DigiActive.org

What Neda Means: Citizen Media Frames the Protests

From left: a paining of Neda made by annebot, videos of Neda’s murder on YouTube,
an altered profile image on Twitter shifts the “where’s my vote?” meme

Background:  In his post on Saturday, DigiActive correspondent Hamid Tehrani referred in passing to “a scene of a girl murdered by security forces.”  A few days later and we all know who she was - Neda Agha Soltan, a 26-year-old killed en route to a protest in Tehran.  Only in this age, where every citizen with a cell phone can became a journalist and broadcaster is the story of Neda possible.

Tools: The story of Neda’s rise to prominence and powerful symbolism is a story of citizen media: from the cell phone cameras that recorded her death (video here - it is graphic), to the blogger who posted her story on the citizen journalism site NewsVine, to the Twitter conversation around the hashtag #Neda, and the Wikipedia entry that recorded the details of her murder in detail.   Finally her story reached the mainstream media: CNN, The New York Times, and Iranian television.

Analysis:  This is the story of Neda’s transformation from a person into a symbol.  But what does this story mean?  In particular, what does it mean for digital activism? Usually when we think of the use of digital technology for activism we think of communication tools which facilitate mass collective action: SMS, Facebook groups, listservs.  Yet the idea of Neda, though it may have inspired rage, sadness, and a commitment to continue protes, was not what we traditionally think of as digital activism.

Neda didn’t organize a protest but she helped to firmly re-frame the post-election protests in Iran.  The frame, or narrative, which the Iranian government was pushing was that the protests were caused by Western meddling and that the protesters were terrorists.   By making Neda the symbol of the opposition - a beautiful and unarmed young woman, previously apolitical - the new frame has moved firmly to those in the streets: the protesters are innocent idealists.  The government is murdering its people without cause.  Neda is not a terrorist.  She is a martyr (or so the Times story framed it).  And the practical effect of this re-framing on protests in Iran?  A renewed commitment to go out in the street every day, an ideal that Neda will not have died in vain.

Lessons:  What are the lessons for activists who wish to use citizen media to frame a public issue?  First, the media should be clear and emotional.  Neda’s video - the most spreadable form of media about her sotry - was raw and visceral.  Without understanding the words of the men trying to help her or knowing much of the story it was possible to empathize with her and feel the pain of her injustice.  It was international.

Second, push the media out on multiple platforms.  It is unclear where the video was first uploaded, though there are now several versions on YouTube.   The story was also pushed out through Newsvine, a news site accessible to ordinary citizens, and through Twitter.   Third, your goal should be to get into the mainstream media.  This is still where the majority of eyes are.  Email your content to media sources, but only if this will not put you in danger.  Finally, make is personal.  We understand news through human stories.  In America, we came to saw the corruption of our economic crisis through the crooked financier of Bernie Madoff.   Heroes too personify a struggle.

“Where is My Vote?”: Iranian Expats Organize Online

UPDATE: I’ve changed the title of this post to reflect the fact that it is Iranian expats who are using Facebook for organizing.  I have not seen evidence of the tool being used effectively to organize within the country.

Background: On June 14th , Iranian expatriates and supporters around the world protested the results of an election in which President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad claimed a statistically unlikely landslide victory over challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The new slogan became “where is my vote?” as protesters asked why the votes of Mousavi supporters had not been counted. The campaign, which I will describe below, has both centralized and decentralized elements and has succeeded so far in organizing worldwide protest.

The question is, will this structure allow for the sustained campaigning necessary to overturn the vote? In the language of Gaurav Mishra’s 4 C’s of Social Media, this campaign has achieved Content creation and Collaboration on collective action, but will it be able to create a Community which will sustain longterm action once the Iranian election is gone from the headlines?

Tools: Facebook, Twitter, stand-alone web sites, citizen media sites

How these tools are being used: This campaign began before Election Day.  Setade Ma (meaning “our campaign”), a site launched at the end of May, encouraged voting in the upcoming election. The central action associated with this campaign was worldwide simultaneous demonstrations on May 31st (similar to those that occurred on the 14th). At the May 31st demonstrations, participants around the world were asked to hold banners saying “we vote” and then to submit those photos to the central site, similar to the geographically-dispersed take-a-photo tactic used in the US for the Step it Up campaign against global warning and in Morocco for the Help Erraji campaign. (It is not clear how people outside Iran were actually going to vote in the election, unless Iran has an effective system of absentee ballots, but the goal seemed to be to create a mass movement in favor of voting.)  Showing awareness of the ability of social media to spread a campaign, the site also linked to its own Facebook group, Twitter stream, and a page on Balitarin, a community website that helps its users find links of interest on the Iranian Internet.

This previous organizing proved crucial in helping activists to organize worldwide protests only two days after the election on June 14th.  The Setade Ma Twitter stream did not end up being particularly useful, amassing only 125 followers (and excellent graphic design).  However, the Setade Ma Facebook group proved key. After the election it was transformed into the largest “where is my vote?” Facebook group and was used to organize the London, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington DC protest on June 14th.

The Facebook group organized by the Sedate Ma activists ended up being only one of the many Facebook groups (see right) created using the “where is my vote” (WiMV) meme and logo. There are dynamics of both centralization and decentralization at work here. There are 24 WiMV groups on Facebook and the Sedate Ma group is by far the largest with 3,000 members at this time. The other groups are smaller, with a few hundred to less than 10 members. This is not necessarily a weakness. Facebook allows groups to only message 5,000 members at a time, so Facebook groups can only be used for effective communication at low volume.

Some organizers, who may or may not be associated with Setade Ma, created a stand-alone web site, whereismyvote.org, to direct potential supporters to Facebook groups organizing protests in Toronto, Vancouver, Paris, Boston, and Winnipeg. It is generally a good idea to create a stand-along site to mirror and centralize information on the frustratingly decentralized Facebook (as recommended in DigiActive’s Facebook Guide). However, only three of the five links point to the pages indicated. In the flurry of event creation, centralized control seemed to have been difficult.

Another interesting Facebook action was the campaign to change your profile picture to the green WiMV icon (also at right). This meme appears to have been started by a smaller WiMV Facebook group and the profile action seems to have been that group’s  main purpose. The only information in the description section of the group is “If you voted for Mousavi change your profile picture to / WHERE IS MY VOTE? image / Join this group and invite your friends to do the same. lets make facebook green”.  (Green is the symbolic color of Islam and Iran.)  Changing profile pictures really leverages the network effects of Facebook. When one person changes their profile image that change is pushed out to all that person’s friends via the friend feed. Ideally, the following exchanges occur:

Finally, the organizers attempted to promote their events through citizen media sites, which have a wider audience than a Facebook group but are more accessible to activists than the mainstream media.  For example, A supporter posted a photo and links about the San Francisco protest on the site Now Public, which collects and distributes news from unconventional sources by letting citizen journalists upload their own stories.

Outcome: Based on the photos and video uploaded by WiMV supporters, it appears that international protests on June 14th occurred in San Francisco (USA), London (UK) , Dallas (USA), Paris (France), Dubai (UAE), Melbourne (Australia), Köln (Germany), Atlanta (USA), Washington DC (USA), Los Angeles (USA), Winnipeg (Canada), Boston (USA), and Toronto (Canada). At somes protests dozens were present, at others over 100.  (You can see a selection of images from the protests after the jump.)

It was certainly a successful example of fast, free, international collective action. The question is, where will the movement go r from here and will it be able to transform current enthusiasm and ad hoc organizing into an organizational structure with the stamina to continue a longer campaign?

Analysis: The WiMV campaign followed a decentralized structure that is common to digital activism campaigns built around high-profile issues.  However, was this decentralization a good thing for the cause? On the positive side, it is likely that more events were organized because people who became aware of the WiMV/June 14th meme could create their own Facebook page to organize an event in their area and invite their friends and contacts. This seems to be the case with the WiMV Melbourne, Dubai, and Atlanta groups. (Other local pages were created but they did not seems to organize protests.) In another benefit of localization, the very active Paris group created their own profile icon in French: “ou est leur vote?” (where is their vote?) and their own Blogspot blog, which acted as a stand-alone site to centralize information about their protest.

Unfortunately, the negatives of decentralization seem to be more substantial than the positives. The first reason is misinformation.  While the “official” DC protest was meant to take place at the Iranian Interests Section, someone posted on the wall of another group that the DC protest should be on the lawn of the White House.  Second, many of the groups were “identity” groups rather than “action” groups. People joined them to identify with the cause of free and fair elections in Iran, but no protests were organized within those groups.  People who potentially could have been recruited to attend a protest fell into the “dead zone” of inactive group.

The most serious concern with regard to decentralization is its implications for sustainability.  Supporters are spread across a miriad number of event groups on Facebook, which was effective enough for this first action, but how will these supporters be contacted for future actions that are not organized at the local level? (Also, what about people who attended the protests but are not members of the Facebook group?  Was their contact info collected?)

For true coordination beyond a high-attention meme, centralization is necessay and WiMV’s current structure on Facebook does not lend itself the the sustainable community which is most likely to lead to future collaboration and action. After the the explosion of activity for June 14th, people interested in continued action will need to come together into a single leadership team and then start reaching out to the group founders in an effort to get everyone on the same listserv and in the same group.  It will not be a fun or easy process but it will be necessary to create a sustainabile community for this issue.

Protest photos after the jump…

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Caste Based Communities on Orkut Mirror India’s Splintered Society

One of the main themes of my research on digital activism is that social technologies are value-agnostic.

At each of the four levels of Content, Collaboration, Community and Collective Intelligence, social technologies can lead to both good and bad outcomes.

I have written before about Shiv Sena’s militant approach towards Orkut communities critical of the party, its leader Bal Thakeray, or its Hindutva ideology. Caste-based communities on Orkut are another disturbing example of online communities mirroring the dysfunctions in Indian society.

For instance, there are more than 1000 communities for Brahmins on Orkut. There are 461 Brahmin communities listed under culture and community, 591 under religion and beliefs, 87 under activities and 117 under others.

One of the most popular Brahmin community, with 28, 726 members, randomly claims: “we r clever & hardworking .no one can fool us…” The Brahmans community with 41952 members and the Brahmins of India community with 30588 members are also very popular.

The other popular Brahmin communities are those for the various Brahmin sub-castes like Gawd Saraswat Brahmin (GSB) (12,189 members), Kokanastha Brahmin (4038 members), Deshashtha Brahmin (4083 members), Garhwali Brahmin (3067 members), Daivadnya Brahmin (2654 members) and Gaur Brahmin (2055 members). Another group, Brahmin Culture and Tradition is “dedicated to the purpose of uniting Brahmins to revive, preserve, protect and propagate the Brahmin culture to descendants without intimidation or dilution from anti-Brahminical forces.”

Interestingly, it seems that most of the threads under topics related to Brahmins have to do with defining the different types of Brahmins under various sub-castes.

There are also more than 1000 communities for Yadavs on Orkut, including gems like modern yadav girls and boys (5759 members).

Similarly, there are more than a 1000 Rajput communities on Orkut, including the Rajput the Royal Family community with 35,481 mebers, which asks people to join the group “if your soul justifies that you are Rajput both by soul and by nature.”

Dalits have about 200 mostly small communities on Orkut.

Perhaps, the low number of Dalit communities on Orkut says something about Indian society in general, and Orkut users in particular. Higher, more powerful, castes like Brahmins, Rajputs and Yadavs tend to have more money and easier access to the internet and old disparities are further accentuated by the internet.

Caste-based communities, however, aren’t unique to Orkut.

Brahminsamaj.org is “a global platform for the Brahmin Community where you will learn, share and find lot of information, knowledge and fun.” Thambraas Muhurtham wants that “all Brahmins should come forward to marry breaking the sects and subsects within Brahmins, particularly Brahmins of Thamizhnadu.” It also points out that “the entire sects and subsects of South Indian brahmin population are totally vegetarians unlike certain brahmins of other parts of India.” A couple on the homepage of Marry A Brahmin claim that its “focused approach on Brahmin matches helped us find each other as true soul mates.” Brahmin Connections is “proud to present an opportunity and a platform to our young Brahmins and their parents to connect with each other across the world for the matrimonial purpose.” Brahmins Matrimony says that “it is the right place to search for your life partner!”

There are dedicated websites for sub-castes as well. Sakhdwipi aims “to provide a common forum for the Shakdwipis to know each other and interact with each other.” KeralaIyers aims “to delve into the history, trace the roots, portray the life of modern day Kerala Iyers, and chronicle the achievements of this community.” iKalyanam claims to be “the only exclusive site for Iyer matrimonials.” Shivalli Brahmins wishes “to bring together all Shivalli Brahmins residing in different parts of the world, through meaningful discussions about their traditions.” GSBMatch is a matrimonial website for the Gowd and Saraswat Brahmin community. ModhBrahmin.org and BrahmanSamaj.org claim that “history proves that the people of Modh Brahmin Samaj are very enterprising and very resourceful” and aims to “bring all brothers and sisters of Samaj close.” Jangid Brahmin Samaj is a community for Jangid Brahmins. RSBNet is “a single stop source of information regarding the origin, customs, culture, history of Rajapur Saraswath Brahmins.”

Similarly, there are dedicated websites for other castes as well.

Kayastha Matrimonial is a matrimonial website for the Kayastha community. Rajput Samaj is “presently predominately taking care of the Rajputs of Rajasthan” but in near future aims to be “taking care of the Rajputs living in India, Pakistan and abroad.” JatLand, “the online home for the Jats” is especially proud of its wiki.

The Dalit community is fairly active on the internet, even though it’s miniiscule on Orkut. The International Dalit Solidarity Network, which has the most sophisticated of all these websites, “works on a global level for the elimination of caste discrimination.” Dalit Solidarity Network “brings together organizations and individuals in the UK who are concerned with caste-based discrimination.” Dalit India has “papers on various specific issues of the Dalits of India living in India and abroad.” Dalit Freedom Network “partners with the Dalits in their quest for religious freedom, social justice, and human rights by mobilizing human, informational, and financial resources.” Dalit Solidarity is “committed to the principles of justice and equality for all Indians, regardless of caste, race, gender or religion.” Dalit Voice claims that India is “the original home of racism” as Dalits and Tribals, who “constitute the core of India’s original inhabitants”, are kept enslaved by “alien Aryans”. Dalit Education aims to “transform lives and communities through the Christian message.” Indian Dalit Muslims Voice is a platform to discuss issues concerning Indian Dalit Muslims. Rohit Chopra has written about the tension between the elite Hindu nationalists and the disadvantaged Dalits on the internet.

In terms of content, the majority of these websites are focused on matrimonial match-making, but several of them seek to build international communities based on caste affiliations and offer tools like directories, bulletin boards and forums to their members. I have also noticed a tendency to establish a rather embellished history of the caste, with detailed biographies of the important personalities belonging to the caste. Ashok Kumar at Express India has a great description of the common features on these caste based websites.

Not surprisingly, Facebook has only 46 small Brahmin groups, 60 small Yadav groups, 126 smal Rajput groups and 41 small Dalit groups. The absence of caste based groups from Facebook is in line with its cosmopolitan user base. Orkut, on the other hand, should be a little concerned about its tendency to attract loonies of all types.

In the end, however, the cosmopolitanism of Facebook is an anomaly, and Orkut’s crude caste communities merely mirror India’s splintered society.

Cross-posted at Gauravonomics, my blog on social media and social change.

Campaign: InSTEDD’s Mekong Collaboration Program for Early Detection and Early Response

Description and Background: In 2006, Dr. Larry Brilliant won the TED Prize and called for the development of a technological system that would stop the threat of pandemics and catastrophes. Renowned for his work in the successful, worldwide eradication of smallpox, Dr. Brilliant emphasized the game-changing purpose of this system – early detection and early response.  As such, he declared his TED wish, “I wish that you would help build a global system to detect each new disease or disaster as quickly as it emerges or occurs.”  From this prize and wish emerged InSTEDD (Innovative Support To Emergency Diseases and Disasters), originally titled “International Networked System for Total Early Disease Detection.”  Shortly after TED, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google’s founders) appointed Dr. Brilliant the head of Google.org, the organization’s philanthropic arm.

With funding from Google.org, the Rockefeller Foundation, and others, InSTEDD began its social, technological mission with CEO Eric Rasmussen (a former U.S. Navy chief doctor for disaster response in the Pacific), Dr. Dennis Israelski as the Vice President of Global Health, and Eduardo Jezierski as the Vice President of Engineering.  Along with Chief Technology Office Robert Kirkpatrick, Chief Operating Officer Judith Kleinberg, and several other full-time team members, InSTEDD operates very much like a classic startup in which everyone wears many different hats (click here for bios).  In addition to the executive team, InSTEDD has over a dozen dedicated team members on the ground in their Mekong Collaboration Program (MCP).  This program focuses on rapid detection and rapid response in the Mekong Basin of Southeast Asia – Cambodia, Thailand, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Myanmar, and the Yunan province of China – and has been stationed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia since 2008. In the region, InSTEDD partners with the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Network (MBDS), a collaboration network of the six countries’ local governments and Ministries of Health that work to improve cross-border disease information sharing.  Not only does InSTEDD work closely with MBDS, but the organization also established a field-based Innovation Lab (iLab) in Phonm Penh in August 2008.  By empowering young Cambodian developers to design technological solutions based on their local expertise and understanding, InSTEDD works to maintain a creative, organic environment in which sustainable innovation can thrive.

Digital Tools Being Developed: GeoChat, Mesh4X, Evolve (tools that incorporate Twitter, RSS feeds, Facebook, SMS text messages, and so on, as applicable)

How These Tools Are Being Designed and Used: As Ed Jezierski explained to me in our Skype interview, GeoChat helps people in the field to share and report data with each other as well as with those at headquarters, amplifying the amount of information flowing between health workers; Mesh4X coordinates this information by synchronizing between various organizations’ virtual databases; Evolve functions as a place to curate the collective information and subsequently analyze it for conclusions.  For more details about InSTEDD’s approach, tools, and impact, read more after the jump.

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Interview: Dr. Awab Alvi organiser of the Long March in Pakistan

See 'n' Report coverage of the Long March: visual monitoring of information updates

The Long March in Pakistan is a case study in digital activism. The campaign utilized the full range of digital tools, from blogs to social networking and citizen journalism, through the use of old and new technologies. Yet the most interesting aspect of this campaign is not in the tools themselves, but in the breadth and depth of the digital coverage.

The campaign mixed old and familiar tools such as Twitter and Facebook, with new and customized tools. Twitter was augmented by See ‘n’ Report. Like Twitter, See ‘n’ Report collated emails but also SMS and MMS updates whilst providing a campaigners front page, compromising a geographical view, multimedia feeds, SMS feeds, twitter feeds and beautifully compiled video footage using Flowplayer (a video player for the web).

All of which was collated through CoveritLive to provide live coverage of the event. CoveritLive is a viewer that can be embedded on a blog or website to link a combination of Twitter accounts and hashtags (upto 12 twitter accounts and 6 hashtags), reader comments, multimedia and live blogs (through iPhones, Blackberries etc).

Activity was monitored through Cligs which provides analytical tools on traffic going through a site.

DigiActive interviewed one of the organizers, Dr. Awab Alvi.

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Presidential Candidates Go Virtual in Iran

Description:The Iranian presidential election will be held in about a month and more than 400 people have registered as candidates. However, they still need the Council of Guardians to approve their nominations. In the last presidential election in 2005, less than 10 people among over 1,000 registered candidates got the chance to run, and all the lucky candidates were faithful and loyal to the Islamic Republic. This time the supporters of leading candidates are using digital means to promote their favorite politicians. Facebook and YouTube, which were banned until recently, have been used by candidates to beef up their chances in the coming election.

Tools and People: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supporters started to use all the digital means at their disposal. Their virtual campaign is named Dar Emtade Meh (means “following kindness”). In this site supporters are invited to use Facebook, SMS,Twitter,YouTube and blogs to communicate the message. YouTube is used in very pivotal way by campaigners and several Ahmadinejad’s meetings and trips are there. Ahmadinejad is considered a conservative politician.

Mir Hussein Mousavi, former Prime Minister, has launched an internet based TV. His campaign claims that more than 1,000 blogs announced their support of Mousavi. He is supported by former reformist president Mohammad Khatami and he calls himself an independent candidate.

The supporters of Mehdi Karrubi’s, former parliamentary speaker, have launched a Facebook page where several election films are published. Karrubi is considered a reformist candidate.

Impact: It is very interesting that Iranian authorities allowed Iranians access to Facebook and YouTube just a few months ago and already we see they are really present in candidates’ campaigns. The presence of bloggers as adviser to candidates and/or their campaigners reveal that citizen media has creeped its way into mainstream politics. Mohammad Abtahi, former vice president and blogger, is adviser to Karrubi and several bloggers are active in Mousavi’s campaign. Just as we now have “governmental NGOs” in Iran, in the future we will probably have “state-run citizen media.”

Campaign: Blogging for Equal Pay Day

Description: In 1996 the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) created Equal Pay Day as a public awareness event to demonstrate the wage gap between men and women. Always observed on a Tuesday in April, the day symbolizes how far into the year women must work, on average, to earn as much as men earned the previous year. This year, Equal Pay Day took place on April 28^th, to highlight the current wage gap of women earning 78 cents to every man’s dollar. At this current rate, there will not be wage equality until 2057. While the NCPE is the major organizer of the campaign, coordinating rallies, lobby days, speak-outs, letter-writing campaigns, and workshops, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) has taken on the digital activism role for promoting the event with their blogging for equal pay campaign. The organization, which has been running the campaign for the past few years, called out to the digital community to blog, twitter, and use their Facebook profiles to raise awareness for wage disparity.

Digital Tools Being Used: Blogs, Twitter, Facebook

How These Tools Are Being Used: Running the campaign entirely through their website, the NWLC urged bloggers, tweeters, and Facebook users to raise their voice for fair pay for women. To organize the campaign, the website used a form for web users to sign up their blog, Twitter, or Facebook account with their name and URL so all posts could be aggregated during Equal Pay Day. To organize all tweets, the NWLC urged tweeters to tag their posts with #fairpay. The organization also created a button to be posted on blogs for bloggers to show their commitment to the campaign and spread the word.

Outcome: By the end of the day, April 28^th, over 660 tweets and 165 blog posts were written in association with the campaign to raise awareness for equal pay. To put this in perspective, last year the campaign generated 80 blog posts, an increase of at least 106 percent. It is difficult to quantify the reach of the campaign on Facebook, through notes or status updates, but it could reasonably be assumed to be used by those already tweeting and blogging and others who are not as active within the online community. More important is the reach of this campaign throughout the blogosphere. The campaign included the expected participation of women’s advocacy groups and feminist blogs, yet other participants included: major news sources (New York Times, Forbes, Huffington Post), religious sites (jewish and catholic), human rights groups, labor unions, affirmative action supporters, individuals’ blogs, celebrity blogs (Kenneth Cole), activist sites (change.org, care2.com, alternet.org), pension rights groups, industry focused sites (athletics, healthcare, finance, law, journalism), parental blogs, and government sponsored blogs.

Content within the blog posts varied. Most posts relayed data provided by women’s advocacy groups, regarding actual wage disparity by occupation, state, or race. Some urged readers to contact their Senators to press for the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act (S.182). Others shared personal stories relating to their own experiences with unequal pay or wrote about the importance of the recent passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Many posts included videos to get their point across:

Women Museum video for Equal Pay Day

AAUW YouTube Video

In determining the success of the campaign, we must look to both the immediate and future impact. The immediate effect of the campaign seems to be successful, the campaign had a broad reach and grew exponentially over last years effort. In the long term, the goal of Equal Pay Day is to raise awareness of the problem and to ignite change. While awareness was definitely raised, it remains to be if and how soon the Paycheck Fairness Act will be passed by Congress. If this bill is indeed passed, partly due to the loud voice of activists, the wage gap will greatly decrease. This campaign idea seems transferable to various activist causes and can have an impact.

Michael Silberman: Creating an Online Strategy

Michael Silberman (original image: NetSquared)

Today I “attended” a webinar on online strategy hosted by the New Organizing Institute.  The presenter was Michael Silberman, a partner and co-founder of EchoDitto, a communications firm founded by the techies of the Howard Dean campaign.  Below are Michael’s steps to building an online strategy.  I’ve presented his ideas, which are aimed at American non-profits, and then given commentary on how the steps relate to grassroots activists in other countries.  I’ve also added examples from international digital activism.

1)  Choose your moment:  It’s best to link the launch of a campaign to the news cycle so it is relevant.  This can be particularly challenging for activists that work on longterm issues, like the environment, public health, and or women’s rights.  It is common for these kinds of campaigns to link their actions to planned holidays like Earth Day or International Women’s Day, but smart organizations will also be attuned to the news for unforeseen opportunities and be ready to push their environmental campaign when there is news of a toxic clean-up or their women’s rights campaign when a female celebrity is the victim of domestic violence.

An excellent example of connecting an advocacy goal to the news cycle is Syria LinkedIn fail.  Social network LinkedIn had blocked its users in Syria because of a broad interpretatation of US sanctions against that country.  In order to make the block relevant, activist Jillian York created a Twitter tag #linkedinfail, which simulated the incredibly embarrassing #amazonfail story only a few days ago.  Eager not to follow in Amazon’s path, a PR representative responded to Jillian quickly (and on Twitter) and Syrians regained most of their access to the site.

2) Create an “ask”:  An “ask” is a jargon term that campaigners use to refer to the request you will make to your supporters.  While it is tempting to post a list of several actions, in Michael’s experience the most successful asks make only one request. For example, the project Postcards for Iran makes one simple ask:  send a postcard (snail mail or digital) to an Iranian political prisoner. Read more »

The Perils of Facebook Activism: Walled Gardens, Serial Activists and Hackers

I have written before about the brilliant Pink Chaddi Campaign and highlighted the important role played by Facebook in helping the campaign go viral.

Briefly, journalist Nisha Susan set up The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose, and Forward Women on Facebook and urged women to gift pink panties to Pramod Mutalik, the head of the ultra-conservative Hindu group Shri Ram Sena, in order to shame him into backing down from his threats to disrupt Valentine’s Day celebrations.

The campaign has become one of the best Indian examples of how a grassroots community can come together, collaborate and take collective action using social media tools.

The Pink Chaddi Facebook Group has been getting hacked throughout last month, and, instead of dealing with the hackers, Facebook suspended both the group and Nisha’s account last week.

Before the group was suspended, the hackers changed the name of the group to ‘A Good Bong is a Dead Bong’ and posted vulgar and violent messages on the group. Over the month, the hackers had used names like ‘Nathuram Godse Appreciation Society’, ‘Dara Singh Appreciation Group’ and other vulgar names.

In an open letter to Facebook posted on Kafila, Nisha wondered if the first rule of Facebook activism is to not use Facebook.

In an update on the Pink Chaddi blog, Nisha warned her supporters against joining a fake Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women group created by the hackers.

In fact, several groups supporting and impersonating the Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women have sprung up on Facebook.

While Facebook activism has become an important part of any activist’s technology toolkit, it comes with its own perils.

To begin with, Facebook allows you very little flexibility in changing the design of your cause, group, page or event. Each of these options come with in-built limitations and once you have chosen one, you are wedded to it.

Facebook also gives you very little control over the content created by you or your supporters. For instance, you can’t highlight wall messages as important or sticky and you can’t export them.

Most importantly, you can’t export the names or contact details of your supporters, so the support base you build within Facebook stays within Facebook.

Then, there is the question of the involvement of your Facebook supporters. Ethan Zuckerman has wondered if Facebook protests are glorified petitions that attract serial activists. Beth Kanter has written about the difficulty of moving casual Facebook activists to higher levels of engagement.

We have also seen in the case of Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement that Facebook activism groups come together for a specific protest, but lose the momentum thereafter.

Finally, there are serious security concerns associated with Facebook protests which have become all too clear in the case of the Pink Chaddi campaign.

Facebook groups can be hacked into, in spite of reasonable security measures, and the Facebook team is often not responsive to pleas of redressal. The FACThai Blog had written about the possibility of such attacks on the Pink Chaddi group last month and now, the attacks have really gone out of control.

Beyond the threat of hacking, detractors or even well meaning supporters can create duplicate groups, pages, causes, or events with similar sounding names, leading to confusion and a dilution of message.

So, if you are an activist, do leverage the virality of Facebook, but use it with an eye on its many limitations.

By all means, use Facebook as part of your campaign but don’t build your campaign around it. Use all the social media tools at your disposal and interlink them to increase their virality. In the US, it would mean using Facebook with MySpace, YouTube and Twitter. In India it would mean using at least Orkut, apart from Facebook.

Whichever tool you use, have a plan to transition your supporters to a traditional mailing list, so that you have more control over how you communicate with them. If you have been able to build a large and vibrant community, it might even make sense to move to a proprietary social network built on Drupal or Ning. I’m not implying that such a transition will be easy, or even successful, but it’s definitely worth a try.

Finally, do take basic security precautions like using strong passwords and changing them often, logging out of public computers after using them, and having more than one admin so that the group is not orphaned if your account gets hacked.

If your Facebook account, and your group, does get hacked, I guess the first step will be to try the Forgot Your Password? link, which will send the new password to your email ID, unless the hacker has already changed it.

If that doesn’t work, your next resort should be the Login Problems Help Page,which will lead you to one of two forms based on whether you have or don’t have access to your login email.

If you are lucky, the Facebook support team will respond quickly, otherwise you would do well to quickly move on to step three, and start an online campaign to put pressure on Facebook to restore your access.

Coming back to the Pink Chaddi Campaign, Nisha Susan has taken all these three steps and still doesn’t have access to her Facebook group.

If you know a way to help Nisha regain control of the Facebook group and avoid such hacking attacks in the future, do leave a comment below.

I’m convinced that someone should write a blog post titled “three steps to get your hacked Facebook activism group back”. Perhaps, we can write that post together here.

Cross-posted at Gauravonomics, my blog on social media and social change.

Social Media Hype Tracking

The Moldova “Twitter Revolution” Hype Curve

How quickly excitement about a new social media tool evolves into charges of “hype.”    On Monday April 6th, a small flash mob collected in central Chisinau, Moldova, to protest the recent elections.  The following day a much larger and rowdier crowd gathered and the Twitter hashtag #pman appeared, referring the location of the protest, a square called Piata Marii Adunari Nationale.

The world took notice of two things: 1) People are rioting in the capital of Moldova. 2) They seem to be using Twitter to organize the protests.  The second observation, being the more unusual, became the headline.  On the 7th and 8th both the traditional media and the bloggers were harolding the “Twitter Revolution“.

In a few hours the backlash came.  Evgeny Morozov, responsible for one of the first Twitter Revoltion posts,  wrote a new post with caveats.  Turns out there are too few twitters in Moldova for it to be an effective organizing tool.  Blogger Daniel Bennett pointed to evidence that there was no cell phone coverage in the square, making live twittering impossible, and called the revolution meme a myth.

But that cynical view, just like the enthusiastic one first put forth, was not the end of the story.  The final version of events, promoted by such writers as Evgeny Morozov, Ethan Zuckerman, and Kate Brodock of DigiActive, was that Twitter played a role, though one of increasing international awareness rather than for organizing, that Twitter was only one of several social media tools used, and that journalists’ (and bloggers’) fascination with Twitter was also a large contributing factor to the popularity of that narrative.

The hype curve had moderated itself.  Moving from enthusiasm to backlash to cautious optimism.  Final verdict: Twitter is useful for activists but not game-changing and the enthusiasts and cynics were both over-reaching.

Hype Tracking for other Social Media

Twitter as a tool for digital activism came out of this a bit bruised, and unfairly so.   Too much was attributed to it during the “revolution” phase.   It was unfairly criticized during the backlash and was made out to be less useful than it is.   This got me thinking, has this hype curve occurred with regard to other digital activism tools and, if so, can we expect similar patterns in their rise and fall from glory?

“Hype” is a difficult thing to measure and by necessity requires a proxy variable.  I chose Google Trends, which ranks a term relative to all Google searches over a given time period.  (Please let me know if you can think of a better proxy.)  I tracked searches for four prominent (and much-hyped) social media tools used for activism: blogs, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. All data is from today, April 16, 2009.

The blog data is the most useful because it goes back the furthest.  Searches for “blog” (our hype proxy) grew steadily from early 2004 to mid-2007 and then plateaued.    I interpret this plateau to mean that the hype around blogging has “died,” although blogging has not.  There has been a backlash to the blogging hype and the “post-blog” meme, referring to the popularity of new social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, has had some traction.  Yet blogging continues to be extremely popular to a general audience and useful to many digital activism campaigns.   It seems to have passed successfully through the hype where it is not longer the answer to every advocacy question, yet has been shown to have lasting value of an accessible means of creating alternative narratives.

YouTube is a little different.  It seems to be following the blog hype trend, with increased interest since early 2006, yet, beginning in 2008, it seems to plateau.  However, its Search Volume Index is still pretty high, which means that the hype around YouTube may not yet have peaked, so it’s unclear whether it will follow the hype-backlash-normalization trend.

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