Online activism (a.k.a. Internet activism, web activism or cyberactivism) emerged in the early 1990s in the USA and later spread very quickly to all developed countries. It initially consisted of mass email and E-bulletin board campaigns. Later, organisations such as Avaaz, Change.org, MoveOn.org and 38 Degrees brought civic engagement to a new level and put online activism at the center of political and business decisions. This very platform, Netivist, aims at contributing to the same goal. Online activism via petitions and campaigns has become an effective way to raise awareness about about important political, economic, cultural and social problems and challenges society is facing. Online activism can be used for advocacy or awareness purposes, to collect donations, as a means to foster coordination and mobilization of activists and supporters of a cause, and as an expression of collective unrest and protest.
Some governments and parliaments are also creating online petition sites. Thanks to them, citizens have a more direct way to influence policy-making. Wikileaks and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists can be considered different examples of online activism. By revealing thousands of classified documents, these sites are contributing to transparency and shaping public opinion and governance. Moreover, online political activism is helping to tip the balance in some contested electoral campaigns.
In many cases online petitions and campaigns work, and satisfactory manage to raise awareness, funds or to push governments or introduce regulation. However, most of the petitions and collective initiatives launched on the Internet don't manage to fulfil the expectations of the activists that created them. Moreover there are cases in which cyberactivism produces mixed results. For instance, between the summer of 2014 and start of 2015, social media users helped to make the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) ice bucket challenge viral. People were required to douse themselves in a bucket of cold water before nominating others with the same challenge. At its peak of popularity, a host of celebrities—including Robert Downey Jr and Tom Cruise —carried out the same challenge. All social media participants were required to do, was to share these videos, making them viral. As noted by many commentators, these social media users lack any awareness of the condition of ALS, nor displayed obvious empathy with those suffering from ALS. Yet, a report by the Guardian noted that it managed to fund important breakthrough in ALS research.
What is "clicktivism"? And "slacktivism"?
While online activism is growing in popularity, the rejection this type of activism generates among people also increases. The informal and derogatory terms "clicktivism" and "slacktivism" are increasingly used as synonyms of Internet activism. "Clicktivism" refers to the use of social media and other online methods to promote a specific cause by simply clicking on a endorsement or signature button. Similary the term "slacktivism" refers to a half-hearted form of activism, usually by posting links, comments, images in support of a cause on social media, but without further action. These terms capture a frequent critique by "traditional" activists or advocates. They think that online activism is simply encouraging people to passively click in support of a cause rather than take concrete action, which may have a greater impact in bringing about change.
Online activism pros and cons
Before you make up your mind we have summarized here some of the main advantages and limitations of Internet activism.
Pros of online activism:
Online activism is cost efficient. It requires low effort from the organizers and supporters of a cause.
Digital activism is democratizing activism. Previously, broadcasting a message was costly so only relatively big organizations could afford to undertake big campaigns and mobilize many people. Social media has made it much easier.
Online activism is demonstrating the transformational impact of internet on society. There are many examples of online petitions that have worked.
As many viral campaigns can attest to, it is an extremely effective means to raise funds if social media campaigns become viral.
It generates significant debate and awareness amongst people. "Clicktivists" and "slacktivists" who are simply sharing a link or a post or clicking on a button to endorse a petition, often learn about problems through this process. Some of them will later on find out more about that issue or cause and may end up becoming "fully-fledged activists."
Cons of online activism:
Clicktivists are usually passive slacktivists rather than activists. They demonstrate poor understanding of these causes, and usually get involved only because of the hype on social media.
Online activism can become a hypocritical way of getting peace of mind when we know that we are not doing anything substantial to solve the problems we may be indirectly contributing to.
Online activism has transformed the way social and political campaigners communicate their message. Often, messages are being overly simplified and there is less room for public deliberation and exchange of views than in traditional activism.
Although the potential to transform society is real, sometimes the impact of online activism is negative for society. For instance, terrorist groups and xenophobic parties are also using online activism to achieve their goals.
Online activism can be misleading. Despite having a large showing of force online, democratic movements often falter. Clicks of supports and shares do not always translate into a large force outside the Internet. Activism is being banalized and being transformed into a sort of entertainment.
Emerging questions: Are petition sites and social media encouraging people to passively click in support of a cause rather than taking action? Are "clicktivism" and "slacktivism" undermining "real activism"? Do you think clicktivism is positive or simply a means to have a clean conscience without sacrificing much time or effort for a cause? Increasing accessibility and the ability to communicate with thousands of citizens quickly has made the internet a tool of choice for individuals or organisations looking to spread a social message far and wide. Independent activists the world over are using the internet and digital tools to build their community, connect with other similar-minded people outside their physical surroundings as well as lobby, raise funds and organise events.
Simply put, digital activism is where digital tools (the internet, mobile phones, social media etc) are used towards bringing about social and/or political change. Examples of digital activism are scattered throughout the '80s however, things started to really snowball with the advent of web 2.0 and the dot com boom. The introduction and rapid growth of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter from 2004 onwards helped buttress digital activism to the point where entire campaigns can now be run online (sometimes with little to no offline component) and still have a wide reach. But is reach enough? Many argue that digital tools alone do not suffice when it comes to galvanising people towards creating change. According to online activism think tank Meta-Activism Project, digital activism should serve six key functions: shaping public opinion; planning an action; sharing a call to action; taking action digitally; transfer of resources.
A good timeline of digital activism around the world can be found here.
The Tools
The tools used by digital activists are vast and the list changes constantly in line with the rapid general evolution of technology.
▪ Online petitions. Websites such as Change.org and MoveOn.org are hubs of online activism, where people can communicate with others worldwide regarding their cause. MoveOn.org initially grew from a small petition that two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs sent to some family and friends in the late ‘90s, asking for their support in telling the White House to “move on” from the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal to more pressing issues facing the country.
▪ Social networks. Sites with high usage numbers such as Facebook and YouTube have proven beneficial in spreading a message, garnering support, shining information on a subject that might otherwise be overlooked by mainstream media. Protests in 2011 in Tunisia and Egypt against their respective governments were in part organised and promoted via Facebook.
▪ Blogs. Essentially a form of citizen journalism for the masses, blogs provide an effective means of non-filtered communication with an audience about any topic and have been used in numerous online campaigns.
▪ Micro-blogging. Micro-blogging sites such as Twitter are used to help spread awareness of an issue or activist event. Twitter's hashtag function, which allows people to have their tweets contribute to a multi-user conversation by typing a keyword or phrase preceded by a hashtag, is used frequently as a digital tool for spreading a message. The Chinese equivalent to Twitter, Weibo is subject to scrupulous government censorship however people circumvent this blockade by using code words when writing about issues that might be government-sensitive.
▪ Mobile phones. Controversy surrounding the 2007 presidential elections in Kenya led to the introduction of Ushahidi Inc., a company which developed a piece of software that allowed people to send texts and pictures of violence following the elections which were plotted geographically on a Google map. The software has since been used to plot activity in disaster zones following earthquakes in Haiti and New Zealand and flooding in Australia and the USA.
▪ Proxy servers. As a means of circumventing government intervention when it comes to online protesting, many people employ proxy servers, which act as intermediaries between a user and a site, thus essentially circumventing national restrictions on any site. In 2009, student protesters in Iran took to social media to voice their concern over the contentious reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This led to a cat and mouse game of the government trying to identify which media were being used by the protesters to communicate (social networks and then eventually proxy servers) and shutting them down.
Getting the Message out There
Image: Flickr, TTC Press Images (CC BY-SA 2.0) One of the biggest benefits of using digital tools for positive change is the ability to connect with a large community and, if applicable, globalise a campaign's goals. The interconnected nature of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter lend themselves easily to information sharing, meaning an activist can post a slogan, picture or details about an issue, share it with friends, plug into likeminded online communities and distribute info through their networks in a much less time and energy-consuming way than more traditional methods of going door-to-door or standing on street corners and asking passersby to sign petitions.
In 2012, a protest erupted over new legislation against online piracy being passed into US law, which many argued fell to heavily into the realm of censorship. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) were put forward as a way to curb online piracy and halt infringements on intellectual property yet the tough sanctions they proposed would mean that legal sites that had a section promoting the distribution of illegal material could face having their entire domain 'blacklisted' as opposed to simply being required to remove infringing content.
A protest was instigated by activists before organisations like Reddit and the english version of Wikipedia caught on and joined in by 'blacking out' the internert, blocking access to their content completely or only provided limited access to users. Google, Mozilla and Flickr also joined the protest and a number of street marches were held throughout the US to protest the laws. According to Wikipedia ''...3 million people emailed Congress to express opposition to the bills, more than 1 million messages were sent to Congress through the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a petition at Google recorded over 4.5 million signatures, Twitter recorded at least 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets, and lawmakers collected more than 14 million names...who contacted them to protest the bills.'' Though the flashy web black outs were what drew the most attention (and probably caused such a large number of people to protest), it is the individual activists who kicked off the campaign who have been credited with its success, with Forbes stating: ''...it was the users who urged and sometimes pressured technology companies to oppose the bills, not the other way around. While the big companies eventually came on board, the push for them to do so came largely from activists using social networking and social news sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit, to build momentum and exert leverage, sometimes on the very companies whose tools they were using.'' The campaign, in part, has been credited with the proposed laws being reviewed and, for the moment, shelved.
Beyond getting the message out there, digital activism allows anyone with access to the digital world a platform to make their case and call for change and it can be particularly beneficial to those who are often silenced or have no vehicle for their message. Writing about the blurring of offline and online activism that occurred in the US following the shooting of African American teenager Michael Brown, founder and director of the Meta-Activism Project, Mary Joyce, stated ''...just like any other kind of activism, digital activism is only necessary when conventional methods of addressing injustice fail. “Internet campaigns calling for justice” are only necessary for those whom the existing system does not serve.''
In April 2014, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped more than 300 girls from a school in northern Nigeria. Some 50 girls managed to escape but 276 remained captured prompting an international outcry that was largely funnelled into a social media campaign to lobby governments to intervene. The topic #BringBackOurGirls went viral within a week, with people like activist Malala Yousafzai and US First Lady, Michelle Obama, tweeting their support. The rapid fire rate that the hashtag #BringBack OurGirls shot across the internet helped galvanise public support for the families of the girls while the case drew attention from the international media and heads of state offered to help Nigeria find and bring back the missing girls.
Where digital activism enjoys the biggest success however, is when it is used as a complementary tool to offline action or is used as the introductory method to encourage people to engage in offline action. One of the other key attributes of digital activism is that it is, for the large part, a non-violent form of protest. Acts of cyber crime are certainly committed under the guise of 'digital activism' (for example, cases of cyberterrorism, malicious hacking and extreme cyber bullying of a company or organisation) however, according to a study by the University of Washington, these make up around two to three percent of total digital activism cases. Reduced to a Hashtag: Clicktivism and the Threat of Too Many Messages
Generally speaking, clicking like on someone's Facebook post or retweeting a trending hashtag on Twitter requires less effort and less forethought than signing (or setting up) a petition or joining in a demonstration on the streets. Because of this, digital activism has come under fire with some arguing that much of the online engagement in issues is too reductive and passive, defining this new era of activism as 'clicktivism', 'slacktivism' and 'armchair activism'.
Detractors of digital activism point out that it requires people to do the bare minimum to engage in a topic (while allowing them to score some virtual brownie points for their 'good deed'). Messages and ideals can get brushed aside in the push for more clicks, likes, impressions and page views when campaigning online and the information superhighway is now bumper-to-bumper with causes and campaigns which can make it difficult for any of them to achieve meaningful impact. Just like with traditional media, a lot of the time, certain campaigns and causes only start to gain momentum once a prominent individual or organisation picks up on it.
One of the biggest digital campaigns in recent years took place in summer 2014 in support of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. The campaign featured videos of people, including a number of global celebrities, tipping buckets of ice water over themselves before nominating three other people to do the same. As part of what was called the 'ALS Ice Bucket Challenge', challengees were asked to make a donation to the ALS Association or other ALS non-profit. Anthony Quintano
The web-friendly nature of the campaign (the use of videos, the involvement of celebrities as well as nominating others to do the challenge, thereby ensuring the spread of the campaign) saw it weave through the web quickly with more than 2 million video uploaded to Facebook and over 3 million up in Instagram, dominating social media feeds as well as online and offline media. The challenge helped raise 220 million USD globally for ALS yet drew criticism from some about the fact that the serious aspects of the campaign (the disease) were buried under jaunty, jovial videos of people dousing themselves in cold water. Some iterations of the challenge meant that those taking part did not have to make a donation while a number of videos uploaded made no mention of ALS at all.
Similarly, the efficacy of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign mentioned above has been called into question with the girls still in the hands of Boko Haram. An article by Al Jazeera highlights that despite the huge level of awareness raised about the kidnapping, little has been done to bring the girls back. In the article, protest coordinator Hadiza Bala Usman stated "People need to remember that 219 girls remain in captivity. We appreciate the fact that the media propelled a lot of support around the world, but that support has not translated into any rescue. For us, if whatever is said and done doesn't translate into the rescue of the girls, it hasn't really achieved anything." The reaction on social media to the girls' kidnapping was sharp and swift but attention dropped off as other campaigns and issues (such as the ALS challenge) took precedence. As stated in an article by the BBC about the ice bucket challenge, our mental budget for charity is finite.
Co-creator of the Occupy Wall Street protests (which called for an end to social and economic inequality and challenged the amount of corporate influence on government) Micah White has argued that this passivity is undermining traditional forms of activism. In a 2010 piece for the Guardian, he wrote: ''The truth is that as the novelty of online activism wears off, millions of formerly socially engaged individuals who trusted digital organisations are coming away believing in the impotence of all forms of activism. Even leading Bay Area clicktivist organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to motivate their members to any action whatsoever. The insider truth is that the vast majority, between 80% to 90%, of so-called members rarely even open campaign emails. Clicktivists are to blame for alienating a generation of would-be activists with their ineffectual campaigns that resemble marketing.''
The 24 hour news cycle coupled with the breakneck pace at which we learn of, digest and move on from certain issues can often mean that issues and campaigns can run hot across the web one day and vanish the next.
Computer Literacy, Internet Accessibility, Censorship and Mobile Campaigning
Of course, a number of factors come strongly into play here regarding who can get involved and how, particularly in parts of the world where access to the internet and digital literacy skills are low or where web activity is highly monitored and often interrupted by the government and authorities.
To help circumvent issues around digital literacy and access to the web, activists use technology and media that has high penetration in some of these areas. For example, the number of people who regularly use the Internet in India hovers at the around the 90 million mark, which is quite low when considering India’s 1,2 billion population. Based on these figures, there are some who argue that precedence should be given to mobile campaigning in India (which has already had success when used during blood donation drives), given that 74 per cent of the population uses mobile phones.
As mentioned earlier, many activists in China use coded language in order to dodge the heavy censorship laws in the country. In 2014, as the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests approached, officials placed strict limits and blocks on any online activity or searches relating to the anniversary or the event itself. To get around this, the online community went covert, employing actions such as wearing a black shirt, replacing the protest's date (June 4 1989) with May 35 in online activity and photoshopping giant yellow ducks over the tanks in the iconic Tank Man photo and spreading that online. This endless cat-and-mouse game, whereby censors try to keep up with the codes and ban them, could result in action and codes becoming so obscure that they have reduced impact, as a 2014 article in the MIT Technology Review pointed out.
Measuring Success Linh Do
The success of online and digital activism can be difficult to determine. Mary Joyce, founder of DigiActive and Meta-Activism Project, states that overall success can be perceived if the activist’s initial campaign goal was achieved. However, in many cases of online activism, the goal of the online components may have been achieved (awareness building, mobilization of people) while the overall goal of the campaign was not. This trend leaves the field ripe for argument from critics of online activism to discuss the validity of it as a movement.
The larger-scale campaigns get the attention of the media, however smaller-scale campaigns can be just as effective and often meet their goals. Examples of this include non-profit organisations using online platforms to raise funds for a cause or corporations withdrawing advertising or products as a result of online backlash and petitions.
While digital activism has a lot to offer the savvy campaigner, it also does sometimes have limitations as to how much effective change it can generate. With this in mind, it is worth considering that all online activity should be coupled with offline activity in order to have greater impact.