Facebook et Twitter ne font pas les révolutions. The brave new world of slacktivism. Last week, The Globe and Mail ran an article on the history of “slacktivism” (the G&M piece seems to have grown out of an interview I did with CBC's Spark a few weeks ago on the same subject).
"Slacktivism" is an apt term to describe feel-good online activism that has zero political or social impact. It gives those who participate in "slacktivist" campaigns an illusion of having a meaningful impact on the world without demanding anything more than joining a Facebook group. Remember that online petition that you signed and forwarded to your entire contacts list? That was probably an act of slacktivism...
"Slacktivism" is the ideal type of activism for a lazy generation: why bother with sit-ins and the risk of arrest, police brutality, or torture if one can be as loud campaigning in the virtual space? From slacktivism to activism. Below is the text of a talk about "slacktivism" - a subject that has received considerable attention on this blog and elsewhere - that I delivered at Festival Ars Electronica this morning (the session was dedicated to "cloud intelligence").
As someone who studies how the Internet affects global politics, I've grown increasingly skeptical of numerous digital activism campaigns that attempt to change the world through Facebook and Twitter. To explain why, let me first tell you a story about a campaign that has gone wrong. If you have been to Copenhagen, you probably have seen the Stork Fountain, the city's famous landmark. A few months ago, a Danish psychologist Anders Colding-Jørgensen, who studies how ideas spread online, used Facebook to conduct a little experiment using the Stork Fountain as his main subject. This broaches an interesting question: why do people join Facebook groups in the first place?