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Action of “Omission” to Protest Chinese Censorship

What: To protest the implementation of the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering program on all computers sold in China, the blogger Ai Wei Wei is asking Chinese  users to boycott the Internet on July 1st, 2009.

When: July 1st is the date on which Green Dam much come pre-installed (or on an attached disk) for all new Chinese computers.

Where: People’s Republic of China

Why: To protest Green Dam in particular and Chinese censorship in general.

Who: We previously wrote about Ai Weiwei’s largely successful effort to collect the names of the children killed in the Sichuan earthquake last year.  He is also a well-known artist, who helped design the Olympic “Bird’s Nest” stadium in Beijing.

How: Via Twitter, Ai asked people to “Stop any online activities, including working, reading, chatting, blogging, gaming and mailing.  Don’t explain your behavior.”  The interesting aspect of this protest is that Ai is trying to create a political action which does not entail risk to participants.  By asking people not to acknowledge they are taking part in a boycott, Ai hopes to protect them from persecution by Chinese authorities.

It is hard to claim innocence when taking part in a political actions of “commission,” even one that is apparently innocent.  (In Belarus in 2006, for example, young people were arrested for assembling to eat ice cream.)  However, an action of “omission” puts the government in a more complicated position.  After all, not using the Internet isn’t criminal.  It will be interesting to see how many people participate in the action and whether or not the action of omission becomes a new strategy in digital activism.

Hat-tip: Stan Schroeder on Mashable

Image Source: Daily News

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.

Iranian Elections, Information Sharing and Twitter

Earlier this week, amidst travel and trying really hard to work, I followed the events of what was happening in Iran post-election.  I followed it all on Twitter.

There are many comments I could make on the events, but I wanted to highlight something that will be important for how information and participation happens in the months and years to come.

The fact is, we are all becoming a larger part of the information dissemination mechanisms that were once reserved for formal media channels.  DigiActive has reported many instances of citizen journalism, on-the-ground reporting and information gathering, but now we’re talking about the addition of a process of broader dissemination.

We’re “regular” people, we have the information coming to us, and it’s our choice to pass it on or not.  The reason I  read hardly a single newspaper article on the topic all day was because I was getting my information handed to me by people from Boston, Europe, Iran… everywhere.  Regular people.  I got all the relevant links I needed from those 140-character posts.

The fact is, we are all now part of the information dissemination mechanism now.  When I reported on the Moldovan protests in April, I noted that part of the process that we were seeing was not necessarily just that the protesters were using social media tools to get their message out, but that the resulting international furvor that erupted was fueled by other people who were not on the ground.  Not even in the country.

This time around, we saw this same process magnified immensely.  A message from Mousavi highlights how important this process was not only in what was said - One Person = One Broadcaster - but also in the the resulting relay-like speed that the message reached the world.

Mousavi recognized the the power of this information stream.  Clay Shirky alluded to it in his Q&A with TED on the topic, and colleague Gaurav Mishra highlighted it in his analysis of the events as well.

No one was told to do anything with the information coming out of Iran, or had any explicit instructions to do so.  The messages could have remained dead in the water.  But we were all engaged by what was happening, we were interacting with other people through discussion, and we genuinely wanted to participate by adding to the conversation, spreading the information and learning more about the situation.

The fact that people had real-time, important information in their hands that they could “touch and feel,” and their ability to actively join in the conversation and the spread of vital information made momentary journalists out of us all.  And it will continue to do so more and more in the future.

“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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Action Alert: Filipino Activists vs. the Cha-Cha bill

Background:  No, the cha-cha is not a dance move. The Philippine House of Representatives is planning to adopt House Resolution No. 1109, a bill that would allow it to convene as a constituent assembly and amend the Constitution (or, change the charter).   The measure is quite unpopular with Philippine citizens.  According to a statement made by a group of business associations, “The question all Filipinos should ask is: For whose interest was this action taken? Certainly not the Filipino people’s, as there is no widespread clamor to amend the Constitution, especially now that we are less than a year away from a presidential election.”  Activists are not only going to the street to protest but groups like the Computer Professionals Union (CPU) are also asking supporters to take action online using Twitter.

What:  Here’s how Twitter users can show their opposition to changing the Filipino constitution, and solidarity with Filipino activists on the ground in Manila:

1. Tweet a message of opposition using the hashtag #no2conass
2. CPU has developed a tool that posts tweets from SMS messages sent to +639071134503.  CPU invites everyone to send SMS messages to this number and they will repost them as tweets.SMS messages should have <no2conass><space><message> format.

When: Wednesday, June 10th

Why: To oppose amendments to the Filipino constitution which are not supported by the Filipino people.

image credit: filipinovoices.com

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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NYU Student Protests: A Digital Occupation

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emry/3297069286/

Background: On February 18, 2009, a group of NYU students calling themselves Take Back NYU (TBNYU) barricaded themselves inside the university’s Kimmel Center for Student Life cafeteria, the Kimmel MarketPlace. Armed with laptops and wireless internet connections, the group published a list of 12 demands, including disclosure of the university’s operating budget, assurance of fair labor practices for all NYU employees, the creation of a Socially Responsible Finance Committee, tuition stabilization, scholarships for Palestinian students and free public access to Bobst library.

 The occupation continued the next day and into the night, with administrators reluctant to remove protesters by force and unwilling to negotiate with students behind the barricade. During the day on Wednesday, February 19, students stormed the building, entering the barricade to take part in the protest. Late Thursday night and early Friday morning the scene outside the building, where numerous supporters, critics and police officers had gathered, erupted into a riot. One NYU public safety officer was injured and taken to St. Vincent’s hospital in an ambulance. Numerous students reported that pepper spray had been used on them, although this was unconfirmed by the police.

 By Friday afternoon, the remaining students in Kimmel had been escorted from the building; all 18 were suspended. None of their demands were met.

 Technology: Why was the Kimmel occupation different from other student protests? TBNYU entered the student center knowing they would have full internet access, and they took advantage of that. The event was advertised as a “study breakdown” on TBNYU’s blog. Once the protesters barricaded themselves inside the cafeteria, they published their demands and wrote entries about the scene within the barricade, all of which could be accessed on their web site. TBNYU also recorded the events on Twitter, offered a live streaming broadcast, so people outside could actually talk to those inside Kimmel, and posted photos. Additionally, members of TBNYU had tipped off NYULocal, a blog that covers NYU news, and the site responded by installing a reporter in the Kimmel MarketPlace. The reporter, Charlie Eisenhood, liveblogged the events from the inside for over 30 hours. Meanwhile, Washington Square News (WSN), NYU’s newspaper, blogged about the occupation, the scene outside and the administration response, updating posts continuously over the three-day period. Between TBNYU’s coverage and the NYULocal and WSN blogs, the Kimmel occupation was one of the most comprehensively addressed student protests in recent years.

 Impacts:

1.     Take Back NYU was able to garner greater numbers of followers, who either stood in solidarity or actually entered the MarketPlace. For instance, Anna Mullen, an NYU sophomore, heard about the protest on Take Back NYU’s blog and decided to join the occupation. She was one of the 18 suspended on Friday, along with other individuals who were not part of the original planning for the event.

2.     The widespread coverage on blogging sites and campus media outlets certainly most likely encouraged administrators to use caution when removing the protesters from the building. NYU was extremely hesitant to involve the NYPD, and did not take significant action to remove the students until the Market Place had been occupied for nearly two full days.

3.     The sit-in attracted national and international attention. The New York Times reported on the occupation, Noam Chomsky sent TBNYU a letter of solidarity, and New York City Councilman Charles Barron came to the NYU campus to speak in support of the students as they were escorted from the building February 20.

4.     Incorrect information about the situation in Kimmel reached a large number of people. WSN originally reported incorrectly that an individual’s arm was broken in the riot outside the Kimmel Center, leading many to believe that injuries and violence were more grave than was actually true.

5.     Things did get violent. Discussions on NYULocal and WSN chat forums became heated, and a large number of individuals stood outside Kimmel because they had read about or watched portions of the occupation on the internet. These same individuals were involved in the riot that ensued early Friday morning.

6.     The administration was easily able to sap much of the movement’s power simply by removing a connection to technology. TBNYU was relying on NYU’s wireless internet service. Friday morning protesters reported that electrical outlets in Kimmel were not working. Commentators speculated the administration hoped to render the students’ laptops useless, severing their connection with the outside world. Several hours later, the protesters exited the building.

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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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 »