Tactic: Keeping demonstrators up to date using Twitter

Written by Simon on May 17, 2008 – 5:32 pm -

Description: A German group used the microblogging service Twitter to inform protesters during the traditional May 1 demonstrations in Hamburg, Germany.

Organizer: The Freie Sender Kombinat (FSK), “Free Channels Conglomerate”, a Hamburg-based independent radio station.

Purpose of Action: To inform leftist protesters about the progress of both their own and a neo-nazi counter-demonstration.

Organizing Tools: Twitter, cell phones.

Outcome: About 360 people followed the FSK’s Twitter account and were subsequently informed about the ongoing of both demonstrations, but the organizers failed to study whether their broadcasting had any effect on the protesters’ behavior. Using Twitter instead of regular SMS broadcasting saved the FSK about 650 € (~1000 $) of SMS costs.

Ease of Replication: Twitter is one of the new minimalist and easy-to-use web 2.0 technologies. Updates can be received via the service’s website, RSS feed, instant messenger (XMPP / Jabber) or specialized Twitter clients.
Reporting from a demonstration via Twitter is by far easier to handle than most alternatives, i.e. live radio broadcasting, and highly cost effective. Problems could arise through a lack of phone connection or data security.

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Tactic: Student ‘twitters’ out of Egyptian jail

Written by Talia on April 25, 2008 – 8:38 pm -

photos of Mohammed Maree on James’ Twitter page

Description: James Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator Mohammed Maree were arrested April 10. On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the blogging site Twitter.

Tools Used for the Action: Twitter

Outcome: Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt – many of whom had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted of the arrests. (Twitter is a social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates, or “tweets,” from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook.)

Buck sent only one message with his cell phone – “Arrested.” Buck’s friends started to write regular updates on their blogs about his arrest, as they weren’t sure how long he was going to be able to communicate with them. Fortunately, he was able to continue to send updates, and his entries set off a chain of events that led to his college hiring a lawyer on his behalf.

Buck was released from prison the next day, and sent another update saying “Free.” However, his translator, Maree, was transferred to another police station, and has not been heard from since. There are conflicting reports from the Egyptian government about whether Maree was freed and his whereabouts. Buck has now started another campaign on his Twitter page as a way to find Maree.

“James’ case is particularly compelling to us because of the simplicity of his message — one word, ‘arrested’ — and the speed with which the whole scene played out,” said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. “It highlights the simplicity and value of a real-time communication network that follows you wherever you go.”


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DigiActive News: DigiActive Top 50 Web 2.0 Challenge

Written by Mary on April 9, 2008 – 3:03 pm -

Part of what we do at DigiActive is figure out how to use otherwise innocent commercial online platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter for activism. However, there are tons of interactive online tools out there and we can’t review all of them. We need your help!

Fortunately, we are not alone in this effort to co-opt the Internet for the purposes of social justice. If you are one of those people that likes to figure out the activist use of new online tools, we invite you to watch the following slide presentation, which features the top 50 Web 2.0 tools to support teaching an learning (it was creating by technology instructors in a school district).

Our challenge to you: figure out how digital activists can use these tools. Watch the slide show and then investigate the tools that interest you most and think about how an activist might be able to use that tools in a campaign for social change. E-mail your suggestions to Mary @ DigiActive.org and we will post the most creative activist tool use suggestions on DigiActive.

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Tool: SMS

Written by Mary on January 30, 2008 – 11:17 pm -

Tool Description: SMS (short message service) is the technical name for text messaging - notes sent between mobile phone users. Think of it as e-mail for mobile phones.

Activist Application: There are so many activist applications for SMS that we’ve put most of them after the jump. Here they are in brief: organize a protest in minutes, evade censorship by using SMS for communication that you cannot speak or e-mail (only true is some countries), election monitoring, activist security (”If I don’t text you every 2 hours, it means something is wrong), citizen journalism, and more to come….

Ease of Use: Easy. All mobile phones now have SMS built in. Just choose a phone number to send the message to, type the message, and press send. Pricing varies by country and carrier.

thousands of phones, thousands of uses for activists

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Tool: Twitter

Written by Mary on January 17, 2008 – 4:03 am -

Tool Description: Twitter is social network where people update their friends about their actions in real-time via SMS. People can read your SMS posts online.
Activist Application: Kenyan blogger AfroMusing used her Twitter channel to send news updates on the unstable situation in the country following the recent elections. The Twitter channel KenyaNews has been set up specifically to update people on the latest news out of Kenya.
Ease of Use: Easy. Just sign up for a Twitter account here and inform your friends of your Twitter channel.

juliana.jpg

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Posted in Mobile Phones, Sub-Saharan Africa, Tools | 2 Comments »