Online communities build off social movements,
enabling the connection of persons worldwide to develop a base and gain
awareness of issues. Online social movements gained momentum in the
late 20th century and early 21st century as new generations sought social change. With access to the internet and the fast-growing World Wide Web,
online social movements brought awareness to issues both political and
social. Online social movements have been praised and criticized; the
former for its ability to raise awareness to important causes, and the
latter for its ability to perpetuate problems like slacktivism. Although online activism has received criticism, it has had real impacts on social movements.
The impact of online movements
The
impact of online movements has been substantial since the introduction
of the internet. With the ever-growing medium of social media, internet
activism has reached the forefront of the internet. Through the use of
social networking sites such as Facebook and content-sharing sites as YouTube, the opportunity for wide-scale, online social participation has increased.
Beneficial impacts
Several social media movements have raised money for causes, such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge raising $100million
in 30 days. Even if they do not directly involve monetary funding, many
online social movements raise awareness for causes such as
institutionalized racism against African Americans with the Black Lives Matter movement and the inappropriate use of force by police authorities against black females, such as with the Say Her Name
social movement. In the political sphere, active online groups increase
political participation by providing a framework for discussion,
leading petitions, and collecting donations in order to further a
political agenda.
Social media can break pluralistic ignorance,
which is the belief that your opinions are not shared by others, when
in reality, they tend to be. By revealing commonalities, online
platforms enable the synchronisation of opinions across disparate
geographies by creating a sense of physical presence and connection
among those with similar perspectives.
Detrimental impacts
Some
experts believe there are potential weaknesses and long-term
repercussions that can be identified with online movements. Some
examples are clicktivism and slacktivism, where the use of social media to promote a cause include activities such as:
Organizing protests
Facilitating boycotts
Online parody and satire
Examples of online movements
Social movements advance their work through the media. It is easier,
less costly as well as time-consuming to link collective behavior as
real-time communication can occur vastly and simultaneously via social
media.Some examples of online movements include:
The
future of online movements is hard to predict. However, there are some
clear directions where they could certainly lead towards. Vanessa DiMauro
believes the biggest trend concerning online communities in the near
future is private online communities. While these large networks that we
encounter and use on a day-to-day basis have provided us with a
productive and collaborative experience they have also increased to
unmanageable sizes. To become a learning environment these groups need
to be much smaller and manageable. This is where the idea and trend of
private online communities could potentially be the future of online
communities.
Online Social Movements and Commercial Social Media Platforms
Since
the late 2000s, increased use of commercial social media platforms by
social movements has been reported. According to Lopes, "Social Media
websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the various online
blogs have arguably given a voice to individuals that otherwise would
not be heard." However, the adoption of these commercial platforms has concerned
analysts as they highlighted asymmetrical relationships between the
for-profit aims of social media and the copy-left values that drive many
online movements. According to Fenton, "Claims for the extension and
re-invention of activism need to be considered in the context of the
material social and political world of inequality, injustice and
corporate dominance." For example, "in his analysis of the Purple Movement (Popolo Viola) in Italy and its extensive use of Facebook, Coretti (2014)
demonstrates that, while the myth of the network as open and inclusive
persists, it acts as a disguise for the communication protocols of
commercial social networking platforms that may well enable large-scale
mobilization but ultimately, through their very functionality, encourage
organizational centralization and fragmentation in social movements"
(Fenton, 2016, p.184).
The proprietary nature of the design of platforms such as Facebook
pages fails to provide movements with the necessary instruments in terms
of a shared democratic management of their resources. Moreover, the
inability to manage Facebook pages and groups according to commonly
agreed values promotes vertical power structures within movements,
contributing to controversial management of Facebook pages and to
internal divisions that significantly hinder the potential of protest.
Important figures
Shaun King; a Twitter-based civil rights activist.
DeRay McKesson; Twitter- and Instagram-based civil rights activist, known for his involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement.
Colin Kaepernick; American football quarterback known for his involvement in the Black Lives Matter
movement and causing controversy for kneeling rather than standing for
the national anthem, a symbolic act in protest of the unjust and
oppressive treatment of people of color in the United States.
Rachel Dolezal;
civil rights activist that caused controversy after her Caucasian
parents disclosed that she was a Caucasian woman passing as black. Received backlash on various social media platforms for claiming she was a victim of hate crimes as an African American woman.
Van Jones;
civil rights activist and creator of various initiatives such as
#YesWeCode, which is meant to give aid to minorities in technology
fields.
2600: The Hacker Quarterly is an American seasonal
publication of technical information and articles, many of which are
written and submitted by the readership, on a variety of subjects
including hacking, telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer "underground."
The magazine's name comes from the phreaker discovery in the 1960s that the transmission of a 2600 hertz tone – which could be produced perfectly with a plastic toy whistle given away free with Cap'n Crunch cereal, discovered by friends of John Draper – over a long-distance trunk connection gained access to "operator mode," and allowed the user to explore aspects of the telephone system that were not otherwise accessible. The magazine was given its name by David Ruderman, who co-founded the magazine with his college friend, Eric Corley. Ruderman ended his direct involvement with the magazine three years later.
The magazine traces its origins to early Bulletin Board Systems as a place for hackers to share information and stories with each other. It was launched in 1984, coinciding with the book of the same name and the break-up of AT&T. It is published and edited by its co-founder Emmanuel Goldstein (a pen name of Corley which is an allusion to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four) and his company 2600 Enterprises, Inc. 2600 is released on the first Friday of the month following a season change, usually January, April, July, and October.
Goldstein has published a compilation of articles from the magazine entitled The Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey.
The book, an 888-page hardcover, has been available from July 28, 2008
in the US and August 8, 2008 in the UK and is published by Wiley.
"Hacker" term
In the usage of 2600 and affiliates, the often loaded term "hacking" refers to grey hat
hacking, which is generally understood to be any sort of technological
utilization or manipulation of technology which goes above and beyond
the capabilities inherent to the design of a given application. This
usage attempts to maintain neutrality, as opposed to the politically
charged and often contentious terms white hat hacking (which some consider hacking motivated exclusively by good, benevolent intentions--such as hardware modding or penetration testing), and black hat
hacking – which some consider to be hacking motivated exclusively by
malicious or selfish intentions, such as electronic theft, vandalism, hijacking of websites, and other types of cybercrime.)
Other hackers believe that hat-color labels are an oversimplification
and unnecessary designation, best suited for use by the media, and
suggest that people who use hacking to commit crimes already have a
label, that of criminal.
There are monthly meetings in over 24 countries. The meetings are
listed in the back of the magazine, and are advertised as being open to
anyone regardless of age or level of expertise.
In other media
2600 Films has made a feature-length documentary about famed hackerKevin Mitnick, the Free Kevin movement and the hacker world, entitled Freedom Downtime, and is currently working on one titled Speakers' World.
Corley is also host of Off The Wall and Off the Hook, two New York talk radio shows. Both shows can be downloaded or streamed via the 2600 site, and are also broadcast on various radio stations:
The magazine itself received a copyright claim for the ink spatter stock image featured on the Spring 2012 issue from Trunk Archive,
an image licensing agency, using an automated image tracking toolkit.
While Trunk Archive identified its own image that featured the ink
spatter as the source, it was discovered that the original ink spatter
was created by the Finnish artist Jukka Korhonen, on DeviantArt, who had released it into the public domain. Trunk Archive later retracted the claim and sent a letter to 2600 apologizing for the mistake.
The term is frequently attributed to Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) member "Omega," who used it in a 1996 e-mail to the group. However, writer Jason Sack used the term earlier, in a 1995 article on New Media artist Shu Lea Cheang.
Due to the variety of meanings of its root words, hacktivism is
sometimes ambiguous and there exists significant disagreement over the
kinds of activities and purposes it encompasses. Some definitions
include acts of cyberterrorism while others simply reaffirm the use of technological hacking to effect social change.
Overview
Hacktivist activities span many political ideals and issues. Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication, is a prime example of translating political thought (anybody should be able to speak freely)
into code. Hacking as a form of activism can be carried out through a
network of activists, such as Anonymous and WikiLeaks, or through a
singular activist, working in collaboration toward a common goals
without an overarching authority figure.
"Hacktivism" is a controversial term with several meanings. The word was coined to characterize electronic direct action as working toward social change by combining programming skills with critical thinking. But just as hack can sometimes mean cyber crime, hacktivism can be used to mean activism that is malicious, destructive, and undermining the security of the Internet as a technical, economic, and political platform.
Controversy
Depending on who is using the term, hacktivism can be a politically motivated technology hack, a constructive form of anarchiccivil disobedience, or an undefined anti-systemic gesture. It can signal anticapitalist or political protest; it can denote anti-spam activists, security experts, or open source advocates.
Some people describing themselves as hacktivists have taken to defacing
websites for political reasons, such as attacking and defacing
government websites as well as web sites of groups who oppose their ideology. Others, such as Oxblood Ruffin (the "foreign affairs minister"
of Cult of the Dead Cow and Hacktivismo), have argued forcefully
against definitions of hacktivism that include web defacements or denial-of-service attacks.
Hactivism is often seen as shadowy due to its anonymity, commonly
attributed to the work of fringe groups and outlying members of
society.
The lack of responsible parties to be held accountable for the
social-media attacks performed by hactivists has created implications in
corporate and federal security measures both on and offline.
While some self-described hacktivists have engaged in DoS attacks, critics suggest that DoS attacks are an attack on free speech and that they have unintended consequences. DoS attacks waste resources and they can lead to a "DoS war" that nobody will win. In 2006, Blue Security
attempted to automate a DoS attack against spammers; this led to a
massive DoS attack against Blue Security which knocked them, their old
ISP and their DNS provider off the Internet, destroying their business.
Following denial-of-service attacks by Anonymous on multiple sites, in reprisal for the apparent suppression of WikiLeaks, John Perry Barlow, a founding member of the EFF,
said "I support freedom of expression, no matter whose, so I oppose
DDoS attacks regardless of their target... they're the poison gas of
cyberspace...". On the other hand, Jay Leiderman,
an attorney for many hacktivists, argues that DDoS can be a legitimate
form of protest speech in situations that are reasonably limited in
time, place and manner.
Forms and methods
Self-proclaimed
"Hactivists" often work anonymously, sometimes operating in groups
while other times operating as a lone-wolf with several cyber-personas
all corresponding to one activist within the cyberactivism
umbrella that has been gaining public interest and power in
pop-culture. Hactivists generally operate under apolitical ideals and
express uninhibited ideas or abuse without being scrutinized by society
while representing or defending them publicly under an anonymous
identity giving them a sense of power in the cyberactivism community.
In order to carry out their operations, hacktivists might create
new tools; or integrate or use a variety of software tools readily
available on the Internet. One class of hacktivist activities includes
increasing the accessibility of others to take politically motivated
action online.
Code: Software and websites can achieve political purposes. For example, the encryption software PGP can be used to secure communications; PGP's author, Phil Zimmermann said he distributed it first to the peace movement. Jim Warren
suggests PGP's wide dissemination was in response to Senate Bill 266,
authored by Senators Biden and DeConcini, which demanded that
"...communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain
text contents of voice, data, and other communications...". WikiLeaks is an example of a politically motivated website: it seeks to "keep governments open".
Website Mirroring: is used as a circumvention tool to bypass
censorship blocks on websites. It is a technique that copies the content
of a censored website and posts it to other domains and sub-domains
that are not censored.
Anonymous blogging: a method of speaking out to a wide audience
about human rights issues, government oppression, etc. that utilizes
various web tools such as free and/or disposable email accounts, IP masking, and blogging software to preserve a high level of anonymity.
RECAP
is software that was written to 'liberate US case law' and make it
freely available online. The software project takes the form of
distributed document collection and archival.
Leaking:Information leakage
from an insider source who acts in the interest of the public to reveal
sensitive and otherwise protected information about a given
organization that implicates them in wrongdoing or malicious practices.
Doxing:
The practice in which private and/or confidential documents and records
are hacked into and made public. Hactivists view this as a form of
assured transparency, experts claim it is harassment.
Denial-of-Service attacks: These attacks, commonly referred to as DoS attacks, use large arrays of personal and public computers that hackers take control of via malware
executable files usually transmitted through email attachments or
website links. After taking control, these computers act like a herd of
zombies, redirecting their network traffic to one website, with the intention of overloading servers and taking a website offline.
Website defacements: Hacker(s) infiltrate a web server to replace a specific web page with one of their own, usually to convey a specific message.
Website redirects:
Similar to website mirroring, this method involves changing the address
of a website within the server so would-be visitors of the site are
redirected to a site created by the perpetrator, typically to denounce
the original site.
Virtual sit-ins: Large numbers of protesters visit a targeted website and rapidly load pages to overwhelm the site with network traffic to slow the site or take it offline.
Notable hacktivist events
The earliest known instance of hacktivism as documented by Julian Assange is as follows: "Hacktivism is at least as old as October 1989 when DOE, HEPNET and SPAN (NASA) connected VMS machines world wide were penetrated by the anti-nuclear WANK worm."
In 1990, the Hong Kong Blondes helped Chinese citizens get access to blocked websites by targeting the Chinese computer networks.
The group identified holes in the Chinese internet system, particularly
in the area of satellite communications. The leader of the group,
Blondie Wong, also described plans to attack American businesses that
were partnering with China.
In 1996, the title of the United States Department of Justice's
homepage was changed to "Department of Injustice". Pornographic images
were also added to the homepage to protest the Communications Decency
Act.
In December 1998, a hacktivist group from the US called Legions
of the Underground emerged. They declared a cyberwar against Iraq and
China and planned on disabling internet access in retaliation for the
countries' human rights abuses.
Opposing hackers criticized this move by Legions of the Underground,
saying that by shutting down internet systems, the hacktivist group
would have no impact on providing free access to information.
In July 2001, Hacktivismo, a sect of the Cult of the Dead Cow,
issued the "Hacktivismo Declaration". This served as a code of conduct
for those participating in hacktivism, and declared the hacker
community's goals of stopping "state-sponsored censorship of the
Internet" as well as affirming the rights of those therein to "freedom
of opinion and expression".
During the 2009 Iranian election protests, Anonymous played a role in disseminating information to and from Iran by setting up the website Anonymous Iran; they also released a video manifesto to the Iranian government.
Google worked with engineers from SayNow and Twitter to provide
communications for the Egyptian people in response to the government
sanctioned Internet blackout during the 2011 protests. The result, Speak To Tweet,
was a service in which voicemail left by phone was then tweeted via
Twitter with a link to the voice message on Google's SayNow.
On Saturday 29 May 2010 a hacker calling himself ‘Kaka Argentine’
hacked into the Ugandan State House website and posted a conspicuous
picture of Adolf Hitler with the swastika, a Nazi Party symbol.
During the Egyptian Internet black out, January 28 – February 2, 2011, Telecomix provided dial up services, and technical support for the Egyptian people.
Telecomix released a video stating their support of the Egyptian
people, describing their efforts to provide dial-up connections, and
offering methods to avoid internet filters and government surveillance.
The hacktivist group also announced that they were closely tracking
radio frequencies in the event that someone was sending out important
messages.
Project Chanology, also known as "Operation Chanology", was a hacktivist protest against the Church of Scientology to punish the church for participating in Internet censorship relating to the removal of material from a 2008 interview with Church of Scientology member Tom Cruise. Hacker group Anonymous
attempted to "expel the church from the Internet" via DDoS attacks. In
February 2008 the movement shifted toward legal methods of nonviolent protesting. Several protests were held as part of Project Chanology, beginning in 2008 and ending in 2009.
On June 3, 2011, LulzSec took down a website of the FBI. This was
the first time they had targeted a website that was not part of the
private sector. That week, the FBI was able to track the leader of
LulzSec, Hector Xavier Monsegur.
On June 20, 2011 LulzSec targeted the Serious Organised Crime Agency
of the United Kingdom, causing UK authorities to take down the website.
In August 2011 a member of Anonymous working under the name "Oliver
Tucket" took control of the Syrian Defense Ministry website and added an
Israeli government web portal in addition to changing the mail server
for the website to one belonging to the Chinese navy.
In 2013, as an online component to the Million Mask March, Anonymous
in the Philippines crashed 30 government websites and posted a YouTube
video to congregate people in front of the parliament house on November 5
to demonstrate their disdain toward the Filipino government.
In 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment was hacked by a group by the name of Guardians Of Peace
(GOP) who obtained over 100 Terabytes of data including unreleased
films, employee salary, social security data, passwords, and account
information. GOP hacked various social media accounts and hijacked them
by changing their passwords to diespe123 (die sony pictures
entertainment) and posting threats on the pages.
British hacker Kane Gamble, who was sentenced to 2 years in youth detention, posed as John Brennan, the then director of the CIA, and Mark F. Giuliano, a former deputy director of the FBI, to access highly sensitive information. The judge said Gamble engaged in "politically motivated cyber-terrorism."
Notable hacktivist peoples/groups
DkD[||
DkD[||,
a French cyberhacktivist, was known, amongst others, to be the
"defacer" of navy.mil (US Navy website) and defensivethinking.com (the
Company of the famous hacker Kevin Mitnick) among other 2000 websites.
He has been arrested by the OCLCTIC (office central de lutte contre la
criminalité liée aux technologies de l’information et de la
communication), in March 2003.
DkD[|| defaced more than 2000 pages, many were governments and US
military sites.
DkD[|| was a very known defacer in the underground for his political
view, in fact he did all his defacements for political reasons.
When the news of his arrest was coming around the underground, a crew,
called The Ghost Boys have defaced a lot of .navy.mil sites using the
“Free DkD[||!!” Slogan which recalls what happen after Mitnick's arrest.
Anonymous
Perhaps the most prolific and well known hacktivist group, Anonymous has been prominent and prevalent in many major online hacks over the past decade. Anonymous originated on the forums of 4chan during 2003, but didn't rise to prominence until 2008 when they directly attacked the Church of Scientology in a massive DoS attack. Since then, Anonymous has participated in a great number of online projects such as Operation: Payback and Operation: Safe Winter. However, while a great number of their projects have been for a charitable cause, they have still gained notoriety from the media due to the nature of their work mostly consisting of illegal hacking.
Following the Paris terror attacks in 2015, Anonymous posted a video declaring war on ISIS,
the terror group that claimed responsibility for the attacks. Since
declaring war on ISIS, Anonymous since identified several Twitter
accounts associated with the movement in order to stop the distribution
of ISIS propaganda. However, Anonymous fell under heavy criticism when
Twitter issued a statement calling the lists Anonymous had compiled
"wildly inaccurate," as it contained accounts of journalists and
academics rather than members of ISIS.
Anonymous has also been involved with the Black Lives Matter
movement. Early in July 2015, there was a rumor circulating that
Anonymous was calling for a Day of Rage protests in retaliation for the
shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, which would entail
violent protests and riots. This rumor was based off a video that was
not posted with the official Anonymous YouTube account. None of the
Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous had tweeted anything in
relation to a Day of Rage, and the rumors were identical to past rumors
that had circulated in 2014 following the death of Mike Brown.
Instead, on July 15, a Twitter account associated with Anonymous posted
a series of tweets calling for a day of solidarity with the Black Lives
Matter movement. The Twitter account used the hashtag
"#FridayofSolidarity" to coordinate protests across the nation, and
emphasized the fact that the Friday of Solidarity was intended for
peaceful protests. The account also stated that the group was unaware of
any Day of Rage plans.
In February 2017 the group took down more than 10,000 sites on the Dark web related to child porn.
The video released by WikiLeaks, showing the slaying of Reuters employee Namir Noor-Eldeen and a dozen other civilians by a U.S. helicopter.
WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange as a "multi-national media organization and associated library." WikiLeaks operated under the principle of "principled leaking," in order to fight societal corruption.
The not-for-profit functions as a whistleblowing organization that
serves as an archive of classified documents. Originally, WikiLeaks was
operated with the principles of a wiki site, meaning that users could post documents, edit others' documents, and help decide which materials were posted.
The first notable release of documents by WikiLeaks was the release of Afghanistan War logs.
In July 2010, WikiLeaks published over 90,000 documents regarding the
war in Afghanistan. Prior to the leak, WikiLeaks gave access to the
documents to three newspapers. Though WikiLeaks did not identify a
source for the documents, it was speculated that the leak came from Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst arrested in May 2010 and accused of leaking classified information.
The war logs revealed 144 incidents of formerly unreported civilian
casualties by the U.S. military. The leak of the Afghanistan war logs
was the greatest military leak in United States history.
WikiLeaks is also notable for its leak of over 20,000 confidential emails and 8,000 file attachments from the Democratic National Committee
(DNC), on July 22, 2016. The emails are specifically from the inboxes
of seven prominent staffers of the DNC, and they were leaked as a
searchable database. The emails leaked showed instances of key DNC staffers working to undermine Senator Bernie Sanders'
presidential campaign prior to primary elections, which was directly
against the DNC's stated neutrality in primary elections. Examples of
targeting Senator Bernie Sanders included targeting his religion, hoping
for his dropping out of the race, constructing negative narratives
about his campaign and more. Other emails revealed criticism of President Barack Obama for not helping more in fundraising. Following the leak, DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced she would be stepping down from her position in the DNC. On July 25, 2016, the Democratic National Convention opened without Wasserman Schultz. The DNC issued an apology to Sanders the same day the Democratic National Convention opened.
LulzSec
In May 2011, five members of Anonymous formed the hacktivist group Lulz Security,
otherwise known as LulzSec. LulzSec's name originated from the
conjunction of the internet slang term "lulz", meaning laughs, and
"sec", meaning security.
The group members used specific handles to identify themselves on
Internet Relay Channels, the most notable being: "Sabu," "Kayla,"
"T-Flow," "Topiary," "AVUnit," and "Pwnsauce." Though the members of
LulzSec would spend up to 20 hours a day in communication, they did not
know one another personally, nor did they share personal information.
For example, once the members' identities were revealed, "T-Flow" was
revealed to be 15 years old. Other members, on the basis of his advanced
coding ability, thought he was around 30 years old.
One of the first notable targets that LulzSec pursued was HBGary,
which was performed in response to a claim made by the technology
security company that it had identified members of Anonymous. Following
this, the members of LulzSec targeted an array of companies and
entities, including but not limited to: Fox Television, Tribune Company, PBS, Sony, Nintendo, and the Senate.gov
website. The targeting of these entities typically involved gaining
access to and downloading confidential user information, or defacing the
website at hand.
Though the attacks carried out by LulzSec were not as strongly
political as those typical of WikiLeaks or Anonymous, they shared
similar sentiments for the freedom of information. One of their
distinctly politically-driven attacks involved targeting the Arizona
State Police in response to new immigration laws.
The group's first attack that garnered significant government
attention was in 2011, when they collectively took down a website of the
FBI. Following the incident, the leader of LulzSec, "Sabu," was
identified as Hector Xavier Monsegur
by the FBI, and he was the first of the group to be arrested.
Immediately following his arrest, Monsegur admitted to criminal
activity. He then began his cooperation with the US government, helping
FBI authorities to arrest 8 of his co-conspirators, prevent 300
potential cyber attacks, and helped to identify vulnerabilities in
existing computer systems. In August 2011, Monsegur pleaded guilty to
"computer hacking conspiracy, computer hacking, computer hacking in
furtherance of fraud, conspiracy to commit access device fraud,
conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft pursuant
to a cooperation agreement with the government." He served a total of
one year and seven months and was charged a $1,200 fine.
Related practices
Culture jamming
Culture jamming
is the practice of subverting and criticizing political messages as
well as media culture with the aim of challenging the status quo. It is
often targeted toward subliminal thought processes taking place in the
viewers with the goal of raising awareness as well as causing a paradigm
shift. Culture jamming takes many forms including billboard hacking, broadcast signal intrusion, ad-hoc art performances, memes, and artivism.
The term "culture jamming" was first coined in 1984 by American musician Donald Joyce of the band Negativland. However, some speculation remains as to when the practice of culture jamming first began. Social researcher Vince Carducci believes culture jamming can be traced back to the 1950s with European social activist group Situationist International. Author and cultural critic Mark Dery believes medieval carnival is the earliest form of culture jamming as a way to subvert the social hierarchy at the time.
Culture jamming is sometimes confused with acts of vandalism.
However, unlike culture jamming, the main goal of vandalism is to cause
destruction with any political themes being of lesser importance.
Artivism usually has the most questionable nature as a form of culture
jamming because defacement of property is usually involved.
Media hacking
Media hacking refers to the usage of various electronic media
in an innovative or otherwise abnormal fashion for the purpose of
conveying a message to as large a number of people as possible,
primarily achieved via the World Wide Web. A popular and effective means of media hacking is posting on a blog, as one is usually controlled by one or more independent individuals, uninfluenced by outside parties. The concept of social bookmarking, as well as Web-based Internet forums, may cause such a message to be seen by users of other sites as well, increasing its total reach.
Media hacking is commonly employed for political purposes, by both political parties and political dissidents. A good example of this is the 2008 US Election, in which both the Democratic and Republican
parties used a wide variety of different media in order to convey
relevant messages to an increasingly Internet-oriented audience. At the same time, political dissidents used blogs and other social media like Twitter
in order to reply on an individual basis to the presidential
candidates. In particular, sites like Twitter are proving important
means in gauging popular support for the candidates, though the site is
often used for dissident purposes rather than a show of positive
support.
Mobile technology has also become subject to media hacking for political purposes. SMS has been widely used by political dissidents as a means of quickly and effectively organising smart mobs
for political action. This has been most effective in the Philippines,
where SMS media hacking has twice had a significant impact on whether or
not the country's Presidents are elected or removed from office.
Art movements such as Fluxus and Happenings
in the 1970s created a climate of receptibility in regard to loose-knit
organizations and group activities where spontaneity, a return to primitivist behavior, and an ethics where activities and socially engaged art practices became tantamount to aesthetic concerns.
The conflation of these two histories in the mid-to-late 1990s resulted in cross-overs between virtual sit-ins, electronic civil disobedience, denial-of-service attacks, as well as mass protests in relation to groups like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The rise of collectives, net.art groups, and those concerned with the fluid interchange of technology and real life (often from an environmental concern) gave birth to the practice of "reality hacking".
Reality hacking relies on tweaking the everyday communications most easily available to individuals with the purpose of awakening the political and community conscience
of the larger population. The term first came into use among New York
and San Francisco artists, but has since been adopted by a school of political activists centered around culture jamming.
In fiction
The 1999 science fiction-action film The Matrix, among others, popularized the simulation hypothesis — the suggestion that reality is in fact a simulation
of which those affected by the simulants are generally unaware. In this
context, "reality hacking" is reading and understanding the code which
represents the activity of the simulated reality environment (such as Matrix digital rain) and also modifying it in order to bend the laws of physics or otherwise modify the simulated reality.
Reality hacking as a mystical practice is explored in the Gothic-Punk aesthetics-inspired White Wolfurban fantasy role-playing game Mage: The Ascension. In this game, the Reality Coders (also known as Reality Hackers or Reality Crackers) are a faction within the Virtual Adepts, a secret society of mages whose magick revolves around digital technology. They are dedicated to bringing the benefits of cyberspace to real space. To do this, they had to identify, for lack of a better term, the "source code" that allows our Universe
to function. And that is what they have been doing ever since. Coders
infiltrated a number of levels of society in order to gather the
greatest compilation of knowledge ever seen. One of the Coders' more
overt agendas is to acclimate the masses to the world that is to come.
They spread Virtual Adept ideas through video games and a whole spate of "reality shows" that mimic virtual reality
far more than "real" reality. The Reality Coders consider themselves
the future of the Virtual Adepts, creating a world in the image of
visionaries like Grant Morrison or Terence McKenna.
In a location-based game
(also known as a pervasive game), reality hacking refers to tapping
into phenomena that exist in the real world, and tying them into the
game story universe.
Academic interpretations
There have been various academic approaches to deal with hacktivism and urban hacking. In 2010, Günther Friesinger, Johannes Grenzfurthner
and Thomas Ballhausen published an entire reader dedicated to the
subject. They state: "Urban spaces became battlefields, signifiers have
been invaded, new structures have been established: Netculture replaced
counterculture in most parts and also focused on the everchanging
environments of the modern city. Important questions have been brought
up to date and reasked, taking current positions and discourses into
account. The major question still remains, namely how to create
culturally based resistance under the influence of capitalistic pressure
and conservative politics."
Internet activism (also known as hacktivism, web activism, online activism, digital campaigning, digital activism, online organizing, electronic advocacy, c'e-campaigning, and e-activism) is the use of electronic communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizenmovements, the delivery of particular information to large and specific audiences as well as coordination. Internet technologies are used for cause-related fundraising, community building, lobbying, and organizing.
A digital activism campaign is "an
organized public effort, making collective claims on a target authority,
in which civic initiators or supporters use digital media." Research has started to address specifically how activist/advocacy groups in the U.S. and Canada are using social media to achieve digital activism objectives.
Types
Sandor Vegh divides online activism into three main categories: Awareness/advocacy, organization/mobilization, and action/reaction.
There are other ways of classifying types of online activism, such as
by the degree of reliance on the Internet. Thus, Internet sleuthing or
hacking could be viewed as purely online forms of activism, whereas the
Occupy Wall Street movement was only partially online.
The Internet is a key resource for independent activists, or
E-activists, particularly those whose message may run counter to the
mainstream. "Especially when a serious violation of human rights occurs, the Internet is essential in reporting the atrocity to the outside world." Listservs like BurmaNet and Freedom News Group help distribute news that would otherwise be inaccessible in these countries.
Internet activists also pass on E-petitions to be sent to the
government and public and private organizations to protest against and
urge for positive policy change in areas from the arms trade to animal testing.
Many non-profits and charities use these methods, emailing petitions to
those on their email list and asking people to pass them on. The
Internet also enables organizations such as NGOs to communicate with individuals in an inexpensive and timely manner. Gatherings and protests can be organized with the input of the organizers and the participants. Lobbying is also made easier via the Internet, thanks to mass e-mail
and its ability to broadcast a message widely at little cost. Vegh's
concept of organization/mobilization, for example, can refer to
activities taking place solely online, solely offline but organized
online, or a combination of online and offline. Mainstream social-networking sites, most noticeably Facebook.com,
are also making e-activist tools available to their users. An active
participatory culture is enabled by the communities on social networking
sites because they permit communication between groups that are
otherwise unable to communicate. In the article "Why We Argue about
Virtual Community: A Case Study of the Phish.net Fan Community," Nessim
Watson stresses the necessity of communication in online communities. He
even goes as far as to say that "Without ongoing communication among
its participants, a community dissolves". The constant ability to
communicate with members of the community enriches online community
experiences and redefines the word community.
Hashtag activism is the use of hashtags for fighting or supporting a cause through the usage of social media outlets. Its use has been associated with the 2014 Chibok kidnapping, with hopes that it would help keep the story in the news and raise international attention. The hashtag itself has received 2 million retweets.
One example of the powerful rise of hashtag activism can be seen
in the black feminist movement's use of hashtags to convey their cause.
The famous hashtag "IamJada" was an internet backlash to the mocking
"#Jadapose" that went viral, ensuing after a sixteen-year-old girl Jada
Smith was photographed following her gang rape In this instance, a hashtag was employed to convey a powerful anti-rape message.
TikTok activism
TikTok's
platform has been increasingly used for rising up social issues through
creative short videos, especially after an allegedly make-up tutorial
turned into a call to action on China's treatment of Muslim Uighurs.
The tutorial was banned for 50 minutes on November 26, 2019. Eric Han,
the heads of TikTok's US content-moderation team, claimed the banning
was due to a “human moderation error”. The Chinese owners declared the
app does not remove content based on sensitivities to China.
TikTok also partnered up with UN Women in a campaign fighting women
violence in India which kicked off on November 25, 2019. The campaign
can be found under the hashtag #KaunsiBadiBaatHai and features short videos with positive and negative examples of men interacting with women.
Development processes
Exploring
the dynamics of online activism for expressing resistance to a powerful
organization, a study developed a critical mass approach to online
activism.
The results were integrated in a four-year longitudinal process model
that explains how online activism started, generated societal outcomes,
and changed over time. The model suggests that online activism helped
organize collective actions and amplify the conditions for revolutionary
movements to form. Yet, it provoked elites’ reactions such as Internet
filtering and surveillance, which do not only promote self-censorship
and generate digital divide, but contribute to the ultimate decline of
activism over time. The process model suggests a complex interplay among
stakeholders’ interests, opportunities for activism, costs and outcomes
that are neither foreseen nor entirely predictable. The authors
challenge universal access to the Internet as a convenient and cost-free
forum for practicing social activism by organizational stakeholders
(customers, employees, outside parties). In fact, the technology
enablers of social activism also enable its filtering and repression and
thus more extreme states of information asymmetry may result in which
powerful elites preserve their status and impose a greater digital
divide.
In one study, a discussion of a developmental model of political
mobilization is discussed. By citizens joining groups and creating
discussion, they are beginning their first stage of involvement.
Progressively, it is hoped that they will begin signing petitions online
and graduating to offline contact as long as the organization provides
the citizen with escalating steps of involvement (Vitak et al., 2011).
The issue of the mass media's centrality has been highly
contested, with some people arguing that it promoted the voices of
marginalized groups while others believe it sends forth the messages of
the majority alone, leaving minority groups to have their voices robbed.
Examples of early activism
One of the earliest known uses of the Internet as a medium for activism was that around Lotus MarketPlace. On April 10, 1990, Lotus announced a direct-mail marketingdatabase
product that was to contain name, address, and spending habit
information on 120 million individual U.S. citizens. While much of the
same data was already available, privacy advocates worried about the
availability of this data within one database. Furthermore, the data
would be on CD-ROM, and so would remain fixed until a new CD-ROM was issued.
In response, a mass e-mail and E-bulletin-board campaign was started, which included information on contacting Lotus and form letters. Larry Seiler, a New England-based
computer professional, posted a message that was widely reposted on
newsgroups and via e-mail: "It will contain a LOT of personal
information about YOU, which anyone in the country can access by just
buying the discs. It seems to me (and to a lot of other people, too)
that this will be a little too much like big brother,
and it seems like a good idea to get out while there is still
time."Over 30,000 people contacted Lotus and asked for their names to be
removed from the database. On January 23, 1991, Lotus announced that it had cancelled MarketPlace.
In 1993, a survey article about online activism around the world, from Croatia to the United States, appeared in The Nation magazine, with several activists being quoted about their projects and views.
The earliest example of mass emailing as a rudimentary form of DDoS occurred on Guy Fawkes Day 1994, when the Intervasion of the UK began email-bombing John Major's cabinet and UK parliamentary servers in protest against the Criminal Justice Bill, which outlawed outdoor rave festivals and "music with a repetitive beat."
In 1995–1998, Z magazine offered courses online through Left
Online University, with lessons on "Using the Internet for Electronic
Activism."
The practice of cyber-dissidence
and activism per se, that is, in its modern-day form, may have been
inaugurated by Dr. Daniel Mengara, a Gabonese scholar and activist
living in political exile in New Jersey in the United States. In 1998,
he created a Website in French whose name Bongo Doit Partir (Bongo Must Go)
was clearly indicative of its purpose: it encouraged a revolution
against the then 29-year-old regime of Omar Bongo in Gabon. The original
URL, http://www.globalwebco.net/bdp/, began to redirect to http://www.bdpgabon.org
in the year 2000. Inaugurating what was to become common current-day
practice in the politically involved blogosphere, this movement's
attempt at rallying the Gabonese around revolutionary ideals and actions
has ultimately been vindicated by the 2011 Tunisian and Egyption
revolutions, where the Internet has proven to be an effective tool for
instigating successful critique, opposition, and revolution against
dictators. In July 2003, Amnesty International reported the arrest of
five Gabonese known-to-be members of the cyber-dissident group Bongo Doit Partir. The five members were detained for three months.
Another well-known example of early Internet activism took place in 1998, when the Mexican rebel group EZLN used decentralized communications, such as cell phones, to network with developed world activists and help create the anti-globalization group Peoples Global Action (PGA) to protest the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva. The PGA continued to call for "global days of action" and rally support of other anti-globalization groups in this way.
Later, a worldwide network of Internet activist sites, under the umbrella name of Indymedia, was created "for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the WTO protests in Seattle" in 1999. Dorothy Kidd quotes Sheri Herndon in a July 2001 telephone interview about the role of the Internet in the anti-WTO
protests: "The timing was right, there was a space, the platform was
created, the Internet was being used, we could bypass the corporate
media, we were using open publishing, we were using multimedia platforms. So those hadn't been available, and then there was the beginning of the anti-globalization movement in the United States."
In the UK, in 1999, the Government introduced a new employment
tax called IR35. One of the first online trade associations was created
to campaign against it. Within weeks they had raised £100,000 off the
Internet from individuals who had never even met. They became a fully
formed trade association called the Professional Contractors Group,
which two years later had 14,000 members all paying £100 each to join.
They presented the first ever e-petition to Parliament and organized one
of the first flash mobs when using their database, to their surprise
and others, 1,000 came in their call to lobby Parliament. They later
raised £500,000 from the Internet to fund an unsuccessful High Court
challenge against the tax, though ultimately they secured some
concessions. Their first external affairs director, Philip Ross, has
written a history of the campaign.
The engagement in the practice of strategic voting was another
development that came with Internet activism. People coordinated their
vote pairing by entering their contact information into an online
database, thereby reducing cost completely.
Kony 2012, a short film released on March 5, 2012.
The film's purpose was to promote the charity's "Stop Kony" movement to
make African cult and militia leader, indicted war criminal and the
International Criminal Court fugitive Joseph Kony globally known in
order to have him arrested by the end of 2012, when the campaign expired. The film spread virally. A poll suggested that more than half of young adult Americans heard about Kony 2012 in the days following the video's release. It was included among the top international events of 2012 by PBS and called the most viral video ever by TIME. The campaign resulted in a resolution by the United States Senate and contributed to the decision to send troops by the African Union.
Internet
activism has had the effect of causing increased collective action
among people, as found by Postmes and Brunsting (2002), who discovered a
tendency among internet users to rely on internalized group memberships
and social identities in order to achieve social involvement online.
The Internet is "tailor-made for a populist, insurgent movement," says Joe Trippi, who managed the Howard Dean campaign. In his campaign memoir, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Trippi notes that:
[The Internet's] roots in the open-sourceARPAnet, its hacker culture,
and its decentralized, scattered architecture make it difficult for
big, establishment candidates, companies and media to gain control of
it. And the establishment loathes what it can't control. This
independence is by design, and the Internet community values above almost anything the distance it has from the slow, homogeneous stream of American commerce and culture. Progressive candidates and companies with forward-looking vision have an advantage on the Internet, too. Television is, by its nature, a nostalgic medium. Look at Ronald Reagan's campaign ads in the 1980s – they were masterpieces of nostalgia promising a return to America's past glory and prosperity.
The Internet, on the other hand, is a forward-thinking and
forward-moving medium, embracing change and pushing the envelope of technology and communication.
Use in political campaigns
When discussing the 2004 U.S. presidential election candidates, Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.,
said of the candidates which benefited from use of the Internet to
attract supporters: "They are all charismatic, outspoken mavericks and
insurgents. Given that the Internet is interactive and requires an
affirmative action on the part of the users, as opposed to a passive
response from TV users, it is not surprising that the candidate has to
be someone people want to touch and interact with."
A more decentralized approach to campaigning arose, in contrast
to a top-down, message-focused approach usually conducted in the
mainstream. "The mantra has always been, 'Keep your message consistent.
Keep your message consistent,'" said John Hlinko, who has participated
in Internet campaigns for MoveOn.org and the electoral primary campaign of Wesley Clark. "That was all well and good in the past. Now it's a recipe for disaster ... You can choose to have a Stalinist
structure that's really doctrinaire and that's really opposed to
grassroots. Or you can say, 'Go forth. Do what you're going to do.' As
long as we're running in the same direction, it's much better to give
some freedom."
Two-thirds of Internet users under the age of 30 have a SNS, and
during the 2008 election, half of them used a SNS site for candidate
information (Hirzalla, 2010).
Non-traditional activism
The Internet has become the catalyst for protests such as Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring as those involved have increasingly relied on social media to organize and stay connected.
In Myanmar, online news paper Freedom News Group has leaked some government corruption and fuel to protests.
In 2017, the Sleeping Giants cyberactivist group, among others, launched a boycott campaign against controversial, conservative webpage Breitbart News, getting more than 2,000 organizations to remove it from ad buys.
Corporate activism
Corporations
are also using Internet activist techniques to increase support for
their causes. According to Christopher Palmeri with BusinessWeek
Online, companies launch sites with the intent to positively influence
their own public image, to provide negative pressure on competitors, to
influence opinion within select groups, and to push for policy changes.
The clothing manufacturer, American Apparel is an example: The company hosts a website called Legalize LA that advocates immigration reform via blog, online advertising, links to news stories and educational materials. Protest groups have responded by posting YouTube videos and establishing a boycott website.
Corporate methods of information dissemination is labelled "astroturfing," as opposed to "grassroots activism," due to the funding for such movements being largely private. More recent examples include the right-wing FreedomWorks.org
which organized the "Taxpayer March on Washington" on September 12,
2009 and the Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights, which opposes
universal health care in the U.S.
Religious activism
Cybersectarianism
is a new organizational form which involves: "highly dispersed small
groups of practitioners that may remain largely anonymous within the
larger social context and operate in relative secrecy, while still
linked remotely to a larger network of believers who share a set of
practices and texts, and often a common devotion to a particular leader.
Overseas supporters provide funding and support; domestic
practitioners distribute tracts, participate in acts of resistance, and
share information on the internal situation with outsiders.
Collectively, members and practitioners of such sects construct viable
virtual communities of faith, exchanging personal testimonies and
engaging in collective study via email, on-line chat rooms and web-based
message boards."
Political activism
White Nationalism
In 1998, former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke
wrote on his website, “I believe that the internet will begin a chain
reaction of racial enlightenment that will shake the world by the speed
of its intellectual conquest.” White nationalists quickly saw the potential of the Internet as a platform to effectively disseminate their message to a mass audience.
This exploitation of technological innovations is not a novel concept for this group. In the early 20th century, with the emergence of film technology, the KKK created their own film companies and produced films like The Toll of Justice (1923)
to spread their message. Then, a century later, with the rise of
digital technologies, the KKK adapted to the changing media landscape to
become a digital movement. They not only adapted to the digital age,
but also found vulnerabilities through which they could most quickly and
efficiently insert their ideologies. Examples of this included strategic domain names and hidden propaganda content.
Today, white nationalists' efforts to push their principles on
the Web combined with tech companies' belief in the Internet as
"raceless" motivate white nationalists to continue to exploit algorithms and influence digital spaces such as Twitter. As algorithms work in a self-reinforcing manner, they worsen the psychological effects of confirmation bias.
They provide search results that confirm one's beliefs and biases and,
further, connect one to communities of like-minded people. This works in
favor of white nationalists; for example, search engines’ autocomplete
features suggest racist notions, and make White supremacist sites
readily accessible to users.
Environmental activism
One of the earliest books on activism was Don Rittner's
"Ecolinking - Everyone's Guide to Online Environmental Information,"
Published by Peachpit Press in 1992. Rittner, an environmental activist
from upstate New York, spent more than 20 years researching and saving
the Albany Pine Barrens. He was a beta tester for America Online and
ran their Environmental Forum for the company from 1988 to when it
launched in 1990. He took his early environmental knowledge and
computer savvy and wrote what was called the bible of the online
environmental community. It showed new Net users how to get online,
find environmental information, connect to environmentalists around the
world, and how to use those resources to save the planet.
Sexual assault activism
Activism
against sexual assault can be led on the internet, where individuals
may feel comfortable talking about controversial topics. One such
movements is the #NotGuilty movement. This movement began in April 2015
with Ione Wells.
She shared a "letter to her attacker" in her college paper. The letter
described how she was sexually assaulted and how she chose to respond
and build from that point in her life. At the end of the letter she
urged readers to send a letter back describing their own sexual assault
experience with the hashtag #notguilty. She received so many letters
from locals that she decided to create a website, this caused global
attention and inspired many to share their stories. The Me Too movement is a similar movement that started in Hollywood. Tarana Burke created the phrase to "empower women through empathy" and Alyssa Milano helped spread the use of the phrase.
This phrase was first used to demonstrate the amount of sexual assault
that happens to young actresses and actors in Hollywood. It soon spread
to apply to all forms of sexual assault, especially in the work place.
These movements were intended to create an outlet for men and women to
share their experiences with those with similar views without blame or
guilt. They brought widespread attention to sexual assault and caused
much controversy about changes that should be made accordingly.
Criticism around movements such as these centers on concerns about
whether or not participants are being dishonest for their own gain or
are misinterpreting acts of kindness.
Impact on everyday political discussions
According
to some observers, the Internet may have considerable potential to
reach and engage opinion leaders who influence the thinking and behavior
of others. According to the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the
Internet, what they call "Online Political Citizens" (OPCs) are "seven
times more likely than average citizens to serve as opinion leaders
among their friends, relatives and colleagues… Normally, 10% of
Americans qualify as Influentials. Our study found that 69% of Online
Political Citizens are Influentials."
Information communication technologies
Information
communication technologies (ICTs) make communication and information
readily available and efficient. There are millions of Facebook
accounts, Twitter users and websites, and one can educate oneself on
nearly any subject. While this is for the most part a positive thing, it
can also be dangerous. For example, people can read up on the latest
news events relatively easily and quickly; however, there is danger in
the fact that apathy or fatigue can quickly arise when people are
inundated with so many messages, or that the loudest voice on a subject
can often be the most extreme one, distorting public perception on the
issue.
These social networks which occupy ICTs are simply modern forms of political instruments which pre-date the technological era.
People can now go to online forums or Twitter instead of town hall
meetings. People can essentially mobilize worldwide through the
Internet. Women can create transnational alliances and lobby for rights
within their respective countries; they can give each other tips and
share up-to-date information. This information becomes "hyper textual",
available in downloadable formats with easy access for all.
The UN organizations also use "hyper textual" formats. They can post
information about upcoming summits, they can post newsletters on what
occurred at these meetings, and links to videos can be shared; all of
this information can be downloaded at the click of a button.
The UN and many other actors are presenting this information in an
attempt to get a certain message out in the cyber sphere and
consequently steer public perception on an issue.
With all this information so readily available, there is a rising
trend of "slacktivism" or "clicktivism". While it is positive that
information can be distributed so quickly and efficiently all around the
world, there is negativity in the fact that people often take this
information for granted, or quickly forget about it once they have seen
it flash across our computer screens.
Viral campaigns are great for sparking initial interest and
conversation, but they are not as effective in the long term—people
begin to think that clicking "like" on something is enough of a
contribution, or that posting information about a current hot topic on
their Facebook page or Twitter feed means that they have made a
difference.
Fundraising capability
The
Internet has also made it easier for small donors to play a meaningful
role in financing political campaigns. Previously, small-donor
fundraising was prohibitively expensive, as costs of printing and
postage ate up most of the money raised. Groups like MoveOn,
however, have found that they can raise large amounts of money from
small donors at minimal cost, with credit card transaction fees
constituting their biggest expense. "For the first time, you have a door
into the political process that isn't marked 'big money,' " says Darr.
"That changes everything.
The Internet also allows ordinary people to contribute materially
to Humanitarian relief projects designed to intervene in situations of
global disaster or tragedy, as in the case of the "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon event, which was launched three days after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake.
The telethon and its broadcast became an effective vehicle to present a
plea for support and to collect contributions quickly, facilitating a
relationship between entertainment and humanitarian fundraising that has
developed in response to historical and economic market conditions.
Ethical Considerations
With internet
technology vastly changing existing and introducing new mechanisms by
which to attain, share and employ information, internet activism raises
ethical issues for consideration. Proponents contend internet activism
serves as an outlet for social progress but only if personal and
professional ethics are employed.
Supporters of online activism claim new information and communications
technologies help increase the political power of activist groups that
would otherwise have less resources. Proponents along this line of
thinking claim the most effective use of online activism is its use in
conjunction with more traditional or historical activism activities.
Conversely, critics worry about facts and beliefs becoming indistinct
in online campaigns and about "sectors of online activism [being] more
self-interested than socially interested."
These critics warn against the manipulation commonplace to online
activism for private or personal interests such as exploiting charities
for monetary gain, influencing voters in the political arena and
inflating self-importance or effectiveness. In this sense, the ethical
implication is that activism becomes descriptive rather than
transformative of society.
One of these reviewers suggests seven pitfalls to beware of in
internet activism: "self-promotion at the expense of the movement...
unsolicited bulk email... Hacktivism... violating copyright... nagging... violating privacy... and being scary." Many of the ethical criticisms against the prevalence of online
activism are further discussed in the criticisms section of this
article.
Criticism
Demographic issues
Critics argue that Internet activism faces the same challenges as other aspects of the digital divide, particularly the global digital divide. Some say it gives disproportionate representation to those with greater access or technological ability.
Groups that may be disadvantaged by the move to activist activity
online are those that have limited access to technologies, or lack the technological literacy
to engage meaningfully online; these include ethnic and racial
minorities, those of lower socioeconomic status, those with lower levels
of education, and the elderly. Issues like racism and sexism are issues
that internet activists reportedly deal with.
A study looked at the impact of Social Networking Sites (SNS) on
various demographics and their political activity. Not surprisingly
college students used SNS for political activity the most but this was
followed by a more unlikely group, those that had not completed high
school. In addition the probability for non-White citizens to consume
political information was shown to be higher than that of Whites. These
two outcomes go in the face of normal predictors of political activity.
Despite these surprising findings older generations, men and whites
showed the highest levels of political mobilization. Acts of political
mobilization, such as fundraising, volunteering, protesting require the
most continued interest, resources and knowledge (Nam, 2010).
Real debate?
The
experience of the echo chamber is easier to create with a computer than
with many of the forms of political interaction that preceded it,"
Sunstein told the New York Times. "The discussion will be about strategy, or horse-race issues
or how bad the other candidates are, and it will seem like debate. It's
not like this should be censored, but it can increase acrimony,
increase extremism and make mutual understanding more difficult.
On the other hand, Scott Duke Harris of the San Jose Mercury News
noted that "the Internet connects [all sides of issues, not just] an
ideologically broad anti-war constituency, from the leftists of ANSWER to the pressed-for-time 'soccer moms' who might prefer MoveOn, and conservative activists as well."
Another concern, according to University of California, Santa
Cruz professor Barbara Epstein, is that the Internet "allows people who
agree with each other to talk to each other and gives them the
impression of being part of a much larger network than is necessarily
the case." She warns that the impersonal nature of communication by
computer may actually undermine the human contact that always has been
crucial to social movements.
Another concern, expressed by author and law professor Cass Sunstein, is that online political discussions lead to "cyberbalkanization"—discussions that lead to fragmentation and polarization
rather than consensus, because the same medium that lets people access a
large number of news sources also enables them to pinpoint the ones
they agree with and ignore the rest.
Moving to offline action
Famed activist Ralph Nader has stated that "the Internet doesn't do a very good job of motivating action", citing that the United States Congress, corporations and the Pentagon do not necessarily "fear the civic use of the Internet." Ethan Zuckerman talks about "slacktivism", claiming that the Internet has devalued certain currencies of activism. Citizens may "like" an activist group on Facebook,
visit a website, or comment on a blog, but fail to engage in political
activism beyond the Internet, such as volunteering or canvassing. This
critique has been criticized as Western-centric, however, because it
discounts the impact this can have in authoritarian or repressive
contexts. Journalist Courtney C. Radsch argued that even this low level of engagement was an important form of activism for Arab youth because it is a form of free speech, and can spark mainstream media coverage. University of North Carolina
professor Zeynep Tufekci has argued that the need to put in significant
organizing time in the pre-Internet era is what gave street protests
their strength.
Slacktivism
Scholars
are divided as to whether the Internet will increase or decrease
political participation, including online activism. Those who suggest
political participation will increase believe the Internet can be used
to recruit and communicate with more users, and offers lower-costs modes
of participation for those who lack the time or motivation to engage
otherwise. Those concerned that the Internet will decrease activism
argue that the Internet occupies free time that can no longer be spent
getting involved in activist groups, or that Internet activism will
replace more substantial, effortful forms of in-person activism.
Malcolm Gladwell
argues that activism through social media and the internet cannot be
successful because they promote a 'lazy' way of activism that doesn't
require people to put in meaningful effort. By for example 'liking' a
protest related post on social media, people feel like they have
contributed to a cause, which makes them less likely to take more
costly, and some would argue more effective, action like joining a
protest.
Clicktivism
Another
criticism is clicktivism. According to techopedia, clicktivism is a
controversial form of digital activism. Proponents believe that applying
advertising principles such as A/B testing increases the impact of a
message by leveraging the Internet to further its reach. Opponents
believe that clicktivism reduces activism to a mere mouse-click,
yielding numbers with little or no real engagement or commitment to the
cause.
Micah M. White
argues, "Political engagement becomes a matter of clicking a few links.
In promoting the illusion that surfing the web can change the world,
clicktivism is to activism as McDonalds is to a slow-cooked meal. It may
look like food, but the life-giving nutrients are long gone."
He argues that political engagement becomes a matter of clicking a few
links and neglects the vital, immeasurable inner-events and personal
epiphanies that great social ruptures are actually made of. It reduces
activism to a mere mouse click. Micah M. White
goes on to argue that "... clicktivism reinforces the fear of standing
out from the crowd and taking a strong position. It discourages calling
for drastic action. And as such, clicktivism will never breed social
revolution. To think that it will is a fallacy. One that is dawning on
us".
State repression
In Net Delusion,
author Evgeny Morozov argues against cyberutopianism. He describes how
the Internet is successfully used against activists and for the sake of
state repression.
