DigiActive.org

21st Century Segregation: Google Reviews and an e-Boycott

Background: On July 9, news broke on NBC Philadelphia that the Valley Swim Club had discriminated against summer camp groups because they had African-American members. The campers were asked to leave the club when they came to use the pool and their money was refunded.

The President of the Valley Swim Club responded with the following video:

Swim_Club_President_Talks__Racial_Comments.html

Swim_Club_President_Talks__Gives_Apology.html

The club sustains that the children were turned away due to overcrowding, not racial composition.

How these tools are being used: This club was listed in Google Maps as a business, but did not have any reviews until the controversy. Now it has over 125 reviews, with the overwhelming majority being negative reviews. A pattern emerged were positive reviews were voted down, and negative reviews voted up. This is a new type of boycott, where a business is targeted through their online presence on Google, one of the most popular crowd-sourced business review sites.

In addition, the reviews were used to convey useful information, in the style usually reserved for Twitter or blogs. For example, one comment seems to support the arguments of both sides of the controversy: there probably was no racial animosity on the part of the management but that the lack of racism the management claims is probably disingenuous:

I worked here for about a month and I really liked the people and the place was always clean and organized, but I can tell you that the surrounding community is generally racist. The management of the club was surely under pressure from the majority of their customers, and no, I’m not excusing them at all. This is not uncommon is this particular community… you will find the same thing in local bars and stores. African Americans followed, neglected or otherwise harassed until they leave). I wish I could give them a higher rating, but there’s no excuse for racism in these supposedly enlightened times.

http://maps.google.com/maps/user?uid=118012252010721318550&hl=en&gl=us

As a result of the controversy, the club blanked their website with a brief statement denying the affair. However their website, including contact information, is archived in the Wayback Machine, and so this information was made available in forums and other social internet media.

Analysis: I think it is an interesting use of Google Reviews, and while there doesn’t seem to be any organized effort, and that this is entirely impromptu, there might be a lesson here to future activist efforts around boycotts. In particular, the voting pattern is very similar to that of social-bookmarking sites like Digg, were activists for Ron Paul and Barack Obama consistently managed to get their candidate’s articles to the featured page – which means that the experiences from social-bookmarking can be applied to e-boycotts in social-review sites.

I also found it very interesting as a creative use of technology the use of the reviews to convey information, there might be lessons here for activists facing lack of social tools due to access constraints.

Screen Capture of the Wayback Machine search

Lastly, in an already classic move, the club deleted their page with a statement, but online communities quickly found and disseminated the archived version in the ever handy Wayback Machine. There is an old lesson here: once out in the web, in all probability it cannot be undone – all one has to do is look.

Valley Swim Club's webpage from archive

Tags: Google Maps, racism, segregation, USA, Valley Swim Club, waybackmachine
Posted in Americas, Campaigns, Discussion Boards, Mashups | 1 Comment »

Guide: Designing an Advocacy Video

All the cool digital tools in the world aren’t much help without an effective strategy. Posts in the new “Strategy” topic will present ideas for how to fit digital tools into your overarching strategy for change.

In this first post, we will present a strategy for designing a YouTube-style video to promote your cause. A good advocacy video should contain the following elements:

1. Start With Background Info

Assume the person viewing the video knows nothing about your cause. You need to tell the viewer who, what, when, why, and where of the cause you are fighting for. The goal of presenting this information is for the person to understand the injustice that has occurred and why action is needed.

There are two options for presenting this information: slides and voice-over. If you are using slides, just type the information (white text on a back background looks nice). Then animate the slides. For voice-over, you need to write a script of the information and then record it and layer the audio over the video. The slides option is easier as you do not need to edit the audio track.

• EXAMPLE: Video Denouncing Homophobia

This video denounces the homophobic statements of Sally Kern, an elected representative from the state of Oklahoma in the USA. The first 33 seconds show the use of black-and-white slides to give background information about the issue. Specifically: Who? a State Legislator. What? a speech delivered at a gathering in her district. When? (doesn’t say) Why? she thought only 50 people were listening to her speech. Where? the state of Oklahoma. Read more »