User:Jasdeep-SH/sandbox

Article Evaluation Notes

Key Observations:

• There are two ways to edit Wikipedia: Wikicode and Wikipedia's visual editor. The former must be used to comment on Talk pages, while the latter is a more accessible and easily understood format.
• Some key considerations in a high quality article include a detailed lead section, a clear structure that is chronological or thematic, balanced content, a neutral tone, and good sourcing. Poor articles, seen through the "Start" or "Stub" label tend to have fragmented lead sections, imbalanced split in content, use of value statements and often have gaps in sourcing.
• Sourcing is critical in Wikipedia. This just not only mean using citations, but avoiding close paraphrasing and being conscious of copyrighted material. The sources used should be independent, from reliable publishers and they should be known for fact-checking and neutrality.

Article Commentary: DREAM Act

Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

The lead section was succinct, explaining the purpose of the bill and the failed attempts to pass this legislative bill. Following the lead section was an outline of the legislative text, as well as in-depth analysis on background, legislative history and impact. There was no unnecessary information, although some information could be better explained to link to the topic. For instance, under Background, there was a discussion on the "military shortage of manpower". While relevant to understanding some considerations behind immigration policy, there was no explicit link drawn to the DREAM Act.

All the information was organised with a clear structure with headings and subheadings that were thematically categorised. That said, there was no indicator of a "Good" or "Featured" article. This raises some questions about the quality of the writing.

Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added? How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

The article is neutral. Whenever politicians were mentioned, their political party was clearly stated and neutral verbs like "announced" and "reintroduced" were used, which does not reflect a bias on the part of the writer. That said, the coverage of the topic after 2012 is incomplete, with the timeline stopping at Obama's reintroduction of the bill. In fact, Donald Trump's rescinding of the Act in 2017 was the only post-2012 mention, but as a single sentence at the end of the paragraph on 2012. There had been a lot of discussion about the DREAM Act and immigration policy in 2013, and even in 2017.

Unlike the discussion in class, there is no clear coverage of the different perspectives that were dominant in the more recent debates. For instance, the Republican-majority House was blocking the passage of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2013, which was the new Bill that would protect the rights of those covered by the Dream Act. This represented a gap in the political motives of the Senators, who had an incentive to gain some ground among traditionally immigrant populations like Asians and Latinos, and the Representatives, whose loyalty remained primarily with voters who were not of Latino origin.

One critical piece of information that was missing was the demographics of the individuals involved in the Dream Act. In class, we briefly described their profiles, but there is no mention in the Wikipedia article. For instance, it seems that most of the Dreamers are from Latin American countries, notably Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. These Dreamers currently live in a few states, largest numbers being reported in California, Texas, Florida and New York.

Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article? Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

The article is generally written in a neutral tone and has good sourcing. Primary sources, such as the Bill from the Congress are included. While these are quoted directly, this makes sense as official legal documents, along with the appropriate supporting reference. Among the secondary sources, there are many reputable news publishers, which is logical seeing that the issue is a current affairs one, which means that updated information would be more likely found in the news, which is known for fact-checking. There is a fair number of reliable and independent research centres, like the National Centre on Immigrant Integration Policy and the North American Integration and Development Center, based in the University of California, Los Angeles.

Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

There is an interesting conversation about the use of terminology, an issue touched upon during class. There was a Wikipedia editor who repeatedly tried to remove the term "undocumented" from the article, a change which was undone and commented on the Talk page. There is still hostility towards the term, preferring "illegal" or "alien" (which is used in the DREAM acronym) by certain camps, but there has been no formal clarification of the term "undocumented".

There was a note on the addition of the section of the Dreamers movement. This is a positive sign, to see the article go beyond the legislative text and its background to include the social movement impacts of the legislation, beyond the immigration and economic ones, which were anticipated.

There was a well-noted concern about the lead section, which could be understood as an inaccuracy. On the page, the Act refers to "Alien minors", but for greater clarity, it should be those who were minors when they first moved to the US, because those eligible can be 35 years old presently.

See comment made on Talk Page

Article Selection

Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Option 1

Article: Online Social Movement

Article Evaluation

1. The overall article is not comprehensive. It touches on different topics, without explaining a clear structure. For instance, the section "Online Social Movements and Commercial Social Media Platforms" is rather confusing. While it makes use of well-cited and reliable sources, the information can be better arranged into a historical development of social media movements and into the benefits and detriments section of the article.
2. The article evaluates too briefly the detriments and benefits of social media movements. The coverage of impacts is highly limited. The course materials, notably the two books, could expand the depth of this evaluation. For instance, Memes to Movements by An Xiao Mina expands on the benefits of using social media. For instance, in Chapter 1: Revolution of the Cat, An underlines how social media can be used to break pluralistic ignorance, which is the belief that your beliefs are not shared by others (Mina, 2019). In fact, online platforms enable the synchronisation of opinions among disparate cities by creating a sense of physical presence.
3. There is a shortage of balanced content. The sections on online movements and key actors are both non-exhaustive lists, which could either be expanded or removed. For instance, the list of online social movements can be expanded with the edited Wikipedia articles by the class, to further expand on the brief list of social media movements. Similarly, it might not be a good idea to list only 4 key figures. It could be unfeasible to highlight individual names, and instead, movements could be a better list of examples. That said, there remains a risk of remaining neutral in the coverage of social movements, since personal bias can shape which examples are highlighted. For instance, the national protests linked might not necessarily reflect particularly successful versions of online movements. The England Riots is an example that is not particularly relevant, while the Arab Springs, which are an emblematic example of online social movements, were not mentioned in the article.
4. The list of sources is promising. There are academic references, as well as social movement websites, which would be considered primary sources. More work can be done on this aspect to introduce academic sources, such as the course material.

Sources (3 sources)

Heimans, Jeremy, and Henry Timms. “Understanding ‘New Power.’” Harvard Business Review, December 1, 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/12/understanding-new-power

Mina, An Xiao, Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power, Beacon Press, 2019.

Tufekci, Zeynep, Twitter and Tear Gas, Yale University Press, 2017.

Option 2

Article: Internet activism

Article Evaluation

1. The article is part of the WikiProject on Internet culture and is indicated to be of High importance rating and of Start quality rating, which meets the criteria suggested by the Wikipedia classes on article selection. This makes sense since Internet activism is a highly common form of social movement organisation, and hence, it is surprising that there is no refinement of the Wikipedia page, given its societal importance and omnipresence.
2. The content could benefit from a clearer structure. Firstly, the sections towards the end can be sorted more clearly into "Benefits" and "Detriments" or "Criticisms". For instance, the sections on "Impact on Political Discussions" and "Ethical Considerations" can be subsets of the former and latter categories. Presently, these section are stand alone and can afford to be elaborated upon in greater depth, as pointed out in the Talk page of the article. For instance, Tufekci talks about the challenge of digital dualism when social movements are organised both online and offline. This means that the virtual and real worlds are distinct and, hence, the full extent of the social media movement might not be felt in real life, or it might not be sufficiently sustained (Tufekci, 2017). Additionally, the sections on "Types" and "possibilities of online activism" seem to overlap in that they are trying to illustrate a range of examples. The section on types can be renamed "Methods", since it shows two forms of social media (rather than the internet in general), and can be further expanded upon in this regard. The "Possibilities" section can be renamed to be examples, since its purpose is to show the range of possible uses of internet activism.
3. There can be more balance in nuancing the topic. Currently, there is no distinction between internet and social media activism. There could be more clarity in how the two terms are related, allowing for better choice of examples. Currently, only hashtag and TikTok activism are highlighted, but these mostly deal with social media platforms. More research can be done into whether there are particular typologies to classify internet activism since there should be more value added to key definitions and characterisation. Unlike the definitions, the section on Criticisms is much more developed, although they are arguably of similar importance.

Sources (4 sources)

Benkler, Yochai, and Helen Nissenbaum. “Commons-Based Peer Production and Virtue.” Journal of Political Philosophy 14, no. 4 (December 1, 2006): 394–419.

Franco, Marisa , B Loewe and Tania Unzueta. Medium, Jun 22, 2015. “How We Make Change is Changing, Part II: Open Source Campaigns for the 21st Century”

Mina, An Xiao, Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power, Beacon Press, 2019.

Tufekci, Zeynep, Twitter and Tear Gas, Yale University Press, 2017.

Option 3

Article: Slacktivism

Article Evaluation

1. This article is within the WikiProject Sociology and is listed as Start Class and Mid Importance and the quality and importance scales, respectively. It seems like because of this, the article is not incredibly established and much of what is listed is speculative. The connotation of the term comes off negatively at first, painting the action of "slacktivism" as a short-cut way to participate in activism and defining it somewhat subjectively instead of objectively. People have issues with this, because it makes a claim that slacktivism has "little effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfied that they have contributed," although there is evidence that suggests real-world effects of slacktivism, big or small. It shouldn't be introduced as an "opposing opinion" on slacktivism, but an objective fact. It may also be beneficial to elaborate on what inspired the movement and which tools helped move it along, in addition to its relation with similarly-focused terms like "internet activism" and "armchair activism."
2. The body of the article is very thorough and highlights the criticisms and defenses against them. It also lists specific examples of circumstances that have warranted slacktivism online. However, it doesn't go in-depth into slacktivism outside of a social media framework. Something that would make it better is to incorporate the possible long-term goals and achievements within slacktivism despite its relative newness and criticisms.
3. There can be a much deeper level of depth in today's social and political climate, because although the term is not often used, it helps to explain and define (and criticize) a lot of the ways people go about contributing to a good cause. Taking this into account should let the author explore the term more and apply it freely to popular movements and occurrences happening today. Going deeper and exploring the nuances of slacktivism--not just a one-sided view of it--would make it a more objective, academic article.

Sources (3 sources)

Andresen, Katya. "Why Slacktivism is Underrated". Retrieved November 1, 2011

Barberá, P.; Wang, N.; Bonneau, R.; Jost, J.T.; Nagler, J.; Tucker, J.; González-Bailón, S. (November 30, 2015). "The Critical Periphery in the Growth of Social Protests". PLoS ONE. 10 (e0143611). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0143611. PMC 4664236. PMID 26618352. Retrieved December 2, 2015.

Carr, David. "Hashtag Activism, and Its Limits". The New York Times. March 25, 2012

Editing a Wiki Article

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 synchronization of opinions across disparate geographies by creating a sense of physical presence and connection among those with similar perspectives.

Final Wikipedia Article

Online Social Movements

In terms of organization, the final article would look like:

• Lead Section
• History of Social Movements
  • Brief Coverage of first Social Movements
  • Key Actors
  • First Online Social Movements (e.g. Lotus, Zapatistas, MoveOn.Org, WTO Protests in Seattle in 1999)
  • Present Day Social Movements (i.e. social media social movements)
• Examples (categorized by themes, linked to other class articles)
• Online Effects vs Regular Social Movements
• Support
• Criticisms

1) Lead can be updated further:

• Definitions can be included: social movement, online, pluralistic ignorance

Social movement: Lorenz von Stein first introduced the term social movement into discourse in the 1950s, imagining a continuous unitary process by which the whole working class gained self-consciousness and power. Charles Tilly later expanded this definition to become a series of contentious performances for ordinary people to make collective claims on others.

• Brief overview of what online social movements could look like (e.g. widespread discussion

2) Add a history section. It would be interesting to note the earlier forms of social movements and how online social movements have changed over time, until today.

For instance, Charles Tilly recognizes the first social movements in Britain and the US in the 1750s and 1760s, after the 7 Years War. In Britain, John Wilkes lead the "Wilkes and Liberty" movement to achieve legal and parliamentary reform. Across the Atlantic, the Boston merchants and the activists in the Sons of Liberty initiated the opposition to the British that eventually lead to the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (Tilly, 2018).

The earliest online social movements began after the Internet revolution. While individuals commonly think back to the Arab Springs, social movements had been arranged through email. In the 1990, software company Lotus and credit bureau Equifax had access to names, addresses and purchasing behavior of 120 million Americans in CD-ROM form. Nearly 30,000 consumers organised through emails and message boards in protest, halting the release of the database by 1991 (Gurak, 1997).

The development of social media sites altered social movements completely, since internet and message boards are not longer the primary means of organizing. Go into the uses and utility of online social movements; how do they operate in tandem with the offline version of the movement and what does it do and achieve differently?

3) Develop the benefits and detriments further. For instance, the Mount Everest metaphor can be an interesting addition. Most of this will be built from the course material. In addition to greater theoretical explanation, there can be examples to illustrate these arguments in greater depth. In the case of the Mount Everest metaphor used by Zeynep Tufekci, a comparison between the Civil Rights Movement and the Arab Springs might clarify these ideas.

The current article does not make use of quantitative data. There will be addition of evidence as to how exactly social movements grow in numbers or in influence with graphs and data.

4) The "Examples" section is poorly organised. The revised article would categorize the movements into mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive groups. Under these groups, there will be a brief description of some of the movements, rather than a mere bullet-ed listing. Additionally, the group will attempt to use the other articles written by the class in order to increase traffic to those articles. In order to get an inspiration for the movements to list, the current examples will be evaluated for their relevance and thee MoveMe blog could serve as a set of examples to drawn from, as well. For instance, the 2011 England Riots might not be the best example for an online social media movement.

In order to improve the visual of the article, there can be images, especially for the lesser known movements, such as Popola Viola.

5) The sections on "The Future" and "Online Social Movements and Commercial Social Media Platforms" are not necessary as individual sections since they evaluate online social movements. These parts can be compressed into the detriments section to raise critiques about the sustainability of social movements.

6) Many statements need to be backed up with sources, and many claims are speculative/vague and lack substantial evidence.

• In addition, the article itself reads like an essay more than a factual article.
  • "The Future" section is very minimal and only includes and opinion from one person, which is intended to be read as fact. We need more sources and speculation (because there are many) about the future of activism online to get a well-rounded view.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Della Porta, Donatella, and Mario Diani. Social Movements: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2006.

Mina, An Xiao, Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media Is Changing Social Protest and Power, Beacon Press, 2019.

Tilly, Charles. (2018). Social Movements, 1768-2004. Routledge.

Tufekci, Zeynep, Twitter and Tear Gas, Yale University Press, 2017.

Academic Journals

Benkler, Yochai, and Helen Nissenbaum. “Commons-Based Peer Production and Virtue.” Journal of Political Philosophy 14, no. 4 (December 1, 2006): 394–419.

Franco, Marisa , B Loewe and Tania Unzueta. Medium, Jun 22, 2015. “How We Make Change is Changing, Part II: Open Source Campaigns for the 21st Century”

Gurak, L.J. (1997). Persuasion and Privacy in Cyberspace: The Online Protests over Lotus MarketPlace and the Clipper Chip. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Heimans, Jeremy, and Henry Timms. “Understanding ‘New Power.’” Harvard Business Review, December 1, 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/12/understanding-new-power

Lim, Merlyna. Clicks, Cabs, and Coffee Houses: Social Media and Oppositional Movements in Egypt, 2004–2011, Journal of Communication, Volume 62, Issue 2, April 2012, Pages 231–248, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01628.x

Wikipedia Draft: Online Social Movements

OVERALL FORMAT

• Lead Section (largely can be kept for now)
• History of Social Movements (currently does not exist)
• Examples (currently poorly organised)
• Benefits (currently very brief)
• Detriments (currently very brief
  

LEAD

Social movements are loosely organised efforts to push for a particular goal. In many cases, these movements seek to counter the mainstream public, claiming there is a wrong that ought to be righted. The first social movements occurred through protests and civil disobedience, but with the rise of the internet, social movements have gone online. Online social movements have since gained momentum in the 20th and 21st century. The organisational structures and strategies behind social movements have changed as a result of the online world, utilizing technology and the internet to mobilize more people in a shorter period of time.

HISTORY OF ONLINE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

The earliest social movements were minimally related to the internet. For instance, Charles Tilly recognizes the first social movements in Britain and the US in the 1750s and 1760s, after the 7 Years War. John Wilkes led the "Wilkes and Liberty" movement to achieve legal and parliamentary reform. Across the Atlantic, the Boston merchants and the activists in the Sons of Liberty initiated the opposition to the British that eventually lead to the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

The mentality behind these was spurred on by sovereignty within British politics through the Reformation and informed John Wilkes and his followers about alternative societal rule. Thus, in 1768, members of the English lower class began to mobilize underneath Wilkes’ movement against the sovereignty of the ruling class. On May 10, 1768, Wilkes’ supporters and the king’s soldiers at St. George’s field began fighting, resulting in about six to eleven protesters dead. This event sparked speculation about where sovereignty lies. The rise of the Wilkes movement marked the beginning of a new phase in British politics where the notion of popular sovereignty became dominant. Wilkes and his followers consistently challenged the leading authority through actions taken outside of parliament and on the basis of contesting laws. They created something that was so new that it laid the groundwork for political struggles to come: social movements.

These situations, while different in nature from social movements we experience today, started the idea of mass-gathering to contest an issue. Modern examples of social movements include the Movement of the Unemployed in the 1930s, the Free Speech and Civil Rights Movements in the 1960s, the lower-profile 1990s movements and the many movements in the 21st century.

Social movements have evolved to a more dynamic, organized, effective, and prominent state than ever before, in part due to social movements presence on social media. The earliest online social movements began right after the Internet revolution. While the Arab Springs are commonly associated with the earliest online movements, in reality, social movements began through email. In 1990, software company Lotus and credit bureau Equifax gained access to names, addresses and purchasing behavior of 120 million Americans in CD-ROM format. In response, nearly 30,000 consumers organised through emails and message boards in protest, halting the release of the database by 1991.

Many people have conflicting views on social media and its effectiveness when put to the task of activism. Interestingly, Pew Research Centre found that some 64% of Americans feel that the statement ‘social media help give a voice to underrepresented groups’ describes these sites very or somewhat well. But a larger share say social networking sites distract people from issues that are truly important (77% feel this way), and 71% agree with the assertion that ‘social media makes people believe they’re making a difference even when they really are not really making change.' The debate on whether social media has added or retracted to the function of social movements as compared to historical precedence remains at the forefront of modern discussions on these issues.

EXAMPLES

EXAMPLES: POLITICAL MOVEMENTS

2009 Iranian presidential election protests: Protests against the highly controversial 2009 Iranian presidential election results in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, occurred in major cities nationwide from 2009 into early 2010. The protests were titled Iranian Green Movement by its proponents, reflecting Mousavi's campaign theme, and Persian Awakening, Persian Spring or Green Revolution, reflecting the "Persian identity" of Iranians and the so-called "colour revolution" theme. Protests began the night of 12 June 2009, following the announcement that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won nearly 63% of the vote, despite several reported irregularities.

Egyptian revolution of 2011: The Egyptian revolution of 2011, also known as the January 25 Revolution, started on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police holiday" as a statement against increasing police brutality during the last few years of Mubarak's presidency. It consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupations of plazas, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and strikes. Millions of protesters from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and over 6,000 injured. Protesters retaliated by burning over 90 police stations across the country.

Arab Spring: The Arab Spring was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in response to oppressive regimes and a low standard of living, starting with protests in Tunisia.The protests then spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, where either the regime was toppled or major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Iranian Khuzestan, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests occurred in Djibouti, Mauritania, the Palestinian National Authority, Saudi Arabia, and the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.

EXAMPLES: GENDER, RACE, SEXUALITY MOVEMENTS

#BlackLivesMatter: Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people. BLM regularly holds protests speaking out against police killings of black people, and broader issues such as racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system. In 2013, the movement began with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin in February 2012. The movement became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans.

#MeToo: The Me Too (or #MeToo) movement, with a large variety of related local or international names, is a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual harassment survivor and activist Tarana Burke. Similar to other social justice and empowerment movements based upon breaking silence, the purpose of "Me Too", as initially voiced by Burke as well as those who later adopted the tactic, is to empower women through empathy and strength in numbers, especially young and vulnerable women, by visibly demonstrating how many women have survived sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace. Following the exposure of the widespread sexual-abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein in early October 2017, the movement began to spread virally as a hashtag on social media.

EXAMPLES: OTHER MOVEMENTS

#MarchForOurLives: The March for Our Lives (MFOL) was a student-led demonstration in support of legislation to prevent gun violence in the United States. It took place in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2018, with over 880 sibling events throughout the United States and around the world, and was planned by Never Again MSD in collaboration with the nonprofit organization. The event followed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting a month earlier, which was described by several media outlets as a possible tipping point for gun control legislation. Protesters urged for universal background checks on all gun sales, raising the federal age of gun ownership and possession to 21, closing of the gun show loophole, a restoration of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, and a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines and bump stocks in the United States. Turnout was estimated to be between 1.2 and 2 million people in the United States, making it one of the largest protests in American history.

BENEFITS

Online social movements have been celebrated for their ability to amass large amounts of success. The online world provides the power to organise without any formal organisations, which speeds up the process of mobilisation and allows for greater scale in rapid time frames. This can be understood as New Power, which supports informal leadership and radical transparency, conducive for large amounts of participation by people on social media. Previously, the dominant form of old power limited participation in movements and leadership to a small group. Rapid mobilisation helps people overcome pluralistic ignorance, where individuals believe that they are the only person with a particular view. Instead, the online networked sphere helps reveal otherwise preferences to each other in order to discover common ground.  The increased visibility of a movement on the internet supports a sense of camaraderie, setting and maintaining a cause, even if it is otherwise decentralised. Having overcome this pluralistic ignorance through the online world, new norms of behavior and belief can start to form through regular repetition and affirmation of messages.

Online movements are able to sustain attention across boundaries, physical and temporal. For instance, during the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, Facebook’s event function allowed for people to organise protests, which would then be acted out upon in real-life. Similarly, the Occupy movement was able to gather an online following around the world through the Tumblr blog, titled “We are the 99%”. The function of being able to post on a shared website supported the gathering of different narratives, unifying people. In fact, online social movements epitomises the notion of “many yeses, one no”. This motto highlights how the online world brings together diverse voices against something they all feel strongly about, by acting as integrating screens since people use these devices to connect with others, rather than to isolate themselves. In many ways, social media has created networks conducive for unification across different identities, supporting intersectional approaches to fighting injustice. For instance, the Zapatistas attempted to emphasise their inclusivity of the movement, which had begun as somewhat of a peasants revolt. The leader of the movement, Marcos, was famously presented in numerous identities, of different exploited and marginalised minorities who are saying “Enough” to their situation:

“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the subway at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains. Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying 'Enough.' He is every minority who is now beginning to speak, and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable—this is Marcos.” -Subcommandant Marcos, from Social Justice E-Zine #27

Social media is also able to provide a creative milieu that is conducive for narrative building. Memes, in particular, have proven to be a useful tool when it comes to repeat certain ideas so that they enter the public consciousness and are able to retain attention. Often, the large numbers of people online allow for intentional overproduction. Amanda D. Lotz noted that this is a key strategy, where multiple shows and commercials are created in order to compete, so that the most effective version can succeed, while the others disappear.. In online social movements, hashtag culture functions by having many people copy each other and come up with new permutations, allowing for the most successful version to spread.

Social media platforms are harder to censor than real-life organisation of movements. Ethan Zuckerman advanced the Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism, which explains the relative lack of censorship online. Zuckerman posits that the web is used primarily for innocuous purposes, such as connecting with families and friends and posting pictures of cats. However, the affordances that social media provides activists nurtures a community that engages in political criticism. Still, these activists are able to hide behind the largely mundane uses of the internet, since censorship by governments would appear especially draconian. For instance, the Twitter ban in Turkey by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan who intended to “wipe out” the social media platform was met with furious outrage from the population, experts and the global community. Similarly when ex-Tunisian President Ben Ali attempted to ban Facebook in 2010, his move backfired because so many Tunisians used Facebook to connect with family, friends and acquaintances.

DETRIMENTS

Nevertheless, there are numerous critiques posed against online social movements.

Most frequently, the limited capacity for tangible change is often raised. For social movements to be successful, there need to be network internalities, which are durable networks ideal for organised action. These networks are the result of long-term challenges that are collectively overcome, which supports trust building. This process requires the investment of time and energy in order for members of a social movement to learn how to cooperate to achieve their goals.

In order to elucidate this lack of durable capacity in many online social movements, Zeynep Tufekci introduces the Mount Everest metaphor in her comparison of the Civil Rights Movement’s achievements with the Arab Spring’s relative limited scope of change, especially in Egypt. Zeynep draws a comparison between social media and Sherpas. Previously, climbing Mount Everest was a challenging task. However, with Sherpas, more people were capable of doing so, and this led to a spike in mountaineering tourism. Nevertheless, these individuals remained unprepared for the reality of scaling the mountain, resulting in a spike in deaths. Similarly, social media has enabled more social movements to spread and enter the public sphere. However, there has not been long-term training and building of network internalities which is necessary to sustain these movements. The Civil Rights Movement had undergone strenuous planning and organisation, which has resulted in leaders who were able to represent the cause, such as Martin Luther King. In contrast, online social movements tend to be more short-lived. For instance, Kony 2012 brought attention to child soldiers being forced into Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. However, the small organisation that directed the video, Invisible Children, was incapable of managing the sheer volume of attention received. Without the network internalities present in the Civil Rights Movement, the director Jason Russell had a major breakdown and the social movement dissipated.

There is also the concern of a lack of clear leadership in online social movements. This means that there might be a challenge in finding representatives to negotiate within the movement and with adversaries. These individuals might have little in common beyond the initial movement. For instance, Tahrir Square protesters could not deviate tactically from their initial demand, which was to overthrow the Hosni Mubarak regime. Hence, there was a tactical freeze, where tactics could not be adjusted and new demands were not articulated by the social movement. Even the creator of “We are All Khaled Said”, the main Facebook page of the Egyptian Revolution, Wael Ghonim was in no position to concede anything. Ghonim was neither an elected leader, nor an informal one, which denied him legitimacy to engage in negotiations. Similarly, in the Occupy movement, there was an attempt to empower all protestors to be leaders of the movement. However, as a “leaderful” movement, there was a lack of ability to identify a clear representative to negotiate since there were too many perspectives.

Online social movements, while effective in unifying people, might also amplify the tendency to tribalism. In particular, more people having access to social media might democratise the risk of promoting violence, especially where institutions are not stable and there can be large amounts of distrust and disinformation. For instance, while social media had helped Sri Lanka ease the path to its first democratic elections in 2015 after years of civil war, communal hatreds began to overrun the news feeds, which are the primary portal of news and information for many users.