Monday morning, the Israel Defense Force raided a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, where nine activists were fatally shot. Everyone seems to agree with the lineup of events up until that point. The interesting thing about this whole situation is how both sides used online video to plead their cases, possibly giving insight into how communications and PR spin fixates itself into international relations in the future.

According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the activists on board “deliberately attacked soldiers.”

And IDF has video on their YouTube channel to prove their point:

Meanwhile the folks on the flotilla tell a different story. The Free Gaza Movement says that “Israeli commandoes dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck. They fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep.”

Like with the Nestle/Greenpeace situation, will governments use social media to get ahead of a PR disaster in the future?

Sebastián Piñera, the newly elected president of Chile, has asked all cabinet members to start tweeting. His own account is now the most-followed in the country. Venezuala’s Hugo Chávez tweets too (@chavezcandanga). In June only three Japanese politicians had accounts; now Politter, a site dedicated to Twitter and Japanese politics, lists 485. An analysis of last year’s German elections by the University of St Gallen discovered that 577 politicians had opened Twitter accounts, three-quarters of them in 2009. Greece’s prime minister George Papandreou uses Twitter. But @primeministergr is the office, not the man. His staff tweet for him, sometimes using a code to signal who wrote what.

However, does social media make politicians more accessible to their constituents and detractors? Possibly not. President Barack Obama won the White House, thanks in part to his campaign’s strong use of social media. According to the article, “at its height Barack Obama’s campaign (@barackobama) employed 100 staff working on social media such as Twitter.” Nonetheless, “the scale of response makes it hard for office-holders to tweet themselves. Mr Obama reads just a select ten of the messages (20,000 of all kinds) he receives daily.”

Recently, DigiActive went out and interviewed ordinary people about their thoughts on this matter. Some opinions were negative.

“At first, it might seem cool to follow and send tweets to your favorite politicians, but then you realize that the politician’s Twitter account is being run by some intern or secretary in their office, which I think defeats the purpose of politicians connecting with your constituents about their concerns,” said Nadya Ghanem of Turkey.

“What is the point of connecting with politicians online when they are not really connecting with you,” said Luis Calbarro of Suriname. “It’s like Twitter is no different from sending an email to a politician’s office and not getting a response. It might be read or thrown in a inbox with other Tweets. It is all window dressing.”

But some were hopeful of the future of political tweeting, like Shelly Kim from South Korea, who was exciting see the digital activism in her country’s recent presidential election. Last March there was some controversy over the use of Twitter by South Korean lawmakers and making it accessible for all.

“I have seen the power of why social media is being taken more seriously by politicians because they really do listen to what the people have to say,” she said.

Description: Global food giant Nestlé has been under a critical spotlight for alleged poor corporate and social practices for many years. Recently, activists have accused the company of several problems, including only one percent of Nestlé cocoa products are FairTrade certified, continued child slavery in the cocoa supply chain, and its baby milk products not meeting international standards. The latest accusation of Nestlé’s bad practices is now being seen loud and clear through a viral video, which is another great example of digital activism.

Digital Tools Being Used: Video, Facebook

What Are They Doing: Greenpeace UK uploaded a video on Youtube, showing an office worker opening a Kit Kat and finding an orangutan’s finger. Nestlé, which produces the popular chocolate bar, is being blamed by the green justice group of buying palm oil, which is used in many of its products, from Indonesian producer Sinar Mar. As a result, Greenpeace claims that this partnership has resulted in destroyed rainforests where Indonesia’s last orangutans live and has created a devastating carbon footprint.

In the last 50 years, an area more than twice the size of Germany has been logged, burned or otherwise degraded, with palm oil plantations being a major cause, according to Greenpeace.

On Wednesday, Nestlé released a statement denying it buys palm oil from Sinar Mar for any of its products, including Kit Kats.

“We do purchase palm oil from Cargill and we have sought assurances from them about their supply chain,” it said.

“Cargill has informed us that Sinar Mas needs to answer Greenpeace’s allegations by the end of April. They have indicated that they will de-list Sinar Mas if they do not take corrective action by then.

“Nestlé recently undertook a detailed review of its supply chain to establish the source of its palm oil supplies and we have made a commitment to using only ‘Certified Sustainable Palm Oil’ by 2015, when sufficient quantities should be available.”

Greenpeace claims that Nestlé asked YouTube to remove the video citing copyright concerns. Specifically Nestlé was bothered by the twist on the Kit Kat’s famous slogan used at the end of the video: “Have a break? Give orangutans a break.” However, the video was reposted the next day. Greenpeace said the video being taken down was a censorship attempt, which was “a pretext for stopping the word being spread and an apparent attempt to silence us.”

Elsewhere online, approximately 90,000 Nestle protesters have taken over the company’s Facebook page, to make their grievances clear, creating possibly one of the largest digital protests since last summer’s Iranian election protests. In the long run, the Nestle debacle might show other companies how not to deal with online crisis communications. While Greenpeace created a very effective and (very graphic) video, the question always remains: Will digital activists take their protests offline and actually stop eating Kit Kats in the long term? Only time will tell.

Momentarily giving up, I manually navigated to Google Finance where the familiar-looking U.S.-based version of Google’s financial information service greeted me with the headline: “Will Google’s China Move Set a New Tone?”:

…..Google said Monday that it’s decided to re-direct traffic away from its google.cn search engine to Hong Kong-based google.com.hk, where Chinese speakers may access unfiltered search results. It remains to be seen how long Internet users in mainland China will retain access to google.com.hk. The site’s servers are based in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China……

So now Google is doing me a favor by providing me “uncensored” search results via their Hong Kong based search platform? Pardon my confusion, but does that mean that my three years of search results using Google.com in China, rather than the local China-based Google.cn, was had been filtered the entire time? For now, I’m going to assume that if Google’s Hong Kong platform will provide uncensored search results to Mainland Chinese netizens then the U.S. platform has provided the same in China all along. The only difference now is that Google is automatically forwarding Mainland Chinese traffic attempting to access Google.com or Google.cn to its homepage to its Hong Kong platform. Until today, anyone looking for unfiltered search results could have simply used Google.com or any of Google’s dozens of regional platforms except Google.cn. The only benefit of Google.cn was that it provided a Chinese language version of the service, which was also always accessible via Google.com.hk.

My Google experience from within Mainland China, upset today by the impasse in tenuous negotiations between Google and Chinese authorities, is almost interesting as a new episode in the ongoing feud for freedom of information and an uncensored internet in China. Besides, I’m sure Google’s execs are proud of themselves for following their own mantra of “Don’t be evil” and taking what appears to be a stand on an uncensored internet experience in China.

My only qualm with all of this fussy posturing, that’s now even gotten the Obama administration officially “Disappointed” with Google and China’s failure to agree to disagree, is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual internet experience in Mainland China! Just because Google now automatically helps any would-be Google.com or Google.cn users along by forwarding us to their Hong Kong site for the glorious experience of “uncensored search results,” that doesn’t mean that these Mainland Chinese netizens can actually few any of the content on those pages! What benefit is my unfiltered search result when I click on it and the Great Firewall of China just blocks me from looking at it anyway?

There are several more reasons why all of this fuss over uncensored search results is irrelevant:

1. Censorship isn’t News: Anyone in China scouring the internet for politically sensitive content that might have been snuffed out by Google.cn’s filters already has no illusions about how manipulative, hypocritical, and controlling China’s internet authorities are–not to mention China’s entire government. In other words, they aren’t anywhere near getting duped into believing China’s official “Harmonious Society” tag line just because several items are missing from their Google search.
2. Circumvention Options Already Exist: Anyone in China who is genuinely serious about uncovered all of their missing content and actually being able to access it once they find it on their search engine of choice has options. For anywhere from USD $8-15 per month, VPN (virtual private network) software is available for subscription, which instantly unblocks all search results and real content in China.
3. There are Already Pockets of Free Speech on the Chinese Web: I don’t think Google.com or Google.cn were ever confused as a platform for political change in China. While I do applaud Google’s ethos of free information for everyone, people in China have many other places to go if they actually want to exchange politically sensitive ideas. Just take a look at Kaixin001.com! Here is an unblocked, easily accessible website on which hundreds or thousands or articles, videos, and photos are exchanged daily across China. Some articles are amusing distractions or mindless celebrity gossip, but many others are full of highly “controversial” content that blisteringly excoriates China’s government policies and the gaping holes in the face of its “Harmonious Society.”
4. Google.cn Wasn’t an Effective Block: To Google: For all of those politically active Chinese-only speakers whom you thought desperately need your Google.cn service in order to exchange information freely, don’t worry, there are plenty of other channels that were always much more popular anyway. Does Google really believe that Chinese people with the motivation to seek out a free version of the internet and access uncensored ideas will be deterred because Google.cn had some missing results to content that they wouldn’t have been able to view anyway?

I don’t want to step on Google for making a modest step in the right direction for a free internet in China. After all, I haven’t been able to access YouTube or Facebook for over a year within China and few would enjoy having those invaluable procrastinating tools back more than me! That said, let’s not get too excited about Google’s so-called hardliner stance on an uncensored internet. Moreover, we should not get confused and forget that China’s grip on local internet access has never been tighter than it is today. Until the conflict between the government’s need for continued economic development, in order to keep the masses spending money and buying real estate, meets an impasse with the need for more relaxed information policies, we should not expect any meaningful improvement in China’s internet freedom.

Image: zdnet

Digital Tool Being Used: Mobile Phone

What Are They Doing: Last year’s droughts throughout Africa were some of the worst in decades, causing higher food prices, illness among both people and animals and destroyed crops that took months to repair. To address these problems, the Agricultural Index Insurance Initiative at the Syngenta Foundation launched last week Kilimo Salama, Swahili for “safe farming”, to provide insurance plans for Kenyan farmers.

Here is how it works: When purchasing seeds from an retailer, farmers register to insure their seeds by filling in the insurance card. The registration process is completed when the farmer sends a text message on their mobile phone, and a record is created in a database. A local weather station records the rainfall and sends the data to the insurance company, which then calculates a payout according to an agronomic model. At the end of the season the farmer receives a text message if there is a payout and can pick up their payout at the original retailer where the insurance was purchased.

What is the Impact: Kilimo Salama actually began as a small pilot project last year with a group of 200 farmers in the central region of Laikipia. Most of the farmers were highly impressed with the program, as many of them received a payout of up to 80 percent. This year the insurance program will cover at least 5,000 maize and wheat farmers in Central, Rift Valley and Western provinces, which is at high risk of drought. This program shows that even a simple tool like a mobile phone can make a big difference in the lives of many.

Digital Tools Being Used: Facebook, Twitter, Text Message, Radio & Video

What Are They Doing: The “i know” effort is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Act Against AIDS campaign, which uses multiple social media platforms to reach out to African American youth with facts about HIV/AIDS with the aim to engage them in open conversation.

“By supporting frank conversations through social media, ‘i know’ creates an opportunity for young people to talk directly with each other about the issues that fuel this still-deadly disease,” said Kevin Fenton, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention. “Their ideas and involvement will be a critical part of the solution.”

The campaign uses a mix of both old and new media. Followers have a choice of using Twitter, Facebook and texting to get alerts and status updates on HIV knowledge and attitudes, as well as links to information about HIV testing and prevention. The campaign’s website allows users to identify local HIV testing sites and campaign events and video stories of those living with HIV. There are also radio and online video public service announcements that has actor Jamie Foxx calling for a new discussion on HIV.

What is the Impact:Since the campaign’s launch on March 4, hundreds of users have become followers of the various platforms and it seems that the campaign has initially succeeded in engaging users, as can be seen with the many status re-tweets and discussion. While it is good that social media is being used in this campaign, it should also be highlighted that the campaign’s radio use is just as important, as many African-Americans still see the significance of this medium for getting out information within their community. However, it will take a longer amount of time to actually determine if both the online and radio efforts turn into offline actions.

Description: Controversy has not only marred the 2010 Winter Olympics because of the tragic death of 21 year old luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, but also with 200 masked protesters who smashed windows of department stores and splattered red paint across Olympic venues in Vancouver.

Police said the group marched through the shopping district, vandalizing cars and stores. Protesters also threw metal boxes on display windows of Hudson’s Bay Company, where Olympic souvenirs are sold.

Vancouver has been facing problems ever since the run-up started to the games. Lack of actual snow, hundreds of millions in losses as NBC expected to take broadcasting the games, and now the luger death spelling riots.

Vancouverians have been upset about the way the Olympic games have been handled by the government. The Olympic projects have come in well over budget.

Some feel that the money would have been better spent going to social services, particularly as the city grapples with the effects of the recession.
But now, the protests are beginning to turn violent.

Digital Tools Being Used: Video

What’s Going On: Despite the violence, various activist groups have been leading largely peaceful protests since it was announced that the Games were to held in Vancouver in 2003. Many of these protesters have used viral video to effectively get their message across to a wider audience.

While most of the grievances by anti-Olympics protesters stem from the growing presence of corporate corruption in the Games, the largest resistance has come from indigenous groups in Western Canada, who claim their “stolen land” is being used by the government “for the benefit of corporations, including mining, logging, oil & gas, and ski resorts.” In addition, some activists say that Indigenous peoples suffering social ills caused by the Olympics, such as higher rates of poverty, unemployment, environmental degradation, police violence, disease, suicides and violence against women.

What is the Impact: Many grassroots activists have been flooding the Internet with videos about their complaints. Many of which are low-budget, but effective in telling their side of the story, like this one and this one. While the Olympic Games will go on in Vancouver and Games officials are not giving in to the complaints, anti-Olympic digital activism has allowed a point of view that would otherwise not get covered in the mainstream media.

Authors: Nathan Eagle, Ken Banks, Redante Asuncion-Reed, Anil Naidoo, Amanda Atwood, Christiana Charles-Iyoha, Becky Faith, Joshua Goldstein, Christian Kreutz, Tanya Notley, Juliana Rotich, Berna Twanza Ngolobe, Bukeni Waruzi

Subject: SMS Uprising gives an overview of the use of mobile technology for development and empowerment in Africa.

The book is made up of two parts. The first four chapters explore the context of mobile activism. Christian Kreutz has contributed a great summary of future trends and software developments in African mobile activism. Another essay by Ken Banks asks whether “social mobile” is “empowering the many or the few”.

The second part consists of seven case studies from several African countries. The fields they describe are equally diverse, ranging from e-agriculture to dissemination of political news. A special focus lies on the empowerment of women. Anil Naidoo from South Africa describes how mobiles are used in the UmNyango project to empower women in the rural region of KwaZulu Natal, and WOUGNET from Uganda aims to ameliorate the economic situation of female farmers in Uganda.

I especially liked the essay by Rotich and Joshua Goldstein on “Digitally networked technology in Kenya’s 2007–08 post-election crisis”. It is a short version of a case study written for the Berkman Center’s Internet and Democracy Project. The chapter looks at three facettes of social media in a conflict situation: “SMS campaigns to promote violence, blogs to challenge mainstream media narratives, and online campaigns to promote awareness of human rights violations.”

SMS Uprising combines theoretical groundwork and practical case studies useful to everyone interested in the use of mobile technology for activism and development. While some chapters are a bit longer than necessary, in combination the book provides a good overview of the issue.

SMS Uprising is published by Pambazuka Press. It is available on their website as a paperback plus PDF for £12.99 or the PDF alone for £9.99 as well as on Amazon.

[This is an altered version of a post I wrote for my blog, i like patterns.]

Description: Haiti was rocked Tuesday night by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake. According to a report, Haiti’s First Lady Elisabeth Debrosse Delatour said that “most of Port-au-Prince is destroyed.”

While almost all phone lines have gone down on the impoverished island, Haitians have been able to communicate to friends and relatives around the world with the use of new media. Not only has there been a flurry of tweets and photos of the devastation posted online over night, but charitable individuals and organizations have responded quickly with their efforts to help victims.

Digital Tools Being Used: Twitter, Video, Photos, Text Message, etc

What Are They Doing: Victims of the earthquake immediately got on Twitter, uploaded photos and YouTube videos and text messaged to give eyewitness reports on the tragedy like this one:

RAMHaiti: It’s 8:44PM and we’re still getting aftershocks!!I can hear people gathered in the distance singing prayers…people in large numbers are singing prayers downtown

In the last few hours charitable organizations have been able to make initial assessments of victims’ needs and have asked for donations, mostly through the use of digital tools.

Red Cross: Help Haiti right now, text Haiti to 90999 to give just $10 to the Red Cross

UNICEF: Donate now for Haiti on their website

Rap artist and activist Wyclef Jean was among the first to organize online when he sent out these tweets:

@wyclef Help Haiti by donating to Yele on www.yele.org follow @YeleHaiti

@wyclef Another way you can help Haiti after their 7.0 earthquake: Donate $5 by texting YELE to 501501 and by visiting www.YELE.org

News organizations that cater to Haitian communities in the United States have also taken the initiative to give their readers updated information about the earthquake’s aftermath, such as the Boston Haitian Reporter, which has been live-blogging since Tuesday night.

What is the Impact: While a full assessment of the Haitian earthquake will be long term, this latest international incident shows the incredible value in digital activism for quick response and possibly saving lives.