The Limits of Technology in Social Movements
It may seem strange for a developer of a tech tool for grassroots organizers to be writing about the ways in which that technology’s role is limited, but honesty and transparency are crucial to effectively supporting grassroots movements. Beyond communicating with our users, I also wanted to address and challenge other civic, organizing, and electoral tech creators. A great deal of buzz has been generated over the last several years about the boundless potential of technology to help people across the world connect, organize, and fight for social change. While a great deal of potential is certainly there, those pushing this narrative are incentivized to exaggerate. The relentless optimism among tech innovators has crowded out discussion of the reasons why technology is not a silver bullet for social movements, and, by the same token, has also made it difficult to make a more grounded analysis of what role it can ideally play. While technology can ease the friction, overhead, and redundancy of communicating, mobilizing, educating, and organizing, at the end of the day, people and passion build successful social movements. I, along with the rest of the OrganizeTogether team, am far more interested in collaborating with grassroots movements to discover how technology can best amplify this people-driven power than pretending that it’s possible to create a piece of technology that is itself revolutionary.
On that note, it’s probably best to begin with a type of tech that was promised to be just that: social media. The initial vision of this new technology was almost utopian: social platforms would be “the great equalizer,” connecting everyone together with fast and transparent communication, letting the best ideas be naturally elevated to positions of prominence, and giving people the freedom to explore those ideas safely and privately. The reality is far less egalitarian. Outliers and exceptions exist, but, as a general rule, groups and individuals with the greatest resources get the loudest voices on social media. Freedom to speak is not the same as freedom to be heard, and, as mirrored in the offline world, those with a plethora of influence and money to spend are the voices that get amplified.
But this distortion does not mean that social media is not a useful tool, even to groups it under-serves. Despite favoring powerful interests, social media can provide genuine value to grassroots movements. It streamlines outward communication, empowers members to do their own outreach, and makes it easier for people with aligned interests to find each other. Social media may not increase their share of voice, but it nonetheless allows them to communicate more efficiently and become better connected. Perhaps more importantly, social media has made itself an indispensable organizing tool by accomplishing some of these things well enough that it’s become the only way to reach some people. Social media isn’t just another medium for organizers to choose from a myriad of options, but a prerequisite for communicating with entire sectors of communities.
The messaging around social media and other digital tools poses a subtler problem; ambitious promises and trendy buzzwords discourage users from critically examining their own practices. If a digital platform promises to solve all your problems, why bother determining what your most pressing problems are? Adopting a new tech tool should be the outcome of reexamining, assessing, and improving internal process and organization, not an excuse to avoid it.
There are inherent trade-offs involved in any digital solution, and while there are certainly better and worse tools, the best way to choose between them is to know what needs a group actually has. Best practices for computer security are a good guideline for technology adoption in general. As any expert will tell you, computer security is less a matter of gathering as many sophisticated tools as possible and more about identifying which specific threats are most probable and dangerous in a unique situation. Similarly, choosing tech tools for grassroots organizing should start with identifying the specific logistical or organizational needs of a group. This is especially relevant for small groups that do not have an army of employees, technical experts, and seasoned veterans to call upon for help. The opportunity cost of learning and adopting a new tech tool can be significant, as can using the wrong tool, and it’s always worth asking whether a piece of technology is actually appropriate for a specific situation.
Take, for example, a seemingly simple goal: keeping a core team of organizers in touch with one another. Many organizations start with something with which all members are familiar, such as a group text. Anyone who has been in a large chat is intimately familiar with some of the problems with this solution. There is no organization to the discussion, just one long chronologically-sorted chain. And sometimes, that’s all you need. We’ve probably all used group texts effectively with friends and family- maybe even with fellow organizers and activists! However, the issues pile up as the group increases in size. The solution doesn’t fit the problem.
On the other hand, more technologically advanced solutions may be similarly inappropriate. Some features might be desired or needed- messaging only a subset of the group, sharing files, or scheduling meetings, just to name a few. At some point, though, extra features stop offering powerful functionality and start needlessly raising the barrier to entry for new or existing members. Even something as simple as making an account or downloading an app is too much of a commitment for many people, and can silo members by age, physical ability, and general access to and experience with technology.
Most importantly, technology is never a replacement for the social aspects of organizing. Successful movements rely on the hard work and cooperation of passionate, motivated people. People who feel welcome, invested, heard, and impactful- who commit to being part of a community. Digital communication cannot replace genuine relationship-building, but it can facilitate these personal connections. The technology involved in social movements should, ultimately, come back to bringing people together, as should the ways in which organizers integrate it into their work.
