and March 2021 through a program called Twint. It is an advanced Twitter scraping tool written in Python that allows for scraping Tweets from Twitter profiles without using Twitter’s API (Twint, 2021). The permission of the Twitter developers team was submitted in order to use this data for academic purposes. The results were used to understand the tendencies and peaks of the hashtag used on Twitter. However, the data was not suitable for doing qualitative analysis. Therefore, another scraping of the data was made using the qualitative analysis program called Nvivo. It had a boundary of the timeline extracting the data within 37

the last two weeks and a limited number of Tweets. Between 20 February and 4 March 2021, there was another peak of using the hashtag. Therefore, it fits well for the qualitative analysis. NVivo extracted 1982 Tweets with historical Twitter data, containing Tweet ID, User ID, username, date and time, Tweet content, number of retweets, comments, and likes (Table 1).

Total Tweets 362.326

Read Tweets (1%) 3.623

Coded Tweets 1.987

Table 1. The Scope of Tweets analysis

From the first file, the data were systemized into the frequencies when most hashtags were used during the period between 2018 and 2021. In Figure 3, the frequencies are visualized, and in Table 2 the event which caused it are explained. The Tweets from the last peak of Tweets will be qualitatively analyzed.

#DeleteFacebook 20000 1 18000

16000

14000

12000 3 10000 6 5 8000 2 4

6000

4000

2000

Figure 3. Frequency in use of #DeleteFacebook on Twitter between 2018-2021

Date Event

1. 17.03.2018 Christopher Wylie exposes Cambridge Analytica (Cadwalladr, Graham-Harrison, 2018)

2. 24.05.2019 Faked Nancy Pelosi video (Waterson, 2019)

3. 14.10.2019 Mark Zuckerberg held informal dinners with conservative politicians and right-wing commentators in the US (Relman, 2019)

28.05.2020 Mark Zuckerberg criticized Twitter for fact- checking the president (Isaac, Kang, 2020) 4.

5. 29.08.2020 Mark Zuckerberg Admits’ Operational Mistake’ Over Kenosha Militia Page (Reuters, 2020)

6. 18.02.2021 Facebook decided to ban users and media companies from sharing links to news articles on the platform in Australia (Ryan, 2021)

Table 2. The #DeleteFacebook campaign chronologically

To generate insights of the collected data, a coding protocol was developed. A coding protocol (or codebook) is the framework that dictates which data is to be extracted from content and which values to be assigned (Riffe et al., 2013: 46; Thomas, 2013: 321). The steps taken to develop the codebook and subsequent coding is shown in Table 4. The coding process drew inspiration from Wheatley and Vatnoey (2020: 13) in their step-by-step approach and Literat, Kligler-Vilenchik (2019: 1993), and Larsson (2020: 15) in their choice of method and style in developing a codebook.

Theme Words and phrases to code Examples

Encouragement to delete Moving on, deleted, deactivated, did it, I deleted my FB account 5 Facebook canceled them, it is done, have years ago and have ZERO courage, do not miss regrets.

Resentment or antipathy Data, privacy, hackers, personal data After I had saved all my expressed towards Data use personal data on #Facebook Privacy issues and #Instagram to my local storage devices, I disabled

my own accounts on these platforms.

Critique of Political System Monopoly, power, political, Trump, far- @OwnerFacebook you are (Reference to violating right, fascism, democracy, radicalism trying to destroy America just democracy, monopolistic like your buddy, trump power)

Resentment or antipathy Moral, compass, toxic, immoral Either because of capitalism’s expressed toward no moral demand for profits at all costs compass of Facebook or its CEO’s poisonous politics, Facebook is an actual moral corrosive.

Reference to Misinformation, disinformation, fake The problem with Misinformation news, propaganda @Facebook is that they give the appearance of preventing

disinformation without actually doing anything about it. If you have an old account please.

Table 3. Coding of the Tweets

Step by step process is shown in Table 4. In the pre-coding stage, all Tweets were extracted from the beginning of the social movement until the present day (N = 362.326). In stage 1, 1% of the sample (N = 3.623) was analyzed using an inductive approach to identify general themes and categories. In stage 2, the NVivo program extracted the data to have clean and sorted out information (N = 1.987). Researchers suggest that an inductive approach allows for establishing generalizations about the distributions and patterns within the content (Blaikie, Priest., 2019: 111; Mayring, 2000: 4). Following that, in stage 3, the sub-sample (n=994) was gone through more detail to establish more categories and gather example Tweets from each theme. After this process, in stage 4, a sample of 993 Tweets remained. These Tweets were deductively assigned to one of the five defined key themes or the category “others.” In this research, one Tweet was assign just to one theme to have a clear division on a 100% scale. If I had assigned the Tweets to more than one theme, my final results would have led to more than 100%, which would not show the relation to the whole group of Tweets. In the process of assigning the Tweets, I have seen the tendency that the Tweet belongs to one theme more than the other themes. This one theme

was assigned to the Tweet. The process of how I assigned the main theme is explained in Table 4. Every Tweet was interpreted and assigned to the theme by me.

Stage Approach N= Description

Pre-Coding Sorting for 362.326 Tweets were screened. inclusion/exclusion Database was cleaned to 6 most significant peaks (Marked on Figure 3).

Stage 1 Inductive 3.623 1% sample was read, and general themes were identified (not documented in this thesis, the process was continued with Stage 2)

Stage 2 Inductive 1.987 NVivo exported “Clean” Tweets

Stage 3 Inductive & Deductive 994 Categories were coded into qualitative themes and grouped (Table 3)

Stage 4 Deductive 993 The entire sample of Tweets was coded according to the complete codebook

Table 4. Coding stages

The quantitative analysis was used to understand the lexical objects available, outline the main topics addressed, and ensure that the data collected is relevant to the study’s main topic. In stage 1, where I read general themes from the whole database but could not code it due to the complexity of the exported data, I read every Tweet and from the words such as “I did it,” “data privacy,” or “power” understood broad topics why people are leaving Facebook. However, this was just a rehearsal before the actual analysis as I could not use the data because some symbols or half sentences were creating noise in the research process. As soon as I received “clean data,” as explained in stage 3, I used the deductive approach, and every Tweet received the theme it represents the most. Words, phrases, and semantical structures helped me to interpret what theme the Tweet belongs to (Table 4). After identifying the most significant key themes, the study is primarily qualitative since it analyzed two main themes through CDA.

The criteria Tweets had to fulfill was the following:

• Be intelligible • Have a clear codable theme (Certain Tweets that only contained the hashtag in just itself or only in conjunction with unmotivated disappointment or resentment would not be included in the sample since they did not contain any analyzable theme or rhetoric that would contribute to this study) • Contain the hashtag #DeleteFacebook • Not be an ad (The focus was on the individual’s involvement) • Contain the rhetoric argument in text form (Image or video analysis was beyond the scope of this study) • Be in English

Coding the Tweets and reducing the amount of data helped identify two qualitative topics for qualitative analysis.

6.2. Qualitative Analysis

This study also uses qualitative research to explain the two most significant themes, which emerged through quantitative research. Shortly, qualitative study is a naturalistic, interpretive approach to its subject matter. It means qualitative researchers investigate phenomena in their natural environments, trying to understand or explain them in terms of the meanings people assign to them. (Denzin, Lincoln 1994: 2). To emerge qualitative analysis, the research is using CDA to every identified key theme.

6.2.1. Critical Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is a qualitative method that has been adopted and developed by constructionists (Fulcher 2010: 1). CDA is a tool for systematically examining the content of a text, “the reinforcement of negative cultural and conceptual stereotypes,” and guidance for analyzing more “explanatory investigations of how racism and inequality are embedded in language structure and use” (Lederer, 2013: 265). Moreover, CDA allows an examination of power elements such as “oppression, repression, marginalization, and dominance” (McGregor, 2004) and thus “to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social inequality (van Dijk, 2008: 85). Hence, CDA is an investigatory method to help visualize how such elements of power conducted from higher social levels play a vital role in the public sentiment towards perpetuating the interests of dominant social groups (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997).

CDA Analysis:

Dimension I: Description

Dimension II: Interpretation

Dimension III: Explanation

Figure 4. Framework for CDA (Fairclough, 1995: 59)

Fairclough distinguishes three dimensions to CDA in his three-dimensional model (Figure 4). The discourse fragment is represented by the first dimension, which is a “text” that can be any object of study, such as textual, visual, or verbal- visual texts (Baig, 2013: 129). The creation and reception of a “text” in a specific ‘context’ can be defined as the second dimension of “discursive practices” (Baig, 2013: 129). “Situational as well as intertextual” is the context (Baig, 2013: 129). The situational meaning refers to the date and location of text development.

The intertextual meaning, on the other hand, is linked to the discourse’s producers and receivers, and the third dimension of discourse may be defined as “power behind discourse” or “social practices” that operate behind the scenes and regulate power relations in discourse (Baig, 2013: 129). Fairclough’s three dimensions involve a different form of analysis: “document analysis” or definition for the first dimension, “processing analysis” or interpretation for the second dimension, and “social analysis” or clarification for the third dimension (Baig, 45

2013: 129). Since all dimensions are interdependent, it does not matter the type of analysis one starts with because they are “mutually explanatory” (Janks 1997: 27).

The discursive strategies of #DeleteFacebook are examined by using a critical approach and analyzing specific categories of language (D’Ambrosio, 2019:7). The present investigation was conducted on data retrieved between 20 February and 4 March 2021, the appearance and raise of the using hashtag #DeleteFacebook.

6.2.2. Why CDA?

The research is well-suited to CDA because it emphasizes the social use of language, which is the main subject. Twitter encourages users to express themselves without regard for societal or legal constraints openly. Instead of studying abstract language structures, Twitter’s independence motivates and encourages the development and use of authentic language or “naturally occurring” language by natural language users” (Wodak, 2011: 36). Tweets show more than just a message in a social network, given the historical context, cultural and social context of data privacy, and tech monopolies. It reveals how digital users in Australia responded to a local mass media ban during one of #DeleteFacebook’s peaks in 2021. Twitter became a venue for the international audience to express their opinion. In this regard, Tweets provide crucial information about “the analysis of the roles of (social, cultural) contexts of language usage” (Wodak 2011: 36). One of the distinguishing characteristics of CDA is that it extracts critical knowledge from text or Tweet exchanges to reveal linguistic and social variables and ideologies.

Specifically, in this thesis, I analyze how do the discourses emerge and how these themes manifest themselves in CDA. The (re)production and challenge of supremacy are the two functions of debate in this study. Dominance is characterized as the exercise of social control by elites, organizations, or classes,

resulting in social inequality, which includes political, cultural, class, ethnic, racial, and gender disparities (van Dijk, 1993: 250). The bottom-up relationships of resistance, enforcement, and acceptance are the focus of this study. Also addressed in the study is the fact that traditional macro-concepts like community or institutional power and superiority play an essential role. To understand the relationship between discourse and culture, and thus discourse and the reproduction of dominance and power, I argue that we must first understand the relationship between discourse and the reproduction of dominance and power. Therefore the research has to concentrate on all three dimensions: textual, social, and intertextual context.

This focus on a fundamental understanding of social issues like dominance and control does not negate the importance of theoretical considerations. On the contrary, I use framing, digital colonialism, power relations, and antagonism theories. Studying the dynamic relationships between power control and debate is at the heart of this theoretical endeavor.

7. Key findings and analysis

7.1. Presentation of Quantitative Content Analysis

As shown in Figure 5, 28% of the Tweets (n = 564) expressed the encouragement to delete Facebook or confirm that they already did it. The second biggest group of themes was referring to data privacy issues. Another big part of Tweets, including #DeleteFacebook, was referring political system (nationalism, USA elections, reference of violating democracy, monopolistic power). In the 4th place, Twitter users talked or reposted about toxic social media environments and toxic habits. The least frequently represented theme, at 5 %, is misinformation which is spread on Facebook (n= 96). Many Tweets were assigned to none of the themes because they were not included in the scope of this research, were not in English, or just had a hashtag #DeleteFacebook with no other context (Table 5).

Qualitative #DeleteFacebook Key Themes

Encouragement to delete Facebook Data Privacy issues 27% 28% Critique of political system

5% No moral compass 6% 22% Misinformation 12%

Other

Figure 5. Visual representation of the key themes emerged during the #DeleteFacebook social activism campaign between 20th February and 4th March 2021

The qualitative topic emerged in the #DeleteFacebook campaign between 20th February and 4th March:

1. Encouragement to delete Facebook a) Reference of deleting Facebook b) Encourage others for deleting Facebook 2. Resentment or antipathy expressed towards Data Privacy issues 3. Critique of Political System (Reference to violating democracy, monopolistic power) 4. Resentment or antipathy expressed toward no moral compass of Facebook 5. Reference to Misinformation

Key Theme Total Numbers Percentage

Encouragement to delete Facebook 564 28 %

Data Privacy issues 432 22 %

Critique of the political system 245 12 %

No moral compass 122 6 %

Misinformation 96 5%

Other 528 27%

Total 1987

Table 5. Quantitative representation of the key themes emerged during the #DeleteFacebook social activism campaign in March 2021

7.2. Presentation of Qualitative Content Analysis

7.2.1. Encouragement to Delete Facebook

The hashtag acts as a personalized storytelling prompt in the study, which provides a particular narrative focus of Twitter users who compellingly used #DeleteFacebook in 140 characters or less. For the CDA, I selected a few comments included in the quantitative analysis. They were the most representable ones for the whole key theme.

7.2.1.1. Textual Analysis

Example Nr.1: “Dear #Australia. Have you deleted your 'Farce Book' accounts yet? Go on, you know it makes sense”

When reading this casual-style comment, the first thing that catches readers' attention – a changed meaning from “Facebook” to “Farce Book.” The user relates to an absurd or disorganized situation and draws to the structure and representation of Facebook. Given the importance of the data regulation decisions in Australia during the period when #DeleteFacebook reached its peak in 2021, this means that the author of the comment encourages other users in Australia to delete Facebook. Another textual usage by the author addresses the country as a personified entity, or “Australia” as metonymic, using the country's name. Also, an imperative form of the sentence is used (“Go on”) and shows that the user feels in a power position to say that and divides between “you” and “us” whereas “you” is on a negative connotation. The Tweet also includes the sarcastic sentiment. The person expresses negative feelings using positive words in the Tweet, such as “Dear #Australia” or “you know it makes sense,” but signifies the opposite to convey contempt.

The function of this Tweet is to persuade and instruct about what is the right way. To interpret it, the text demands a certain level of knowledge of the 50

Facebook regulations in Australia in 2021. The narrative in the Tweet reminds the letter structure, akin to semi-formal style. The comment achieves the tone by using colloquialism with a mix of politeness (“Dear” and “go on”). It sounds like a speech for the public from the tribune. The sentences are simple, with no grammatical subordination, which adds a tone of simplicity that is common in Twitter. It is like speaking in the street. The author seems unsophisticated about the social media platform and deleted or planning to delete Facebook.

Example Nr.2: “I deleted Facebook permanently, and it felt SO GOOD. And yes, I know they own Instagram, but at least no one can see my drunk “status” or pics from when I was 17. They are gone. And you ugly gremlins can't take that away from me.”

In the first sentence, the author confirms deleting Facebook and opens up about the feelings. The emotions are in most Tweets, ensuring deleting Facebook or encouraging others to do that. These emotions, in this case, are collective and socially constructed.

The commentator expresses the inscribed effect of being released by the capitalized interjection “SO GOOD.” Then, the user confirms for the imaginary audience that he or she still uses Instagram, which belongs to Facebook. Still, Instagram does not have some shameful photos or statuses from old times. The author uses quotation marks for emphasis to separate a specific word “status” from the rest of the sentence and uses it with a tone of sarcasm, meaning it is unimportant, exaggerated by others.

This Tweet includes an inscribed negative judgment. The commentator describes people who did not delete Facebook as “ugly gremlins.” It gives the first clue how the discourse of Antagonism, a clear division between “me” and “them.” The slang “ugly gremlins” used to emphasize lowly or despised people: victim and perpetrator.

The mood of the Tweet is aggressive, partially defensive, and has a crude tone. The author employs the Tweet to express disappointment, disbelief, and disagreement with Facebook's policy.

7.2.1.2. Discursive Practises and Interpretation

Fairclough refers to the situational context and the intertextual context as central to the process of interpretation (Fairclough, 1995). I argue that the participants of the online movement #DeleteFacebook members constituted in line with the discourse of Antagonism while using the framing techniques. The Tweets represent the discourse that appeared in the most prominent quantitative theme where people confirm or encourage others to delete Facebook.

7.2.1.3. Framing

First of all, the Tweets contain direct expressions of power and forming an opinion of other Twitter users and indirectly talking to the media and the public: „You ugly gremlins.“ We can see an emerging discourse of Antagonism by the clear division between “us “and “them,” which is reached by grammatical and rhetorical forms of language: “Have you deleted?”. Therefore, the Tweets can be seen as formed through the diagnostic frame (how the situation is understood) and identity frame (“you “vs. “us “and forming of collective identity).

Diagnostic frames include comments and posts that identify who or what is to blame for the situation the participants are protesting (Khazraee, Novak, 2018: 7). They also determine what the “situation” or problem is. For example: “Facebook is evil, and you should delete the app” or “Shocking that so many people know Facebook owns Instagram and Whatsapp but yet still use these platforms even after they shared your personal information several times, I deleted mine years ago.” They blame Facebook and compare it to evil. Others frame it as if it would be “others” fault, those still using Facebook or other social

media platforms that belong to M. Zuckenberg: “You know it makes sense?” #DeleteFacebook participants support their claim by drawing attention to data privacy, democracy, and monopolistic powers.

The self is often homogenized as a result of the association with the enemy- other, which assigns a set of attributes that separate the self from the enemy and extend to the whole self. It is opposite to agonistic conflict, which Mouffe sees as a goal in antagonistic discourse (Peja et al., 2018: 148). The battle in agonistic discourse does not hide the differences in position and interest between the involved parties. They are still 'in conflict' but share '[…] a common symbolic space within which the conflict occurs' (Mouffe, 2013: 7). In this case, Antagonism slips into antagonistic self-other relationships, where they need to destroy enemies: „Facebook is evil.” In other words, #DeleteFacebook community members seek to take away Facebook’s power position.

The diagnostic frame directly enacts data privacy issues making them public and providing the stage for other users, the public, and Facebook to counterargument. Since Facebook (or any other tech giant) does not have confirmed government regulation, it becomes ultimately responsible for such decisions, including interference in people's private data. The #DeleteFacebook is trying to catch not just other user's attention but also Facebook itself. According to top- down power relations, all lower groups and agencies (e.g., government or police) may feel equally entitled to make decisions, as the case in Australia demonstrated since they are below Facebook's authority in this hierarchy.

Frames related to identity attempt to define the borders between “us,” “them,” and “the audience/you” (Khazraee, Novak, 2018: 8). The language of the posts often includes “we” to refer to the people involved in the #DeleteFacebook campaign (Khazraee, Novak, 2018: 7). Similarly, some articles refer to the reader as “you,” the bystander: “Y'all only now realizing you should delete Facebook? #DeleteFacebook, I thought y'all would've learned after they leaked your information.” These framing acts create the basis for the narrative of heroines and villains and leave the bystander to choose a side in that story (Khazraee, Novak, 2018: 8). By pointing out the weakness of social media, participants of the campaign inspire others to join the “right” side. Another frame encourages the

sensation of “being a member of the revolution as well” (Khazraee, Novak, 2018: 8). Participants try to persuade the audience that they will begin to participate in progress by using everyday scenarios: “Come on, man! I deleted the app two years ago! It's your turn now!”. Participants define an identity that bystanders can relate to by linking the campaign and its actions to the audience, helping them to feel a part of the larger movement (Khazraee, Novak, 2018: 8). These interactions define identity fields on a visible, internationally accessible level (Twitter), which can garner support and affirmation for the campaign's narrative protagonists (Facebook users) and exert pressure on opponents (Social networking platforms) from a broad international audience.

#DeleteFacebook online campaign on Twitter contributes to forming collective identity and constructing a campaign narrative. In this narrative, the protagonists do not agree with Facebook community rules. The antagonists are Facebook and other tech corporations. The audience of the Tweets is the national and international community as Twitter is an open source for the world. This large audience will observe and react to the injustice through social media, which helps to mobilize public opinion (Khazraee, Novak, 2018: 6). Collective identification and narrative framing go hand in hand, leading to the campaign's abstract and concrete Tweets, respectively. The sharing of stories on Twitter creates a picture of heroes and villains. Beyond the framing process, the language and social setting of the Tweets created a discourse of Antagonism.

7.2.1.4. Discourse of Agonism and Antagonism

According to van Dijk, power involves control, namely by members of one group over those of the “other” (van Dijk, 1996: 254). This type of control can apply to both behavior and cognition: for example, an influential group can restrict others' freedom of action while also influencing their minds. Persuasion, dissimulation, or manipulation, among other strategic ways to turn others' minds in one's interests, are all used in modern and often more robust control (Dijk, 1996: 254). At this crucial point, antagonism discourse and CDA come in:

managing the mind of others is essentially a function of text and talk (Dijk, 1996: 254). Facebook's supremacy is enacted and replicated in small, daily ways that seem normal and appropriate.

In the Tweets, the users participating in the #DeleteFacebook movement represent counterpart positions. They all place themselves wanting Facebook not to continue their mission to connect people while collecting their data or making tough decisions without including their community in a dialog and being intransparent. It is an ongoing discussion in the society that Facebook tracks the data, sells it, manipulates it in ways nobody knows, people become addicted and suffer from depression or permanently compare their lives to others which is one of the effects of how Facebook uses cognitive powers.

The community of #DeleteFacebook members is a counterpart, and the Facebook empire is an enemy. By giving shape to societal divisions (Facebook vs. us), the representative institution is critical in enabling this conflictual component to be institutionalized and reflects antagonistic confrontation, for example:

Example Nr.3: “Facebook is the dumpster fire in which America burns. I deleted my account about a decade ago. Best decision I've ever made”.

Example Nr.4: “Facebook is evil, and you should delete the app”.

Directive expression, such as commands or instructions, is used to gain control, exert dominance, and repeat dominance, as seen in example 4. Texts' form, rhetoric, and context often serve to obscure social power ties. For instance, they were understating the responsible agency of powerful social actors (Facebook) as represented in the text.

Textual analysis shows a correlation between social power and discourse access: the more leverage or influence discourse participants have, the more dominant elites are (Facebook in this case). Facebook becomes the center of communication, gets mass media attention, and continuously spread its power as governments or other institutions do not regulate them. Also, most social media 55

users are too addicted or attached to the platform as the decision to delete it does not come easily. On the other end, nobody knows how Facebook code looks and what they track and sell to third parties or do other activities the public is not aware of yet.

Power and dominance are organized and institutionalized, and as an answer to that, people are forming collective identities and organizing hashtag activism. #DeleteFacebook participants are not enacted individually instead as a group. International mass media also support it, legitimated by-laws enforced by the police or data protection institutions. However, in this case, Facebook implies a hierarchy of power: their employers have a unique role in planning, decision- making, and control over the relations and processes of enacting power (Dijk, 1996: 255). They can be called the power elites (Domhoff, 1978; Mills, 1956). According to this study, participants in the hashtag campaign have varying degrees of freedom in terms of using specific discourse genres or forms and involvement in social movements, such as protests. However, only Facebook has access to the decision-making process.

In sum, antagonism (division between the power groups) is measured by their control over the discourse. This relationship implies that discourse control is a type of social action control and, most importantly, it implies conditions of control over other people's minds, i.e., the management of social representations. More control over more properties of text and context, involving more people, is associated with more influence. On the other hand, if we use the antagonism description to reflect on agonism, not every self and other interaction has to be a self and enemy-other relationship. Such relationships could be exchanged into constructive discussions, where Facebook would listen to what their customers want and expect and make transparent what they do and where they sell customers’ private data. To accomplish a concept of agonism could be a way to empower the digital society.

7.2.2. Resentment or antipathy expressed towards Data Privacy issues

Many of those who delete Facebook speak of widely recognized reasons for leaving the platform: avoiding time-wasting, procrastination, and the adverse psychological effects of perpetual social comparison. Nonetheless, people are also aware that Facebook targets their data and sells it to the advertisement companies. Facebook uses numerous approaches to collect information about web users. One involves Facebook pixel, an invisible tracker that brands can embed into their websites (Facebook for Business, 2021). When users load a website for a brand, Facebook pixel sends information about the device and its browsing activities back to the company (Facebook for Business, 2021). The social network can use the information to assist marketers in targeting their customers, Internet users, knowing the behavior, interest, and personal information such as gender, religion, or political views. In the following, I will analyze the second biggest key theme mentioned in the Tweets, which is resentment or antipathy expressed towards Data Privacy issues through CDA.

7.2.2.1. Textual analysis

Example Nr.5: “I deleted the Facebook account after learning it was nothing more than an information-gathering tool for specific companies to make a profit and government to have details on individual peoples' lives, they wouldn't have otherwise.”

One of the most notable features of this Tweet is that the user compares Facebook with a “gathering tool.” The author means Facebook keeps users' data and sells it to companies or targets Internet users and profits. The nouns profit- government-details reveals a pragmatic evaluation of the situation. The author of this Tweet uses synecdoche, which occurs when the part represents the whole. In this case, “specific companies and government” are defined as many companies and governments which use Facebook advertisements.

The Tweet uses a casual linguistic register using such phrases as “they would not have otherwise,” which implies that the commentator judges Facebook and the government to keep their users' data and interfering in the private space. Through these techniques, the speaker seems disappointed, belonging to the community #DeleteFacebook which wants social media to change its behavior or abolish it.

Example Nr.6: “If a business is built on misleading users on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform.”

The Tweet uses the conditional statement “If…then”. The impact of the main clause of the sentence is conditional on the dependent clause. In this case, if businesses (having in mind those like Facebook) intervene in people's privacy and the scope of which businesses and media portals can post there, then people should not be there. As stated in the Tweet “reform,” radically change their policies and cooperation values.

Also, the author uses a form of neglection, “choices that are no choices,” meaning Facebook allows choosing the parameters of what information the user wants to receive on their feed. Still, they are doing the agenda-setting themselves. The example of banning Australian media platforms from posting the news on Facebook confirmed that Facebook could decide what they should show and whatnot.

The mood of this Tweet is straightforward, expressing negative feelings towards Facebook and encouraging others to delete Facebook or changing the pattern of how Facebook functions “It deserves reform.” The user is skeptical and not satisfied with how this media platform is managing data.

7.2.2.2. Discursive Practices and Interpretation

The first discursive element in the Tweets from the resentment or antipathy expressed towards the data privacy issues segment is data colonialism. The second one is power relations. In the following sections, I will present these findings through CDA.

7.2.2.3. Digital Colonialism

Digital corporations play a pivotal role in today's world. Big Tech companies are colonizing digital technologies rather than conquering territory. They are combining orders for appropriating and exploiting social capital for benefit by using info. Digital colonialism and its associated philosophy, dataism, become vehicles for influencing consumer experiences and corporate influence in the online world.

Colonial conquest usually involves the appropriation of valuable resources from indigenous populations, as well as colonial powers' ownership and control of infrastructure (Kwet, 2019: 7). Foreign powers plant infrastructure engineered for their own needs as part of digital colonialism, allowing economic and cultural dominance while introducing privatized forms of governance (Kwet, 2019: 7). It leads to privacy policy issues, one of the most mentioned problems in the #DeleteFacebook participants’ Tweets.

By putting services in their hands, they can gain centralized control over communications through code (Kwet, 2019: 4). Those that have access to the most essential data forms and in vast quantities have a considerable advantage over their competitors. Facebook has access to the personal information of over two billion users, including what they “like,” who they are friends with, whom they speak to, and where they move physically. It enables them to infer characteristics about people they are unaware of (such as sexuality, religion, political affiliations, and behavioral tendencies). Third parties use the information to exploit

individuals, associations, and organizations for corporate benefit and state control.

Example Nr.7: “Privacy matters. Using Signal will change the situation a bit. I prefer trusting a non-profit company that works with donations than a data money maker company that has been at the court for various scandals. It is time to #DeleteFacebook services.”

Tweets show direct examples of digital colonialism, in which multinational corporations misuse personal data, control the market, and profit from their structural domination in digital architecture, which leads to more general types of imperial impact. Controlling code is essential to digital dominance. Lawrence Lessig argued in Code: and Other Laws of Cyberspace that computer code, like architecture in physical space, forms the rules, norms, and behaviors of computer-mediated interactions (e.g., imperial railways designed for colonization) (Lawrence, 1999).

The programmers who write the software determine technical freedoms and influence how consumers interact with their computers. As a result, the software significantly impacts people's attitudes, policies, and freedoms when using digital technology (Kwet, 2019: 8). Software control, exercised through software licenses and hardware ownership, is a source of digital dominance. People can use, sample, alter, and share software under the terms of a free software license. On the other hand, nonfree software licenses give software designers power over users by preventing them from exercising their freedoms (Kwet, 2019: 8). The human-readable source code of proprietary software is locked away from the public, and Facebook limits who can access it.

Big Data, by its very nature, infringes on people's privacy. Data miners rely heavily on artificial intelligence to make sense of the massive data sets gathered. To predict results, AI usually “learns” by analyzing massive datasets. The dominance of the United States over code – and other elements of digital architecture – usurps the authority of other nations. It demonstrates that digital

colonialism encompasses the dominance of digital companies and country politics and influence. Participants in the #DeleteFacebook campaign emphasize Data Privacy concerns, revealing a colonized debate.

Digital colonialism is a type of power. It is a philosophy created to justify an invasion and silence critics. It is a way for digital forces to influence people's actions and persuade them to make decisions in their favor.

7.2.2.4. Power Relations

Social control may take the form of wealth, income, rank, prestige, force, group membership, education, or information. Controlling awareness has a significant impact on our perceptions of the environment, as well as our debate and other behavior (van Dijk, 1993: 249). The importance of critical study of certain types of text and speech, for example, in the media and education, is ultimately to create such information (van Dijk, 1993: 249).

In #DeleteFacebook analysis, we see resistance towards an organization, a digital colonizer. It is also the resistance towards those who know about digital citizens. The rules of gatekeeping or algorithms are how Facebook forms one’s views. Without having access to code, no one can understand, analyze, and know how it works. Those who know (code in this case) have power.

To investigate how power and domination are manifested, and conversely, the role of Facebook's dominance, #DeleteFacebook participants systematically discuss its major discourse dimensions. Hegemony exists when the dominant minds may be manipulated to embrace domination and behave in power interests without their consent (Gramsci, 1971; Hall et al., 1977). One of the essential functions of dominant discourse is to create certain agreement, recognition, and legitimacy for dominance (Herman, Chomsky, 1988).

Understanding and describing power-relevant discourse frameworks involves reconstructing their production's social and cognitive processes (van Dijk, 1993: 254). Privilege or access to the issue is a significant power resource. Some elite (Facebook) participants may have influence over the occasion, time, location, and 61

setting of such activities, as well as the code. To put it another way, controlling means enacting authority. Even though the hashtag movement and communication are uncontrolled, intonation, lexical or syntactic type rhetorical numbers and semantic structures show that the movement's participants are aware of power discourse.

As Giddens suggests, to be a human agent is to have power and make a difference in the world. The agency's ability to act, or its ability to act, is continuously engaging with authority (Giddens, 1982). Big Data infringes on the right to privacy when consolidating economic influence. Not just Facebook but any other tech giant which collects, analyses, and sells users’ data. The movement #DeleteFacebook is the surface fighting against deep and publicly unknown deals, power relations, and access to knowledge. The digital mega- corporations will be in a power position as long as they access the knowledge and code.

8. Further Study

There is a need for further knowledge of this study. For example, to obtain more accurate results, the analysis might include more variables: the Tweets from the beginning of the campaign or just text and other media variables such as videos, pictures, or memes posted by Twitter users. Also, a comparison could be made to whether different key themes emerge in different peaks of the #DeleteFacebook campaign. Furthermore, more profound research on the users could be employed to analyze the online social campaign better.

In addition, as people from different parts of the world had influential roles in the online discussion of the #DeleteFacebook campaign, I would recommend future research to consider more discourses that appeared in the discussion. Also, the current research only examines the Tweets in English. As the #DeleteFacebook campaign has expanded worldwide, future studies may analyze the different message frames and hashtag usage in other countries based on cultural differences. It is important to note that it was beyond the scope of this thesis to draw any conclusions about user profiles and authenticity

(Wheatley & Vatnoey, 2020: 12) as this study did not examine if people who participated in the campaign deleted their Facebook accounts.

9. Discussion

This thesis aimed to examine and present hashtag movement #DeleteFacebook and analyze it through critical discourse. Some questions arose during the process of searching for the answers, which will be presented in a moment, leading to academic discussions.

First of all, #DeleteFacebook hashtag activism emerged on Twitter which is ironic. Users who posted about leaving from one social media still showed how important the digital world is. All those arguments about data privacy, political framing, or disinformation could be applied to Twitter in the right setting. The question arises: Why is Twitter necessarily better than Facebook? Is it set up circumstances for Twitter to be seen as the „right decision”? Can it be that #DeleteFacebook hashtag activism is planned public relations action by Twitter? The research identified a lack of critical voice towards the setting of this hashtag movement and portrayed Twitter as innocent, which could be misleading.

Second, CDA identified two main problems, which can be seen from this perspective: Facebook has the knowledge and code which put them in a power position. However, if the governments would access the code of Facebook or any other tech corporation, it would have the same risk to be controlled and framed in a particular way. Even though private corporations have to follow the countries' laws, they can be controlled 100%. If it would be the case, the government (or any institution) which would share the knowledge would still be centralized, and public servants would have to make sure that it does not break the rules. Who would be in power to decide what the rules are? Who would pay for human and financial resources? Would it be worth it? Besides, in a capitalist and free-market economy, innovation is reached if there is competition and a constant need to improve. Would it be achieved if the government would take over? Another question is if Facebook has real competitors and what resources it would take to build those.

Last but not least, the #DeleteFacebook hashtag activism has gotten much attention, but it was not enough to encourage most people to delete this social media account. Why did it happen? Is social connection (or addiction) stronger than third companies using people’s browsing data? Is it necessarily bad that people are tracked and then suggested personalized content? Different groups of people, especially businesses, benefit from Facebook, and it could be suggested more individualized solutions for all kinds of needs. Separate academic research would be needed to find it out.

10. Conclusion

To summarize the study, I will present the results in response to the questions I posed at the beginning of the thesis. At the end of it, I will present general concluding remarks.

How can we interpret the online engagement with #DeleteFacebook as hashtag activism?

The use of hashtags on Twitter was investigated in this thesis, with an emphasis on #DeleteFacebook. I have argued that Tweets with specific hashtags (#DeleteFacebook) serve a specific purpose in that they allow users to associate with values that are themselves linguistic devices that differentiate the subject. I have also argued that hashtag usage can be viewed as a semiotic practice, with hashtags serving as aids to collective identity assertion.

I suggest that hashtag activism is a part of modern social movements and that, when it emerges online, it reflects a new type of technological resistance and challenge. It is a way to increase awareness of advocacy efforts and allows people to express their views. Besides, the #DeleteFacebook movement provided a necessary wake-up call. Not necessarily during the analyzed case in Australia but in general, as this hashtag activism started in 2018. Nowadays, people think twice about where and how personal data online data is being used.

It can be argued that hashtags can be considered functional tools for constructing meanings and express social messages. CDA shows that hashtags are strong linguistic and semiotic tools in that they “function as facilitative devices for asserting one’s collective group identity and ideological affiliation” (Konnelly, 2015: 13). This study aimed not to show the actual efficiency of hashtag activism but rather how the language level is shared how many layers it can be there. The main goal of #DeleteFacebook was to raise consciousness on topics of social interest - and this was accomplished through a constant negotiation of competing points of view, in a constant fight for dominance in and over discourse.

Finally, this study shown that hashtags and Twitter can be analyzed in depth from both a linguistic and social, interpretative level. The interactivity of

social media has led to top-down power relationships and resistance discourses which can be analyzed as a phenomenon of hashtag activism.

What were the key themes that emerged during the #DeleteFacebook hashtag movement?

After extracting the Tweets in a named period, some work had to be done to reduce the data and define main groups. Most people (28%) were encouraging others to delete Facebook or confirmed that they deleted Facebook. The second biggest group (22%) was stressing data privacy issues in Facebook. The third group (12%) critiques the political system, which does not handle private institutions such as Facebook properly. The fourth group (6%) talked about Facebook as not having a moral compass or being toxic. The last group (5%) talked about misinformation happening on Facebook.

The most significant two themes were discussed from the CDA perspective.

What are the principle discourse typologies and their intertextual interpretation of hashtag activism #DeleteFacebook?

I conducted a CDA on two key themes: encouragement to delete Facebook and resentment or antipathy toward data privacy issues. The discourse typologies and the intertextual research showed that contemporary data interaction became an instrument for Facebook for influencing user experiences in the online world. This cloud empire has the potential to influence individual perceptions of social problems. To break down each of the themes, I will provide the discourses, intertextualities, and conclusions for both of them. The most prominent theme within the Tweets (encouragement to delete Facebook) revealed two significant discourses: framing and digital colonialism. Through semantic forms of the Tweets, people expressed disappointment towards social media channels and power relations problems. Hashtag activism opened the discursive protest publicly through word, phrase, or sentence. With such forms, people provided their views which could be seen as frames. Frames performed as “schemata of perception” allowed people to locate, perceive, define, and mark their own leaving from Facebook and sharing their stand for a broader audience in their personal space and the larger world. People expressed that their data matter to them with the frames between “us” and “them”, the narrative of heroines and villains. For example, diagnostic frame directly enacted data privacy issues making public and providing the stage for other users or Facebook itself to counterargument. #DeleteFacebook contributed to forming collective identity and constructing campaign narrative. These posts showed strong feelings against Facebook and portrayed them as colonizers. The currency of data colonialism is personal data, which people do not want Facebook to use. However, as the analyzed case study in Australia shows, being in a power position lets them decide within the coorporation and not allow the government or people to participate. It strenghtens their authority position, makes the tension between antagonistic powers even tenser, and draws public attention. As the second biggest theme (resentment or antipathy expressed towards data privacy issues) and its discourse and intertextual analysis show, it is to have

power and make a difference in the world. This social movement is a carrier of existing concept and interpretations and actively signify agents involved in creating and preserving a sense of two parts: “us” and “them.” On one side, the discourse analysis revealed that power relations are used for extraction through economic dominance. On the other hand, the mindset of antagonism should be changed into agonism to reach the results. The direct speech addressed towards Facebook, such as commands or instructions, revealed that the social movement online aims to improve and change the problem. To achieve the solution, Facebook would have to design digital technologies so that the code and knowledge would not be just in one hand. In the power position, where Facebook pursues a God-like role and makes sense of massive amounts of data through sophisticated statistics and artificial intelligence, this social media channel would have to be transparent about the usage of the data. The cognitive rules of gatekeeping or algorithms and how Facebook forms one’s views are seen in a negative power position and without having an access to a code, no one can understand and analyze how it works.

General remarks

In light of the presented results, the thesis has analyzed set goals and questions. The main findings are that in the hashtag movement #DeleteFacebook, people were referring to encouragement for others to delete Facebook and make awareness about data privacy. The CDA made for those topics showed that people are framing their opinions as they would be colonized, and Facebook is a colonizer. Also, there is a clear division between „us“ and „them“ Facebook is an enemy and has to be destroyed and not be in power relations anymore. I suggest that to solve this problem, the concept of agonism should be considered, where two different opinions could find a compromise and find a common solution. Deleting one social media platform does not solve the problem but keeps down the symptoms of the whole tech industry nowadays. However, the topic of Facebook being in a power position is complex and

interdisciplinary. A deeper quantitative and qualitative analysis has to be made to have a full view and objective answers.

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