Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted 305
An anonymous reader writes "Social media is ill-suited to promoting real social change, argues Malcolm Gladwell in this article from The New Yorker magazine. He deftly debunks conventional wisdom surrounding the impact of Twitter, Facebook and other social media in driving systemic social change, comparing them to the organizational strategies of the 1960s civil rights movement. For example, the Montgomery bus boycott, he argues, was successful because it was driven by the disciplined and hierarchically organized NAACP. In contrast, a loose, social-media style network wouldn't have sustained the year long campaign. He concludes that social media promote social 'weak ties' which are not strong enough to motivate people to take big risks, such as imprisonment or attack, for social change."
ping (Score:5, Funny)
But (Score:5, Insightful)
On the more subtle side, social media does influence the electorate, therefore affecting votes and possibly politicians. So even if it may not bring about drastic, almost revolutionary change, it will certainly influence politics.
He get's it wrong because it's a tool (Score:2)
And the example of how it affects the electorate shows again that tweeting is a tool used by politicians to both read and influence the people.
The article makes twitter up as the cause or driving force of change. That's never the truth. Radio, TV, the internet, and all the tools on the internet are just that, tools. Statements like "The revolution will be Televised/Tweeted/Facebooked/beamed directly into our brains" is true, because whenever the revolution comes it will be broadcast on as many mediums as
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On the more subtle side, social media does influence the electorate, therefore affecting votes and possibly politicians. So even if it may not bring about drastic, almost revolutionary change, it will certainly influence politics.
The only thing that has influenced politics in the last 50 years is summarized in a single line...In my sig.
TFA must be right, it's from the FUTURE! (Score:4, Funny)
Article posts 'October 4 2010' as the publication date... Unless I pulled a Rip Van Winkle at my desk just now, we're looking at news FROM THE FUTURE!!! :)
Re:TFA must be right, it's from the FUTURE! (Score:4, Funny)
When will then be now?
Re:TFA must be right, it's from the FUTURE! (Score:4, Funny)
soon
Re:TFA must be right, it's from the FUTURE! (Score:5, Funny)
Great, I'll keep reading their articles.
When I see "Nuclear War", "Stock Market Crash" or "Second Coming of Jesus" I'll have at least a few days to prepare.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wouldn't've the Resurrection been the Second Coming? Or was that more like, shit, forgot my keys.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, you're totally raining on the joke parade.
But even if you weren't, this is the WEB. There's not some kind of print-and-ship delay at work where that sort of thing is anything but pretentious. Thusly, still completely mock-able...
Green sashes anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I know a lot of iranian protestors who seemed convinced otherwise.
So you don't agree with what Gladwell said in the article about the Iranian protestors? Seemed a pretty cogent summary to me...
Re:Green sashes anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know a lot of iranian protestors who seemed convinced otherwise.
How'd that work for them now that Iran is a vibrant and bustling democracy?
Why would I work hard for social change? (Score:4, Interesting)
"He concludes that social media promote social 'weak ties' which are not strong enough to motivate people to take big risks, such as imprisonment or attack, for social change."
Call me a cynic (-: cheap flattery works :-), but I can't imagine anything that would motivate me for that much of social change. Mostly because most other societal systems are more or less as good/bad (inside a factor of two) as the where I live.
And if I did get motivated to change society, I would support (or maybe even join!) a political party and try to get into the parliament. Since that is allowed where I live.
He has it all wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:He has it all wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, you can use it as a communication tool. But that's it. The author's thesis seems to be that in order to have the commitment and discipline to actually have an effect, you have to have strong social ties. The kind that come from meeting and getting to know the people you're working with face to face.
Social media connections, on the other hand, are too weak to support anything like that. Would you risk your life because someone on Twitter told you to? Or someone on Slashdot?
"He concludes that socia
They offer Communication not Administration (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I know, the article made it sound like you couldn't fit a hierarchy within social media too.
Also "not your personal army" and all that jazz. Decentralized is not always weak, though probably short lived.
Re: (Score:2)
I saw this a year or two back listening to a podcast by the author of Wikinomics:Here Comes Everybody, he kept talking about how people used communications networks increasingly to organize.
It became clear the next rotation of social networking would be self-organizing.
It would allow your local PTA/HOA to do their monthly business without leaving your home, same goes for administering Boy/Girl scouts, charities, volunteer programs, political campaigns, fan-clubs, etc.
When the group decided anarchy wasn't en
I just hope (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Besides, aren't the geek supposed to inherit the earth or something?
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Great comparison (Score:2)
Yes and no. (Score:4, Insightful)
While ad-hoc organization may not work, comparing it to the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the 50's, if they had Twitter, Facebook etc. the NAACP could've gotten their message out faster and in a more efficient way.
I mean, it did work well for the Obama Campaign.
Re: (Score:2)
It got him elected.
That's why I cited his campaign, not his administration.
Re:Yes and no. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's why I cited his campaign, not his administration.
Well, ironically perhaps, you're just making the author's point. It got him elected, but his election hasn't brought about the prospect of any constructive social change (quite the opposite, in many cases), and the large group of people who voted for him because he was new, shiny, and used social media have fizzled out because they saw that much of what they were voting for was The Guy That Uses Social Media, and not for any identifiable, concrete, internally consistent idealogy and policy package. His election was essentially a flash mob, with just as much staying power. The young people who enjoyed that flash mob for its own sake, for the adventure of participating in it have been replaced by chirping crickets, comparatively. Why? Because the author of the article is exactly right.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I somehow doubt all that many were swayed by Obama's use of social media. Probably about as many as were swayed by Clinton's sax playing on a talk show. Obama could have called it "the internets" and I would still have voted for him over anyone who would choose Palin for anything. Do I wish he were better? Of course. But I'll probably vote for him again, because I can't see that Palin or Huckabee or Gingrich could be good
Activism is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Activism from the left is dead in the US. There's no significant, effective opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the concentration of wealth, the crushing of unions, the decline in wages, or the tax benefits enjoyed by Wall Street. (All of which would have been unacceptable to the Eisenhower administration, an indication of how far to the Right the US has moved.)
The activist organizations that accomplish anything are either on the Right, funded by big business, or church-based. Or they're purely self-interested, like gun owners and gays.
Much of '60s activism was powered by music. That's over. Today's musicians have near zero political effect.
Re:Activism is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
All of which would have been unacceptable to the Eisenhower administration, an indication of how far to the Right the US has moved.
Forget Eisenhower, this shit would've offended Nixon.
THAT is a much better indication about what's wrong.
Re:Activism is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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And what happens when you give the corporations too much power?
King and country (Score:4, Interesting)
The same argument could have been made against the civil rights movement in the 60s. The author would have argued that as the NCAAP was using the telephone to organize rather than meeting always face to face drinking pints at the local as the Sons of Liberty did, that Dr. King was doomed to fail because his network relied on telephone calls and so was too loose.
lack of organization has its advantages (Score:4, Insightful)
If a group like the NAACP had tried the same stunts in a more dictatorial country, say Iran or Cuba, how long would they have lasted? How long would an actual organization survive with their leaders constantly arrested, tried and executed with in a week of founding the organization?
Twitter, Facebook and the like have the advantage of anonymity when organizing and implementing plans.
Re: (Score:2)
Twitter, Facebook and the like have the advantage of anonymity when organizing and implementing plans.
Facebook and Twitter are anonymous?
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"If a group like the NAACP had tried the same stunts in a more dictatorial country, say Iran or Cuba, how long would they have lasted? How long would an actual organization survive with their leaders constantly arrested, tried and executed with in a week of founding the organization?"
South Africa's apartheid.
Since Mandela was jailed for 27 years, there you have a lower limit.
Twitter, 4chan, etc, useless ... (Score:2)
Right.
Ask the people ACS:Law about the power of weak social media.
Anonymous poked their buttons, were dismissed as "trivial", then they stepped it up and exposed weaknesses in ACS:Law that is still having repercussions for the organization.
Twitters exposing election fraud in more than a few countries hasn't made the news either.
I think people are either foolishly underestimating the power of people who can communicate or purposely trying to trivialize in the vain hope of preventing people from using their "
Re: (Score:2)
...or purposely trying to trivialize in the vain hope of preventing people from using their "mob power".
Given the massive privacy invasions that are offered by such sites, law enforcement would love it if all social activism were directed through them. This article hardly trivializes the power of people who can communicate. It attempts to untrivialize the actions of the blacks in America who risked their life and freedom to be treated as equals. Now if they had organized themselves on Facebook and the CIA had simply read all their communications, would it have been as effective?
Because it won't happen. (Score:3, Insightful)
n/t
Author fails at researching his topic (Score:2)
Check out the author's two twitter accounts:
http://twitter.com/Malcgladwell [twitter.com]
http://twitter.com/gladwell [twitter.com]
Combined # of tweets: 32
Combined # of people he follows: 12, nearly all of whom are twitter accounts for old media establishments.
This is typical thread I see among all those who condemn social media: Unfamiliarity breeds contempt.
Re: (Score:2)
False analogy. Studying cancer thoroughly requires more than simply looking at cancer cells from a distance, but interacting with them, seeing what makes them grow faster, seeing what makes them die. To study cancer you must "follow" cancer cells. Similarly to study social media effectively, one needs to FULLY participate in it, not just use it as a means of monitoring old-media sources and broadcasting one way to a throng of followers.
TFA points to a bunch of pre-twitter revolutions, then the non-revol
Action Vs. Words (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, that said, I think something that is missing from the article is a discussion of the 'action' factor that is used in protests and social movements today. Something I've noticed with a lot of online social movements is that they are very good at giving every member a means to voice their thoughts on a particular issue. This has granted a lot of people a large audience for their thoughts regarding any particular matter. As such, anyone can get up on their digital soap box (as I am doing now) and spout their claims to get a series of 'likes' or 'dislikes' from their large online audience. This has a very nice effect on the speaker, making them feel like they are taking part in something important and big. However, the reason many of these online causes do not effect as much change as someone might initially think is because that seems to be where all of the action stops. Social media has given folks a means to express their opinion without backing anything up with action (I do draw an arbitrary line here that distinguishes talk from action).
The author of this article makes a fine summary of the American Civil Rights movement back in the 60's. Something that he fails to address when summarizing these movements, however, is that they had long lasting consequences on society as a whole. The bus boycott actually damaged the economic stance of the bus company being boycotted. The Southern sit-ins prevented the businesses where they took place from earning much cash off of white customers. The action taken by those who participated in the Civil Rights movement went beyond mere words. They actually cost their opponents something valuable. This is something that online social media movements do not do. The folks pillaging Darfur and its inhabitants don't give a damn about the 1.2 million Facebook users that want to help Darfur. Those Facebook users aren't damaging their opponents in any way. They are passively sitting around, voicing their dissent through words or micro-donations, and patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Meanwhile, those that are committing atrocities in Darfur are being allowed to work, as normal, without any outside interference. Thus, nothing will change. There is no perturbation to the status quo.
The reason the Iranian case was somewhat different is because there really were protesters in Tehran marching and having rallies. That's great. However, those rallies did not cost the Iranian politicians anything of value. Standing around and complaining, even in large numbers, did not prevent the vote-smearing that was going on. Thus, nothing changed. the Iranian protesters came closer to afflicting change that the Darfur FB users because they actually organized and tried to do something. However, they did not damage anything of value to those in favor of the status quo.
So I would say that if anyone really wants a revolution over a particular issue, not only is hierarchical organization important (as discussed in the fine article), but also, those organizing the protest (be it through social media or any other medium) must, necessarily, find a way to deprive their opponents of something valuable over a long span of time. That said, for issues close to us 'dotters, I would say that simply commenting on related stories is not enough. If we really want the MAFIAA to fall for good, we need to deprive them of something they value. If we want politicians to stop acting like corrupt douchebags, we need to go beyond writing letters to them and complaining. We need to organize and cost them something of value. If we want net neutrality to be implemented, we need to find a way to deprive all throttling ISPs from getting something of value (customers, money, new technology, something).
At least, that's my two cents.
Tea Party (Score:3)
Whatever else you may think about the Tea Party, their initial protests were organized through the blogosphere (and mostly still are), and it would be foolish to deny that they've had some effect politics. Because of this, they lack a centralized leadership structure, and it will be curious to see if they can survive their own success.
Re: (Score:2)
Whatever else you may think about the Tea Party, their initial protests were organized through the blogosphere (and mostly still are),
Unfortunately by using the blogosphere, whatever that is, for organizing they are excluding the older generations of libertarian-minded who do not have facebook or twitter accounts. I am a libertarian and would even be willing to pick up a gun and fight for freedom, but I don't do facebook or twitter. I thought the 'Tea Party' was just a derogatory expression referring to Libertarians or quasi-libertarians. Now I see that they are some kind of quasi-libertarian group.
Also, I thought MySpace->Facebook was
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but that entire post is a giant cop-out, wrapped up in an air of "I'm too important for facebook"
If you don't have facebook, whatever, there's a lot of people that don't. That's no big deal one way or another.
But, you claim "I am a libertarian and would even be willing to pick up a gun and fight for freedom" then immediately follow it up with "but I don't do facebook or twitter"
You have a slashdot account so you can spend time talking (semi) anonymously with people about (in the long run) pretty
Makes Sense of 4chan (Score:2)
Oh yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
Social media led revolution works swimingly...
http://i.imgur.com/abXW9.png [imgur.com]
Weak Social Links? (Score:2, Insightful)
The two aren't related (Score:5, Interesting)
Revolution/mass movement/polictical action and social media aren't particularly related. Social media is a tool, not a goal, and not a method. There's nothing inherent to Twitter that prevents it from being used by well organized groups as another (and easier to use) tool to get the word out.
The internet has the effect of lowering the bar to entry in to a lot of things. It is cheaper and easier to start up a company with a world wide market, it is cheaper and easier to rant incoherently on your pet peeve to lots of people, and it's easier to communicate political ideas to people who share them.
That means that more people will do all those things. One can self-publish a book through Amazon without a real publisher. One can get one's fifteen minutes (or even more) with a free blog. And one can start a political movement. And most of the people doing all those things because the internet makes it so easy will do it poorly. That is the nature of lowering the bar.
However, none of that will interfere with the efforts of those who know what they're doing in the first place. Those who would have succeeded in the pre-internet age will succeed now, not because the new tools exist, but because they're smart enough to figure out how to use them. And those who were too incompetent and clueless in the pre-internet world to get in to the game at all will fail now, not because the new tools are flawed, but because they don't know what to do with them.
Having a paint brush doesn't make you Michaelangelo, even if it's a computer controlled pneumatic hammer, and having a ball point pen, or even a word processor and printer, doesn't make you Shakespeare. But if you are Michaelangelo or Shakespeare, having that pneumatic hammer or word processer won't make you any less a genius.
talk - action = zero (Score:2)
Online discussion of issues is important, but real life follow through is essential.
File under DUH (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, last I checked, twitter still lacks the ability to project bullets.
At least in America, there will be no bloodless revolution, and anything that pretends to be such is clearly a sham.
So you're saying... (Score:2)
So you're saying only and organization like Fox News with a figurehead like Glenn Beck could lead to really real social change? I for one DON'T welcome our new overzealous extremist overlords.
Re: (Score:2)
I think his real point is that Glenn Beck won't do it either. "Media," old or new, isn't sufficient. If you want a revolution you've got to hit the pavement and convince people face to face. You can use the media to gather a halo of weak supporters around your cause, but they're mostly for show.
Weak software makes for weak ties (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree that social media like facebook, twitter, and even blogs promotes weak social ties.
Anybody remember BBSs? Back before the Internet got big?
Most of the boards back in the day had close-nit groups. The kinds of people who met on the board, then got to know each other well enough to trust each other and possibly meet in real life.
Fast forward to today, and the old style message boards have been replaced by a "wall" and "pokes." There are tons of content, but it's all shallow and breezy. Maybe moder
Commo Tools (Score:2)
Facebook and twitter and the internet are ways to send information over landlines and airwaves. To hype them into something "revolutionary," is to make the same mistake that caused the first internet bubble.
They are powerful communication tools though, because they facilitate encryption and transfer of huge amounts of data.
The civil rights movement is a bad analogy. The NAACP and the SCLC never assumed power or tried to assume power. Their primary objective was to shame the rest of American society into
Um... (Score:4, Insightful)
TeaParty
Q.E.D
I'm not commenting on the validity of the TeaParty movement at all, I'm just saying that it seems to be counter to what the author just said. It is shunned by the MSM and derogatorily referred to as "teabaggers" by many. Yet in spite of the vitriol against it, has sustained for well over a year. And even if you don't like it, you need to admit it is a juggernaut that is completely changing the political landscape. Even (R) people are running scared.
On a side note, thank you California voters for choosing two complete dumb turds for Governor and two more twits for Senate. I'm sure glad I vote third party.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Informative)
. In contrast, a loose, social-media style network wouldn't have sustained the year long campaign.
TeaParty
Q.E.D
I do not think that means what you think it means.
I'm not commenting on the validity of the TeaParty movement at all, I'm just saying that it seems to be counter to what the author just said
The "Tea Party" movement, like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, was started and sustained by a top-down organization. Unlike the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the organization is an extremely well-funded group of the extremely wealthy industrialists, with major media support, from the very beginning -- the "Tax Day Tea Party" protests in April 2009 that were the beginning of the movement were organized and funded by corporate lobbying groups and actively promoted by Fox News, and the movement continues to be funded heavily through the same corporate lobbying groups and promoted by Fox News.
So, no, the validity of the Tea Party movement aside, its existence is absolutely not a counterpoint to the argument that a loose, social-media style network couldn't have sustained a year-long campaign similar to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, because the Tea Party movement isn't sustained by a loose, social-media style network.
Tea Party is anarchist (Score:4, Interesting)
To the contrary, nothing like it. There is no top-down organization. Anyone claiming or imputed to be a leader thereof assuredly isn't. Insofar as big names, leadership, and funding occurs, that is only because there is such a groundswell of resentment toward the federal government that some will inevitably make use thereof.
I've been following, and part of, the movement for well before any alleged organization started. The "Tax Day Tea Party" was in fact a viral meme, a very popular idea that many were looking for. Many people suggested marching on Washington DC 4/15/09 - not because of some top-down organization, but because like-minded people could contact each other and say "hey, wouldn't it be great to march on Washington DC 4/15/09" - "yeah, I'm there if you are". Deep pockets participated because it was obvious participation was worthwhile. Outsiders saw those deep pockets as organizers because they want to find and vilify organizers of such a movement. It has sustained for way over a year (longer than you realize) not because it's a fad, but because millions of like-minded people were finally able to contact and coordinate each other thru social media networking - people who really do believe in Tea Party type views, and won't be giving up on their opinions any time soon.
The Tea Party is the kind of grassroots, high-tech, anarchistic, viral-meme, spontaneous-organization happening /. & Wired types have been predicting for some time. Just pisses a lot of 'em off that it was the "right wing" that actually did it.
Re:Um... (Score:5, Informative)
The main two channels for funding, from day one, are Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity.
The main institutional communication medium is Fox News, who even billed the original FreedomWorks and AFP-organized Tax Day Tea Party Protests as "FNC Tax Day Tea Party Protests" on the air in promoting them.
Fox News is not a loose, social-media style network. Neither are Freedom Works or Americans for Prosperity.
It is funny how the same Industialists and Corporate Lobbying groups can't get their established politicians (Crist) elected, and tea party people (Rubio) are winning elections.
The same lobbying groups that are funding the Tea Party movement are usually not backing the candidates that the movement opposes.
Other lobbying groups might be, but differing lobbying groups (even if they are perceived as being on the same side of the left/right divide) backing opposing positions is hardly new.
Ecuador!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Malcolm Gladwell is wrong. The 4000 civilian protesters who gathered outside of the Police Hospital in Quito where President Correa was being held hostage by rioting Police were at least partially organized through twitter. When your national media all shut down or provide no information, twitter, as it did in Iran, and Honduras, became one of the few viable sources of outside information and coordination. Twitter and SMS messages are what brought those 4000 protesters into confrontation with the rioting police. They most certainly did put their lives on the line, and one of them was killed by the police, and at least 37 injured.
Larger problems. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the problem is that by tweeting about something people think they've done their job. It's the equivalent of sticking all those ribbons on cars.
"I've devoted 30 seconds between fun and games to think about something important."
But honestly, I think it's more of a symptom of larger problems. Despite everything people piss and moan about Americans, and the developed world in general, by and large have it pretty good. There's a constant stream of entertainment and shiny toys. This stuff is the adult equivalent of a pacifier. And a lot of what seems to get people upset is the fact that they can't have more of it, or more time to enjoy it. I'm convinced we're living in an era where people don't want to be responsible for anything. They'll happily go to the government for all their needs, be it giving up rights for security or expecting handouts of every kind. So why expend any effort on actually doing something for yourself?
I also suspect that politics have gotten so polarized and fear-mongering so rampant because that's the only way people will pay any attention at all.
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which revolution did those protests successfully pull off? Did the 1999 protests in Seattle even meaningfully slow down the WTO, much less kill it?
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Funny)
Best car analogy explanation so far.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
It would be nice if you remembered that in the same wave of protests the Free Trade Area of Americas got abandoned, and the role of the WTO got totally toned down. Obviously the government doesn't recognize that, because the rule #1 is to "never surrender to violence", and they pretended that the reorientation of the WTO priorities was in the air, somehow.
If you read actual documents on the riots that happened in Gothenborg and Prague around those time, the governement feels definitely threatened by widespr
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a very good point. The main reason for "democratic" popuplation to be manipulated to elect a certain establishment is to guarantee subsequent consent: "did not you _freely_ elected this?"
Re:WTO? (Score:4, Interesting)
When the revolution comes, you'll be the second group against the wall.
There is one thing that has been proven time and time again. People do not get along. They do not agree. And despite any opinions that they may have, they are easily swayed with promises, bribes, threats and coercion. They are impossible to satisfy.
People fall into 3 groups.
1) Those who lead.
2) Those who follow.
3) Those who get the fuck out of the way.
I suggest that you fall into group #3 very rapidly.
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Those who recognize problems and run away from them.
2) Those who recognize problems and fix them.
3) Those who don't recognize problems.
They world's always been a rough place. That hasn't stopped our species from doing some absolutely amazing things. Keeping your head down and hiding in a hole while those around you are beaten down is just pathetic.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I was definitely not saying to ignore the problem. I was stating that people do not get along. The only effective leadership is to have leaders who are respected for their decision making ability, and can be trusted. Throughout history, there have been some great leaders who have shaped the world we live in today. In the current environment, even the greatest leader can't thrive without the corruption undermining the ranks under them, therefore corrupting that leadership.
The post I
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
See, the way I see it, there are three types of people in the world:
1) Those who recognize problems and run away from them.
2) Those who recognize problems and fix them.
3) Those who don't recognize problems.
You're completely ignoring the fourth group.
4) Those who recognize problems as an opportunity to gain more power for themselves.
Sadly, most politicians fall into that last category.
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because protests actually affect anything in the slightest anymore?
In the heyday of protesting the huge protest was new, rare, impressive, and scary. News media outlets were limited and protests were big new(s), which amplified their impression, excitement, and scary nature (scary to those being protested against). And they protested things that actually, really mattered. War and peace, freedom and oppression.
But today?
At least in the US protests are a dime a dozen. Huge protests maybe a quarter a dozen. Decades of ever increasing protests for every single cause from global threats against humanity to legalizing pet ferrets, protests have lost their bite. They've lost it because protesting never had any real bite. The huge over use of protesting taught The Man that protests really don't mean anything...they don't really don't hurt...they are mostly all bark, no bite. In the flood of 24/7 news outlets, protests rarely get much if any attention. There's just too many for too stupid of causes for anyone to care to pay attention when real ones for real causes happen.
Social media "protests" may be too weak to have any real effect...but neither are actual, feet on the ground, protests.
Re:WTO? (Score:4, Insightful)
Very true.
The last protest I took part in was the worldwide march against the Iraq War. There were literally millions of people marching across the world. Most major cities globally had at least a few hundred thousand people all protesting against it. But the war happened anyway, and by and large the protests achieved absolutely nothing. Most politicians and pundits didn't even comment on them, at the time or since.
So forget popular protest. If you want to make a difference or change the world, buy a newspaper.
Speak to Tony Blair and David Miliband (Score:5, Insightful)
Today he can't appear in public in the UK (the security would be too expensive) and his protégé David Miliband has just narrowly lost the chance of being the next Prime Minister, with many people thinking that his support for the war tipped the balance. Protests change public opinion, perhaps only a little, but sometimes decisively. You appear to be falling into the trap of so many USA citizens, of despising "soft power". But the values of your Founding Fathers are today being more undermined by the "soft power" of lobbyists and journalists than by any display of force.
Re: (Score:2)
That raises a scientific question: how many protesters is enough to make a significant immediate impact?
What is the reference number to measure it against? Population of the capital?
How massive they should be?
The other point of spectrum (small number of protesters - huge impact) might be illustrated by the example of Madrid bombings, which involved 3 immediate organizers and may be dozens more helpers. As a result, the anti-war party of Zapatero won and Spain removed troops from the "coalition of the willin
Re: (Score:2)
The scary thing is how right you are.
A good example of this: On February 15, 2003, somewhere between 6 million to 30 million people (depending on who's estimate you believe) protested the then proposed but not yet started Iraq War, in a coordinated protest across the globe. The US alone had around 1 million people protesting in various cities, most notably New York.
Not only were the policy goals completely ignored, but how many people who weren't there even remember that the protests occurred?
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tea Party is having quite an impact I would say. Or do you not count is as a protest unless windows get broken and cars burned?
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Fox News is having quite an impact. If they didn't want the Tea Party to achieve its aims, not only would it be totally ineffective, it probably wouldn't even exist. Of course, it's in their interests to portray the Tea Party movement rather than themselves as the important ones because that's easier to sell, but without Fox they'd be nothing.
In fact, there's a good argument that Fox News in effect created the Tea Parties.
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I think that's exactly what he's saying. Showing up one day and maybe making a handwritten sign are the kinds of things you get with Twitter/Facebook/etc. If that. Even better is the Facebook group protest.
The kinds of things that actually have a chance to change something take more commitment and are unlikely to be organized through social media. Strikes are a good example. It seems much like a protest, but it takes a lot more commitment, keeps going, and it's organized. Actual shooting revolutions a
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm about to claim is a fairly subtle distinction, but bear with me as it makes a big difference.
Overuse of protests has not made protests weaker. You might say it has produced an increasing proportion of examples in which protests are ineffective. The distinction is in the causal relationships.
It isn't that using protests as an everyday tactic leads to weak protests. It's that protests are effective for certain types of cause. Use of protests against other types of causes will lead simultaniously to two symptoms: many protests, and weak protests. So yes, you see a correlation between frequency and weakness, but it is not because one causes the other.
The difference is, even today if 60's-style protest tactics were used against an appropriate opponent for an appropriate cause, they would work as they did then. A nonviolent sit-in draws much of its strength by painting a salient moral picture in the public eye. It creates a confrontation, and observers see one side peacefully asserting their position and being bullied by the other side. This can be used to mobilize public opinion.
But when you use the same tactics to oppose 'the man' not because he's the kind of person that would turn a fire hose on you, but because that's how you want to perceive him... well, then you have a problem. He never attacks you, never cedes the moral high ground, and the whole incident goes unnoticed.
The risk faced by the 60's activists was a key factor in their success, because their function was to shed light on exactly that risk as a symptom of the social status quo. Take that risk element away (by applying the tactics to the wrong kind of adversary) and you increase the number of protests - because it's easier to get people to join in - while reducing their effectiveness.
In part, this implies that the effectiveness of a protest is related to the character of the group being protested. Could the pro-segregation establishment have ignored the sit-ins to cause them to go away? Well, no, because of the alignment of those protests as a defiance of "the rules" - not just a statement of dissent. For four black students to sit at a "whites only" lunch counter, they were assured an aggressive response at some level because their protest, unchallenged, was not harmless to the status quo. For the establishment not to respond would be to concede - "you really can sit here".
But by contrast if a group stands outside an abortion clinic with picket signs, how does that force any response at all? Such a protest is usually ineffective not merely because it is perceived as a lesser threat to the establishment do to overexposure, but because it is a lesser threat by its own nature. Unlike a lunch counter sit-in, the only way for either side to "lose" in this confrontation is to be the first one to turn violent.
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The amazing thing is that only one statement in your post is remotely accurate.
If it's the same group of unemployed twits
Most attendees at protests in the developed world are either employed or students. Unemployed people generally are too busy scraping pennies and trying to find work to go protest anything.
Protesters these days are mostly on the wrong side of history and only effect fantasy land (where they reside).
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - protesters were generally against them, both have turned into quagmires, and neither have achieved their stated aims (Iraq, because the WMDs we were after didn't exist, Afghanistan, because Osama bin Laden escaped
Re:WTO? (Score:5, Interesting)
The initial setup, performed by a trade union here in Barcelona, does indeed take organization, but the vandalism, thrown rocks, burning barricades and all the other mindless acts that occur is always totally anarchic. You might get a few people come together to build a barricade, trash a police car, set fire to garbage cans etc., but there is absolutely no organization and absolutely no overall strategy other than to cause mayhem. The rioters build on each others daring and gain confidence from each other to do ever more destructive feats of violence but that's about it. Eventually, they have the capability and numbers to overwhelm the police - they probably outnumbered them 10:1 in Barcelona - but they can't. They can't do it because they have no overall strategy and leadership; just anarchy. Even if they did have the leadership, riots are extremely fluid situations that no not allow for much prior planning and there is no ready way to co-ordinate that kind of mob mentality into an effective force.
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"Perhaps you are confusing the difference between a RIOT and a PROTEST."
Perhaps that's exactly the point.
That now you have riots and protests when in the past any protest could easily end up in a riot.
Think of "the father of all riots", the French revolution. Don't you think that France would still be a monarchy if all that happened were mere "protests"?
It is said that war is diplomacy by other means. Heck, the only power of diplomacy is that everybody knows that if it fails it will end up in a war.
Just t
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Odd they forgot the antiwar (Vietnam) movement. There was no organization there at all; just a bunch of hippies and college kids pissed off that they were going to be drafted and shot for no good reason.
Re:Exactly wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as soon as there is something similar in other countries...
expect governments to impose censorship measures [slashdot.org] against websites that host these types of services.
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Just as soon as there is something similar in other countries, expect a LOT of people to get on twitter to organise dissent.
Not necessarily. Once a country gains the capacity not merely to block Twitter/Facebook/Whatever (that's too simple) but to trace the messages back to their sources - not necessarily on the day or in real time - then it's game over. If you know that the goons will come knocking at three in the morning, you'll be loathe to use the likes of TwitBook.
What's needed is a truly secure solu
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Re:Exactly wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
If you actually made it to the bottom of page #1 of the Gladwell article, you might have read this(emphasis mine):
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If you'd read it, you'd see that the author doubts Twitter was actually that vital to the effort. As a supporting question, he wonders why they weren't speaking in Farsi.
Re:Exactly wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the relevant bit of the article:
In the Iranian case, meanwhile, the people tweeting about the demonstrations were almost all in the West. “It is time to get Twitter’s role in the events in Iran right,” Golnaz Esfandiari wrote, this past summer, in Foreign Policy. “Simply put: There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran.” The cadre of prominent bloggers, like Andrew Sullivan, who championed the role of social media in Iran, Esfandiari continued, misunderstood the situation. “Western journalists who couldn’t reach—or didn’t bother reaching?—people on the ground in Iran simply scrolled through the English-language tweets post with tag #iranelection,” she wrote. “Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi.”
So to summarize, the actual protests in Iran were being organized locally, whereas Twitter was simply used by Western media to cover the event because, well, Westerners don't live in Iran. I know it's not typical MOD for 'dotters to RTFA, but in this case, the article was well written and very thorough. I would highly suggest taking the time to read through the entire thing.
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In the Iranian case, meanwhile, the people tweeting about the demonstrations were almost all in the West. "It is time to get Twitter's role in the events in Iran right," Golnaz Esfandiari wrote, this past summer, in Foreign Policy. "Simply put: There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran." The cadre of prominent bloggers, like Andrew Sullivan, who championed the role of social media in Iran, Esfandiari continued, misunderstood the situation. "Western journalists who couldn't reach--or didn't bother reaching?--people on the ground in Iran simply scrolled through the English-language tweets post with tag #iranelection," she wrote. "Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi."
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You missed the sarcasm, and Internet != Twitter
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Well, there's reason to doubt the effectiveness of Twitter in the Iranian case. I don't happen to buy the author's argument (that many of the tweets were originating outside of Iran) as either here nor there. That does not mean the information necessarily originated outside of Iran, or even if it did whether it really mattered.
The real bottom line is that the government forces won; it retained power, albeit at a loss of international respect. That might change the course of history in the long run, but it
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And what happened? Prop 8 passed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prop_8#Results [wikipedia.org]
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