Twitter and Activism

This week’s readings discussed online activism and whether or not this movement helps activism or not. Even though this is not directly related I felt that this reading reminded me of an article that I read earlier this week about how the Twitter president is now being threatened by ISIS because he has been blocking groups associated with the group.

I thought this was an interesting concept because maybe in a way this falls in the middle ground of actually taking action while not really doing anything in the real world like how people believe true activism is. By blocking their groups that support ISIS and not allowing them to post on twitter he has sent them a message that they are now responding to. Also related, Anonymous has decided to take action against ISIS and take down hundreds of accounts. Because they are regulating the internet and almost taking a virtual stand against these groups, would this be considered cyber activism instead of slacktivism?

I am not sure what category this fits in, or whether this fits in at all–but it came to mind when reading the articles about Twitter.

Here is the link about Twitter and Isis:

http://time.com/3728484/twitter-isis/

Here is a discussion about Anonymous and Isis:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/10/technology/anonymous-isis-hack-twitter/index.html?iid=EL

4 thoughts on “Twitter and Activism

  1. natalypalma

    I’m glad you’ve brought up Anonymous. I have learned a lot about them, especially in my information studies class. I think Anonymous hackers are definitely an exclusion to online slacktivism. They are engaging actively on the internet, making changes, and overall changing the internet. There is no denying that activism can take place online, especially with groups like this. But the point is that they’re not just retweeting something or posting an article – they are acting in big ways.

  2. nklepper

    I think the idea of regulating Internet content is an interesting and super relevant concept for our modern time. Who has the rights to control what is posted on social media? This plays into to idea of freedom of speech and how it has been scrutinized in the digital age.

  3. jordaninnabi

    Anonymous is an interesting case, because they’re definitely not “slacktivists,” but sometimes their actions do more harm than good because their efforts aren’t legal and they undermine the work of people with more authority.

  4. William Lam

    I think this definitely falls in the middle ground. We’ve been discussing in class content filtering in a way that outlines it as ultimately bad, but in some cases such as this, it’s totally welcome. Now I just wonder what’s stopping Twitter and other domains from blocking other racists groups–or racists groups altogether? Content filtering in the sense of racism or even explicit content (in the way Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have always done) doesn’t seem to be a problem, but I wonder if there are people out there who will argue that it is.

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