The Idea Of Online Activism

No matter what the issue has been, there have always been people who are there to stand up to problems that drown our society. It doesn’t necessarily mean that whoever tried, has succeeded in overcoming a problem however, there are countless stories of the average citizen fighting for what they believed is the greater good. “Activism has played a major role in ending slavery, challenging dictatorships, protecting workers from exploitation, protecting the environment, promoting equality for women, opposing racism, and many other important issues.” - (Brian Martin,Activism, social and political) . The interesting thing is, a lot of citizens can do the bare minimum of effort yet contribute a whole amount to a cause they believe in, even the smallest
amount of help can make a difference in this world. “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” - (Elie Wiesel, Author, Political Activist, and Holocaust Survivor). This quote by Elie Wiesel, can be very inspirational to anyone who believes that there is no hope in being an activist or for those who believe that the demographic who protest aren't making a difference in society. Just like how your 1 vote among the vast majority of people within the country can make a difference on who the next president is, your small help on protesting on whatever you believe in (whether it's signing a petition, being at a rally, or even retweeting on twitter your point of view on the topic) could be the deciding point of the entire situation / problem. What is Online Activism?
First off what is an activist? ”An activist is a person who campaigns for some kind of social change” (Vocabulary.com). The change could be to the reasoning of seeking a political, economic, environmental, or social benefit. Sharing news and opinions through social media, posting on personal blogs, and making your own statement through the internet are all forms of Internet Activism methods. Unlike a regular activist who may protest in person, an Internet Activist may never set a foot out their house yet make a difference within society. It may or may not be hard to believe that protesting through the internet can make a substantial difference in today’s society but as you read this you will realize the definite contributions that internet activists make. That’s the big factor that diverses activism from online activism, the fact that your actions can reach at a global scale at such a fast pace of time. You could make a friend sign a petition on paper and it could be used to make a change in society but you could make the same petition and send the link to the petition to multiple friend you have in different parts of the world. This means that even though it seems strange, going through your facebook, twitter, or any other social media and sharing / publicizing events that are reaching towards making a difference, in a way you helped as an online activist. “ The immediacy of social media, many activists say, allows a rapid spread of
information not previously available, with updates possible in near-real time. From the Arab Spring to SOPA to #blacklivesmatter “ - (Max Lewontin, csmonitor.com)

If you were to visit change.org, a website with the sole purpose of petitioning, you’ll notice that there are already over 148 million people over 196 countries shown to have signed a petition to fight for their rights, beliefs, or to stand up for what they believe is justice.
If you’ve ever been on twitter, instagram, tumblr, (not so much on facebook), it’s most likely that you’ve seen hashtags before. Hashtags are # signs that are involved in the social media post that you’re submitting which specifies the post to a certain subject (for example: writing #nba after a post would mean that your topic is based upon the nba). In the infographic above, made by Keren Alfred (BrownPoliticalReview.org), it gives an example of how hashtagging was used in online activism. The pros towards hashtag movements is that the subject can go viral and trend across the whole internet into a global notice for attention. The cons to this however is the fact that, just because a problem is noticed across the whole world doesn’t mean that something will actually happen. Hashtagging is an action that spreads awareness on the topic, in hopes that it motivates others to help out and do something. Just because a hashtag goes viral over a good cause doesn’t mean that things change. For example the hashtag #blacklivesmatter was made following the event of trayvon martin’s death, an unarmed teenage boy who was shot by a man named George Zimmerman, and even with this hashtag being one of the most
viral hashtags to current date, many african americans continue to be killed in today’s society just over prejudice and racism. First starting to spread during the year of 2011, there was a global democratic uprising that took Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Syria,Saudi Arabia,Yemen, and Bahrain (Wikipedia). Arabs across the world were rioting, protesting, and fighting for a revolution in their culture. Iran was in need of a new president in which could replace president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” He is the only Iranian president who managed to turn almost every state establishment against him.” claimed Majid Rafizadeh (alarabiya.net) ”Ahmadinejad had the lowest public approval ratings of any Iranian president. “. Online activism became an essential key to the actions circling around this topic and even the government took the liberty of blocking or censoring many local sites to cover up activism based on the issue. There were already physical protesters that rioted for several issues like the unhappiness of who their president was, police brutality, and a selfish government system. a 28 year old man named Khaled was allegedly murdered by police in Alexandria in 2010 after he posted a video of their corruption online (Lewontin, csmonitor.com). Deaths that had occurred like Khaled’s death, led to a huge protest at Cairo's Tahrir Square, which now can be marked as January 25th, The “Day Of Rage”. Although there are many examples of how online activists have made a difference for positive reasons, there are also reasons why some people feel that online activism is pointless. Let me introduce you to the word “slacktivism”. “The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little physical or practical effect, other than to make the person doing it feel satisfied that they have contributed.” (Wikipedia). This is where online activism goes wrong and isn’t used properly for the greater good.

“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” Anna Rees (reset.org) had wrote, “ however, Activism can be used for promoting war”.
There is an international group of activists / hack entities named anonymous in which is against war yet goes to war with corporations at the same time. This group of hackers are neither classified as good or bad, since the group consists of a wide variety of people who seek to do justice for the “people”. Anonymous has hacked into : Bank Of America, Sony, Donald Trump’s Website, FBI’s Website, & even Paypal (complex.com). This may seem very criminal like yet they’ve also been known for calling war on isis (hacking their websites, their member’s twitter accounts, shutting down recruiting pages for isis) and also for terminating child pornography websites, exposing all the info of the members to each website in the process. After the events of a BART police officer shooting an unarmed black male, on August 11th, Anonymous even threatened BART that they’d shut down their trains (Natalie Wolchover, livescience.com). Anonymous entity is the extremes of online activism in which is almost the opposite of a slacktivism.

Whether you believe that the Anonymous group are bad guys or good guys, the point is it’s unbelievable how many corporations can be brought down or global events altered over activists who want to make a change in society through the internet.

In conclusion, this was my compare and contrast on how I believe online activism if done correctly can be very helpful in our society. If you only know how to be an activist through the internet there are more things you can do then just add a trending hashtag to the end of your tweet. Being an activist means more than signing petitions, hashtags, hacking websites, or shoving your opinion down other’s throats. In the figure above (nptechforgood.com), it shows the statistics of how much money was raised in charity funds after the hashtag: #GivingTuesday was trending in 2014. Being an activist would mean that you not only tagged with that hashtag, but you actually attempted to give money to the charity (no matter how much you could spend). Activists who riot or protest in public physically , fight for their right to say they’ve tried to make a difference.
This being said means that if we as the generation who rely everything on social media to make a difference, should put more effort than a slacktivist in our actions. This doesn’t mean that we all need to become anonymous and hack people if they don’t agree with your views , but it does mean that when an earthquake hits on the San Andrea’s Fault and cities get destroyed in the process. Being an activist who makes a difference is more than just a click of the like button and retweet button.