Have hashtags killed activism?
A number of weeks back, #BlackLivesMatter was all over my Facebook feed again. This time, it was the killing of Keith Scott as he stepped out of his SUV, hands at his side. My Facebook friends wrote gut-wrenching posts on the injustices of the criminal justice system. They made vows, pleaded for change.
I got déjà vu all over again. Earlier this year, Philando Castile was shot in a routine traffic stop as he reached for his license and registration. Last year, an unarmed Walter Scott was shot in the back as he ran from a police officer. In 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was killed as he played with a toy gun.
This time, as in years past, I would probably forget the violence in a matter of days, and life would go back to normal until the next shooting popped up on my feed. I felt anguish, and frustration, not only toward the injustice at hand, but at the idea that our collective grief never seemed to amount to anything. As one classmate put it, “Get sad, react on Facebook, do nothing.”
There’s no question that social media has made it easier to opine on a public debate. But what has this done to activism?
Can social media sustain activism?
Malcolm Gladwell doesn’t think so. In a critical New Yorker essay comparing today’s activism with the Civil Rights movement, he argues that liking and retweeting are ill-suited for tackling institutional problems. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, for example, was everything social media-driven activism is not: hierarchical, highly organized, and bolstered by strong ties between organizers and by strong commitment among activists.
This kind of organization is necessary to tackle entrenched institutions. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, as Gladwell describes, lasted over a year with specialized staff and a highly complex system of logistics. Even the White Citizen’s Council of Montgomery praised the boycott for its “military precision.”
In contrast, the hashtag-based “revolutions” of today are most relevant for problems that require small commitments. They emphasize networks over structure, high-participation over high-commitment, and weak ties over strong ties. While a hashtag campaign might get a public figure to retract or delete a tweet, it’d be hard-pressed to change entrenched institutions. Gladwell points to a story in which thousands of people collaborating online helped to identify a cell phone robber. “A networked, weak-tie world is good at things like helping Wall Streeters get phones back from teen-age girls,” Gladwell writes. “Viva la revolución.”
In other words, social media is great for rallying people to take simple actions (sign a petition, retweet!) around interesting, easy-to-understand stories (get this man’s phone back!). A means for dissecting byzantine policy, or for organizing sustained action, it is not.
Get involved? It’s cool; I tweeted.
But is Gladwell’s criticism fair? The evidence is mixed. As Stanford professor Benoit Monin argues in his framework on moral licensing, doing something that strengthens our positive self-image makes us worry less about immoral behavior. In other words, social media may be less of a complement to organizing, and more of a substitute.
Take the example of a person upset at a police shooting. Before the advent of the Internet, he or she may have participated in a community meeting as a step toward organizing a more formal protest. Today, that person might very well choose to stay on a computer.
It might also matter whether an initial act of involvement is public or private. In a University of British Columbia study, students who were asked to take private action in support of a cause (for instance, signing a petition in a private ballot box) were much more likely to later deepen their involvement than classmates who took a public action (for example, signing a petition in the front of the room).
This may seem counterintuitive, but the theory is simple. By acting privately, a person may reflect more deeply on her values, and in so doing, increase her commitment to a cause; a public act, by contrast, can be more of a fashion statement. If a post on Facebook is the ultimate public act, millions of people might be missing out on the opportunity to fully consider their values — and social media might actually subtract from the number of committed organizers.
A handful of organizations have figured out how to wield high participation, low-commitment actions in productive ways. Tellingly, this kind of activism works best in situations where a short-term outburst of public opinion can target individuals and corporations who have a clear and direct responsibility to the public (think elected officials right before a vote). Take activist group Avaaz, for example. In a process that would make top product managers proud, Avaaz relies on A/B tests measuring click-through rates to choose its target campaigns. For the issues it does tackle, Avaaz has been incredibly effective. The downside is that campaigns with click-through rates below 10% are simply discarded.
Can hashtags save us?
What does this suggest for the future of #BlackLivesMatter? Obstacles abound. There’s rarely a clear target for mass public outrage. Shootings occur randomly over time and geography, both of which makes influencing elections difficult. And even if there were a clear target, understanding the chain of responsibility between the morass of stakeholders — the sheriff, the local representative, the county jail superintendent — takes an immense amount of time.
But perhaps social media’s saving grace is much longer-term and harder to measure. Even if social media doesn’t produce a horde of new committed organizers, could it produce a small change in the attitudes of many different Americans? While this may not immediately result in more enlightened policy — could it bring more empathy and awareness to our everyday lives?
Frankly, I don’t know if empathy and awareness are enough. If we really want change, we need real, face-to-face conversations that force people to reflect on their values. And we need organizations that offer tangible outlets for the energy channeled by these conversations. Only then, as in Montgomery, might justice prevail.
