Digital Activism Decoded OFFICIAL
Digital Activism Decoded OFFICIAL
Digital Activism Decoded OFFICIAL
Glossary
Talia Whyte and Mary Joyce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Preface ix
Two Caveats on Bias and Certitude
Two caveats before we continue. First, a note about bias: The au-
thors in this anthology are not dispassionate observers of digital
activism. We study, analyze, and criticize digital activism because
we want it to succeed. We want to see a new world in which citi-
zens can use digital technologies to exercise their political power
more effectively. We are practical idealists and we hope this book
will inspire you to become one as well.
Second, though the title of this book is Digital Activism De-
coded, it would more accurately be called “Beginning to Decode
Digital Activism” or “The Extent to Which Digital Activism Has
Been Decoded Thus Far.” Although the current title certainly has
a better ring to it, these other two more accurately reflect the po-
sition of this book in the field. Digital activism is a new practice,
a new term, and a new field of study. In fact, this is the first book
explicitly dedicated to the topic.
Being first is important but far from glorious. No doubt, others
will improve on the work put forth in this book. No doubt, too, that
some of the predictions and formulations in this book may end
up being wrong or at least incomplete. Developers like to call the
first version of a piece of software they release 1.0, an appellation
that assumes 2.0 will follow. The field of digital activism needs
foundational knowledge. We humbly present this book as the first
stone and invite others to build upon and improve it.
Appreciation
We are unable to acknowledge all those who have made the pub-
lication of this book possible, but we would like to thank a few.
We would like to thank our editor, Eleanora von Dehsen, for her
kindness, wisdom, and energy in shepherding this book from con-
cept to publication, and Martin Greenwald at the Open Society
Institute/iDebate Press for believing in this project.
Mary Joyce
New Orleans
February 12, 2010
Notes
1. http://www.newtactics.org/node/6179 (accessed January 20, 2010).
Preface xi
Introduction: How to Think
About Digital Activism
Mary Joyce
T ec h n o l o gical I nfr a st ru ct ur e
The infrastructure of digital activism is based on the digital net-
work—an interconnected group of devices that use digital code to
transmit information. The beauty of networks is that connectivity
is distributed. Networks do not connect us only to the center, they
link us to each other as well. And, when large numbers of citizens
are able to more easily connect to one another, to send and re-
ceive original content, and to coordinate action, they are able to
create effective political movements.
Networks can be fashioned of different physical materials—
physical materials matter. The difference in materials from coun-
try to country provides a great example of how the interplay of
infrastructure, economic, social, and political factors leads to dif-
ferent digital activism outcomes. Modern cable infrastructure,
such as fiber optic, which transmits a signal more quickly, is more
expensive than older and slower cable—which might be made of
copper. Thus, those living in rich countries are likely to have faster
Internet connections than those living in poorer countries. Poli-
tics plays a role, too: in many developing countries, particularly
in Africa, state-owned firms have historically monopolized Inter-
net service, leading to higher prices. As a result, people in richer
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Infrastructure: Its Transformations
and Effect on Digital Activism
Trebor Scholz
The Internet has evolved into a single global matrix where activ-
ists gain real-time international attention for their struggles. More
than forty years ago, the Net started out as a military-scientific
project, consisting of no more than four university nodes. When
officially opened for commercial use in the mid-1990s, however,
the Net had grown to be a large international network. Many ac-
tivists initially rejected this commercialization; today such dis-
missal of the profit-driven services online would simply disadvan-
tage political activists. The history of the Internet is full of cultural
experiments, with declarations of independence from corporatist
forces and stories about empowerment. Such empowerment de-
volved not only to activists and libertarians but also to dictators
and others of their ilk.
Tim Berners-Lee cautioned that the Web is not just about buy-
ing books from Amazon.com and added that it is also not some
“idealized space where we must remove our shoes, eat only fallen
Conclusion
While the infrastructure of the Internet was first defined by strug-
gles over protocols of the network itself, the commercialization
of the Web in the mid-1990s led to more user-friendly services
that allowed people to focus on content instead of having to con-
centrate on code. The public discussion moved from the network
(protocols, ownership) to the tools and services that the Internet
makes available. This chapter tracked the move from individual
websites to customized templates, from small experiments with
autonomy like Digitale Stad to political activism on large privately
owned social utilities like Facebook.
Today, the Web is a highly centralized, commercial, winner-
takes-all environment. Activists have realized that they can’t just
dream a better future into existence, they have to be present in the
places where they can reach large numbers of people. New social
media add to the activist repertoire and, while they are not by any
means a magical solution to the complex problems facing today’s
activists, they can help to loosen the grip of repressive regimes. In
fact, that’s where they are most effective.
While this chapter acknowledges the possibilities of acts of
digital activism on a corporate social networking service, we
certainly should continue to support the building of sustainable,
long-term, noncommercial infrastructures like the activist social
networking site Crabgrass. The danger of overwhelming commer-
cialism is that the resultant monoculture enforces digital cages
on the Web—for example, choosing to leave (or never join) Face-
book is a difficult decision because its millions of users make the
Notes
1. Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole
Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (Chicago: University of Chicago,
2006), 9.
2. Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web: The Original Design and the Ultimate
Destiny of the World Wide Web (New York: Collins Business, 2000), 86.
3. Geert Lovink, Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 2003), 237.
4. Nicholas Carr, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (W.
W. Norton: New York, 2008), 110.
5. Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web , 2.
6. Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web, 57.
7. Reinde R. Rustema, “The Rise and Fall of DGS” (doctoral thesis, University
of Amsterdam, October 8, 2008), http://reinder.rustema.nl/dds/ rise_and_fall_
dds.html.
8. Dorothy Kidd, “The IMC: A New Model,” Journal of the World Association for
Christian Communication (2003. Web. 13 Jan. 2010. https://docs.indymedia.org/
pub/Global/ImcEssayCollection/IMC_a_New_Model.pdf (accessed January 12,
2010).
9. Salem Pax, Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi (New York:
Grove, 2003). 137.
Introduction
The widespread adoption of online communication leads to social
change, which offers the potential to bring about a major reshuf-
fling of established power structures. Such realignment provides
an unprecedented chance for political activists to gain influence
for their causes.
All activism (and change) brings with it risks. One group of
political activists might be able to use online communication ef-
fectively to organize collective action, while another might en-
danger its members and supporters through an easily traceable
digital data trail. A group of activists might adopt a digital tool too
early—before that tool gets widespread social traction—or suc-
cessfully integrate a digital tool in the workflow of their organiza-
tion and achieve a higher degree of efficiency only to have the
tool discontinued a week later.
In this chapter, we discuss some of the issues that arise for ac-
tivists when they adopt innovative technological tools. Since each
group of political activists faces specific, individual challenges, we
cannot deliver a blueprint of 10 neatly organized bullet points. In-
stead, we try to discuss some of the issues that activist groups will
need to address when thinking about the adoption of innovative
digital technology.
T h e H y pe C yc le
The Hype Cycle is a concept that research and consultancy firm
Gartner, Inc. developed in 1995 to analyze the adoption cycle of
technologies. This concept has since has proven to be a valuable
tool in understanding the popularity trends of new technologies.
The Hype Cycle helps companies and institutions with the
decision about when to adopt a new technology by determining
when the “buzz” around a new technology has died down. Since
the adoption of new technology always incurs costs and a change
in processes, any organization considering such investment wants
to be certain that the technology can do what it claims and will
have some staying power.
A d opti on P ha s e s
For political activists, understanding the possible future develop-
ments of a new technology is important, but also important to
understand is your audience and supporters. Different user types
can be distinguished by their willingness to adopt new technolo-
gies. If the supporters of a given group of political activists consist
mainly of early adopters, who jump on every new technological
trend, the group might benefit from adopting new technologies
quickly without too much thought about any long-term potential.
If a supporter group consists mainly of those without access to
technology or with a conservative attitude toward technological
change, an activist group might be better advised to wait before
adopting a new technology until it is adopted by the mainstream.
As always, a one-size-fits-all solution does not exist; each group of
activists must decide for themselves when they and a new tech-
nology are ready for each other.
Hosting Pros
• You completely control the data and information.
• You can customize the service to best fit your needs.
Hosting Cons
• You’re on your own if something goes wrong.
• Hosting is generally more costly than using free services.
• Hosting requires an extra degree of technological prowess (al-
though you can probably find someone willing to donate time
to your cause).
Data Ris k s
Lost Privacy—privacy online is difficult to maintain. Be assured
that no matter how reliable and private you think a site’s content
might be, a way for the information to leak exists. This becomes
a very serious issue when privacy is a prerequisite for safety. The
best way to keep sensitive information private is to keep it offline
in the first place. If that isn’t possible, discuss the issue with a 3rd
party administrator to understand the risks or host the informa-
tion yourself on a technology you know is secure.
Lost Access—maybe the site went down temporarily or maybe
content was removed from a 3rd party system by an administra-
tor. Either way, you suddenly don’t have access to the information.
To avoid the problem, make sure you can send messages of high
importance through multiple systems. For instance, instead of just
posting on a Facebook wall, also set up an external site to display
important announcements.
Lost Content—be it a hacker, a disk crash, or a bug in someone’s
code, content can unexpectedly disappear forever. For material
P r oce s s Ri sks
Changing Terms of Service—if you are using someone else’s site
and they change the terms of service, you might be left with terms
you don’t like. Try to get a feel for the culture of the tool before
you start using it. Is it a corporation whose mission statement
involves saving the world? Is it an open source project? If you
want to be sure you won’t find yourself between a rock and a hard
place, make sure you have a backup plan if you ever need to make
a fast switch.
Altered Features—the tool you are using may well change its fea-
ture set and remove the reason you wanted to use it in the first
place. Pay attention to the buzz surrounding whatever you are
using. Modern sites often have developer blogs with information
about planned changes before they are implemented. If you are
hosting your own software, just make sure you know what is in
updates before installing them.
Unreliable Service—maybe a site is regularly taken down for
maintenance or it is censored in certain parts of the world. If the
downtime is regularly scheduled, learn its maintenance schedule
ahead of time. If you think the downtime will be unacceptable or
unpredictable, try to provide a secondary service for backup use.
T r end Ri sks
Dwindling User Base—maybe something new is out there, or
maybe people have just lost interest, but folks simply aren’t par-
ticipating anymore. Stay on top of technology trends and pay at-
tention to what’s popular and what isn’t. If you think the technol-
ogy you’ve invested in is on the way out, try to tie your current
Conclusion
All of this might sound scary—it sort of is—but remember the
countless examples of activists who were able to achieve amaz-
ing feats through cutting-edge technology and organizational pro-
cesses. Their successes came about because somebody was cou-
rageous enough to experiment, even when that meant spending
time hanging precariously by a thin technological thread. You get
to learn from their precedent.
To further increase your chances of integrating technology
with your daily routine in a way that goes beyond aimless tinker-
ing and chance, here are a few final guidelines:
Remember the three questions: What are your goals? How do
things work now? And what resources are available to you? To
become successful in the adoption of new technology, first and
foremost you have to ask the right questions. Without them you
have little chance of finding a good solution.
Build redundancies: Remember that failures are inevitable. This
is the way things work and there is nothing wrong with it. There
is only one thing you can do about it: Build redundancies. Build
a fail-safe. If a new technology fails, breaks down, or misbehaves,
have something reliable ready to take over. Maybe that some-
thing is an old technology that would have gotten the job done
Notes
1. For a more complete discussion of the Hype Cycle, its development, and
its success, see the great book Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to Choose the Right
Innovation at the Right Time (2008) by Jackie Fenn and Mark Raskino.
The turn of the twenty-first century has seen the rise of mobile
phones as powerful devices that have transformed how people
create and share information. Organizations and activists are har-
nessing the power of mobile technologies to improve and expand
campaigns, better coordinate activities and demonstrations, and
increase awareness about social issues. Activists, armed with
either low-cost, basic mobile handsets or more complex smart
phones, are capable of instantly connecting with their network of
colleagues and supporters.
S MS
The use of SMS is central to mobile activism, in part because the
price of sending text messages is low enough in most countries
that it is rarely an impediment to subscribers. Texting has become
a common communication tool in many developing countries
where making voice calls remains prohibitively expensive. Using
SMS is also more efficient and less time-consuming than making
a voice call.
Activists have used SMS in a variety of innovative ways, in-
cluding to recruit supporters, share information, and facilitate the
movement of people before and during a demonstration. In 2006,
the Republican National Committee (RNC) encouraged people to
become supporters by texting “JOIN” to a specific short code—
a phone number with fewer numbers than a regular telephone
number, making it easier to remember. These supporters would
later receive text message updates from the RNC about campaign
efforts. During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, organizers for
Barack Obama integrated SMS into their overall campaign strat-
egy as well. They effectively conducted a successful campaign by
texting supporters to make announcements, share reminders to
vote, and promote speeches. Among the many official and unof-
ficial efforts to encourage citizens to vote in the 2008 U.S. presi-
dential elections, YrMama4Obama (http://yrmama4obama.com)
called on individuals of voting age as well as children under 18 to
B u l k Te x t M e ssagin g
New developments in SMS service have enabled mobile phone
users to send bulk text messages—a very useful strategy for advo-
cacy organizations seeking to send a unified message or pertinent
information to supporters. These services can reach large num-
bers of people much more quickly than other mechanisms, like
electronic mailing lists, that require an Internet connection. Two
of the most widely used platforms are TxtMob and FrontlineSMS.
TxtMob was first used by protesters at the U.S. Democratic and
Republican national conventions in 2004 to warn about the loca-
V ide o and P ho to
One powerful method activists and protesters use to garner at-
tention is sharing of video and photographs captured on mobile
phones. Nowadays, most cell phones have a built-in camera, and
many also support video. YouTube enables registered users to up-
load videos from their phone directly to a YouTube account. User-
generated content can easily be shared not only with contacts
but also with local and international media outlets, thus quickly
reaching millions worldwide.
In September 2007, images and videos disseminated via mo-
bile phones showed the world Burma’s military junta violently
repressing antigovernment protests by Buddhist monks. The
government had attempted to present only a sanitized version
of the demonstrations, repressing any news about violence. Nev-
ertheless, foreign media outlets, many of which the government
prevented from reporting inside the country’s borders, were able
to share news of the events because they had access to trans-
missions from citizen journalists. Similarly disseminated were the
June 2009 opposition rallies and protests in Tehran and other ma-
jor Iranian cities that followed the presidential elections. Many
Iranian citizens alleged that the election results were fraudulent
Ring t o ne s
Another tactic many advocacy organizations use to raise aware-
ness about causes is to offer downloadable ringtones on their
websites. Having a ringtone that is related to a particular social
or political campaign enables individuals to show their support of,
and solidarity with, an issue. The Center for Biological Diversity,
based in New Mexico, offers the sounds of endangered species
(rareearthtones.org) to raise awareness about the issue. As part
of a 2008 campaign to fight the spread of HIV in India and pro-
mote socially responsible behavior, the BBC World Trust offered
a ringtone aimed at breaking down the social taboo of using a
condom. To promote the “condom a cappella” ringtone, the Trust
produced a funny commercial in which the mobile phone of a
man attending a wedding goes off blaring, “Condom! Condom!”
The commercial directs viewers to a website (www.condomcon-
dom.org) to download a similar ringtone.
T witte r
Activists are increasingly using Twitter, a free micro-blogging
service, to share information, coordinate activities, and organize
movements during an event. Twitter allows people to commu-
nicate by posting short messages, up to 140 characters, to their
news feeds. Users can send and receive Twitter feeds through
their computers, mobile applications, or SMS, and also choose
other users whose feeds they would like to follow. The Twitter
platform provides a search function where users can search using
keywords and hashtags. For example, those interested in seeing if
Smart Mo bbing
Forming a smart mob is one of the most common forms of mobile
activism. The term was coined by scholar Howard Rheingold in
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (2002). A smart mob is a
group of people who cooperate and coordinate their actions pri-
marily through the use of mobile phones, PDAs (Personal Digital
Assistant), and SMS. Smart mobs usually lack centralized control,
although sometimes activist groups will be primarily responsible
“ So u sveillance ”
The growth in applications available for mobile devices also in-
creases the potential for average citizens to actively monitor gov-
ernment, law enforcement, and corporate action. Corruption, po-
lice brutality, and corporate crime have become harder to conceal
The truth now, stop the manipulation, your war, our dead.
Pass it on!
Bar r ier s t o U se
Cost and lack of coverage are primary factors in the reluctance
of advocacy organizations to use mobile technologies. Obviously,
most organizations aim for making the maximum impact at the
minimum cost. Unfortunately, the cost of purchasing, setting up,
and maintaining mobile devices can be significant. Some mobile
service providers do offer cheaper fees for nongovernmental or-
ganizations, however.
While infrastructure to support the use of mobiles in rural and
underserved locations is growing, and mobile coverage is often
easier to put in place than is an Internet connection, many areas
in developed and developing countries still have no service avail-
able. In addition, in some areas with unreliable or limited hours of
Notes
1. B. Wellman, “Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism” in
Digital Cities II: Computational and Sociological Approaches, ed. M. Tanable, P. van
den Besselaar, and T. Ishida, (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2002), 10–25.
Skills
While many of the arguments for increased access are compel-
ling, what happens when people actually do get access to digital
technologies? Will they know how to look for information on the
Net using a search engine? Will they know how to connect to oth-
ers online, whether by sending an email, signing an online peti-
tion, or starting a group on a social network? These are legitimate
questions for all activists who wish to expand the reach and power
of digital technologies. Those who believe that having access to
digital technology is not enough to close the digital divide point
out that an individual, group, or organization must know how to
use the technologies to take full advantage of them as activists. It
is for this reason that we now focus on the digital divide of skills.
St r ategy a s a S k i ll
Once we move beyond the issue of gaining the skills needed to
navigate digital technologies, a marked divide remains between
those who know how to use these tools and those who know how
to build a strategy around them. The use of technology in the
2009 post-election protests in Iran offers an interesting example
of the effects of different technical skill sets. Although from the
outside it appeared that opposition elements in Iran were quite
Censorship
So far we have looked at unintentional causes of the digital divide
in activism: access hindered or helped by economic and cultural
factors and unequal skills. However, sometimes governments step
in to intentionally divide the digital universe for political reasons.
Two Cautions
First, we should refrain from drawing too much from any one of
the very small number of cases that have played out at a national
level to date. The cases do provide some insight into how activ-
ism occurs, but to suggest that they collectively reveal anything
more than a partial range of possibilities would be drawing stron-
ger conclusions than I believe are warranted. The history of social
movements is complex and diverse, and the use of digital tools
connected by an ever-more-extensive digital network is only the
latest innovation in an ever-expanding repertoire of action.
Second, we must recognize the complex prerequisites involved
in embracing the practices and tools that underpin movement-
like digital modes of production—of which Wikipedia continues
to be the exemplar. In January 2001, many believed it was im-
probable to have an encyclopedia written and edited entirely by
hundreds of volunteers. Today, Wikipedia harnesses the labors of
more than 140,000 individuals in any 30-day period. What is often
ignored in the story of Wikipedia are its failed precursors—Rick
Gates’s Interpedia first described in 1993 and Richard Stallman’s
Open G overnance
In societies where political leaders and state institutions under-
stand both the power of digital activism and the opportunity it
presents for doing tasks differently, digital activists will likely be
able to play a significant role as the structures of governance
change. Such governments will embed digital networks of con-
tention and cooperation into their operations, seeking to engage
cooperative networks externally and recognizing oppositional
networks as they arise as legitimate actors. In this context, gov-
ernments and activists will likely learn the new dynamics and the
political system will tend to move through the transition with the
least amount of upheaval.
Ag n o stic G overnance
Democratic governments that fail to recognize the emergence of
digital activism, its possibilities, and the threat to established in-
stitutions will likely misunderstand any activism that occurs. Ac-
tivists will find themselves in opposition and underappreciated.
More than likely, such governments will misjudge the power of
nascent movements and accede to their demands when unneces-
sary and refuse to compromise when it is in their interest. The
transition to a world where digital activism plays a role in gover-
nance will be bumpy, as traditionally strong institutions are chal-
lenged and the concept that activists can play a supportive role
will be unacknowledged.
Conclusion
In the short run, digital activists, who often have few options when
opposing governments, tend to exploit technology more quickly
than those they challenge, who are constrained by bureaucratic
decision-making structures. Whether, in the long run, power will
shift from repressive governments to activists is unclear. An ar-
gument can be made that as long as the Internet is open and
permits people to connect using ever-changing technology, its
infrastructure will favor those who can adapt quickly. What also
must be recognized is that, to date, digital activism has not been
completely eliminated in any state where it has been able to gain
a foothold.
However, stepping back from the passion and energy of the
activists involved, we must be skeptical and temper our expecta-
tions, being careful not to mistake novelty for political transforma-
tion. Flashmobs in the squares of capitals that don’t normally see
protest, asking questions of a sitting president over the Web, and
editing policy documents online are redolent of the same novelty
that “click here to send a message to your congressperson” had in
1999, courtesy of MoveOn.org, or that fax-centric advocacy did
earlier in the 1990s.
In many ways, this activity just replicates earlier periods where
advances in communications technologies permitted political
Notes
1. http://www.rferl.org/content/Moldovas_Twitter_Activist_Under_House_
Arrest/1610122.html (accessed February 15, 2010).
2. See http://www.reteaparty.com/teaparties/ and http://teapartypatriots.
org/Groups.aspx (accessed February 14, 2010) to observe the breadth of the
activism.
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Activism Transforms Digital: The
Social Movement Perspective
Anastasia Kavada
Called the SPIN model (an acronym referring to the main char-
acteristics of decentralized structures (Segmented, Polycentric,
INtegrated), the decentralized architecture described by Gerlach
and Hine seems to apply to current social movements as well.
Decentralized structures seem to be facilitated and reinforced
through the use of the Internet. In the case of the GJM, the Inter-
net is thought to drive the movement toward more flexible and
nonhierarchical types of organization, which reflect its own de-
centralized structure. For instance, according to Prof. Lance Ben-
nett1, the network that coordinated the Seattle protests was not a
conventional organization but a “hyper-organization” that existed
mainly online in the form of a tightly linked cluster of websites.
The drive toward more decentralized forms of organizing has
been attributed both to the low cost of the Internet and its capac-
ity for interactive and multimodal communication: Internet com-
munication can range from synchronous to asynchronous, from
mass to interpersonal, from local to global. Unlike other means of
communication, the Internet cannot be centrally controlled. This
facilitates the development of transnational, diverse, and loosely
connected activist networks that are now able to organize pro-
tests and wage campaigns without a formal membership base,
physical headquarters, or identifiable leaders.
Conclusion
Social movements are complex, loose, and fluid actors made up
of networks of informal interactions among diverse participants.
While online tools help them to organize in a decentralized way,
they do not guarantee stability and continuity. Instead, they favor
inclusive activist networks that evolve organically and easily shift
their focus according to emerging opportunities.
Notes
1. Lance Bennett, “Social Movements Beyond Borders: Understanding Two
Eras of Transnational Activism” in Transnational Protest and Global Activism, ed. D.
della Porta and S. Tarrow, 203–226 (New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield,
2005).
2. However, it is worth noting that according to its central website, www.
Indymedia.org, Indymedia is not “a conscious mouthpiece of any particular
point of view,” even though “many Indymedia organizers and people who post
to the Indymedia newswires are supporters of the ‘anti-globalization’ (alternative
globalization, anti-corporatization) movement.”
3. L. Rodgers, “Eco-Activists Prepare for Protest.” (BBC News Online, March
27, 2009). Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7961868.stm (Accessed
August 15, 2009).
4. For more information, see Anastasia Kavada, “Email Lists and the Con-
struction of an Open and Multifaceted Identity: The Case of the London 2004
European Social Forum,” Information, Communication & Society 12, no. 6 (2009):
817–839.
5. Lance Bennett and Amoshaun Toft, “Identity, Technology, and Narratives:
Transnational Activism and Social Networks,” in Handbook of Internet Politics, A.
Chadwick and P. N. Howard (London and New York: Routledge, 2008): 246–260.
Notes
1. The Web Ecology Project, “The Iran Election on Twitter: The First Eighteen
Days,” http://www.webecologyproject.org/2009/06/iran-election-on-twitter/
(accessed Aug 15, 2009).
Tactics
In this chapter, destructive digital activism is divided into five cat-
egories: blocking access; destroying and defacing virtual prop-
erty; organizing malicious activity; misusing information; and
attacking critical infrastructure. In each of these forms of destruc-
tive activism, the inherent capacities of the Internet are manipu-
lated to cause harm either to persons or property. In the case
of blocking access, particularly the distributed denial of service
(DDoS) attack, the protocol by which information is requested
from a website is misused to overwhelm the response capacity
of the site’s server and prevent the site from responding to le-
gitimate requests—in effect, shutting down the site. In the case of
destroying and defacing property, the server on which the web-
site is stored is again the target of the attack, though in this case
the server—which is little more than a specialized computer—is
hacked in order to gain access to and vandalize the site’s code.
Conclusion
Looking forward, the effectiveness of destructive digital activism
is likely to grow as we rely on the Internet more and more in
our daily lives. And, despite the inevitable lag, law enforcement’s
ability to catch and prosecute digital activists will also increase.
Just as the tools used by activists are often driven by criminal
innovation, the experience and legislative support law enforce-
ment gains as it investigates cybercrime will help agencies track
down digital activists, making such tactics a less attractive option.
Technological improvements will also help resist attacks. Today,
criminals and activists are often able to circumvent existing pro-
tections, but this could change. Whether we see these advances
as positive or negative depends on whether we believe the initial
act was justified. While these advances would help the victims of
harassment, they would also remove an avenue for protest that
many consider legitimate.
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Measuring the Success of Digital
Campaigns
Dave Karpf
Conclusion
The digital revolution provides social change proponents with
a dizzying array of tools. Between the heightened power of
Moneyed Interests
The harassment or arrest of activists for Internet-based political
campaigns is the core study of this chapter. Antigovernment ac-
tion is not the only risky behavior engaged in by digital activists,
however. Whistle-blowers and activists exposing the wrongdoing
of corporations are constantly at risk of being sued. Especially
in Western countries, where copyright and trademark laws are
strong, infringement of these laws has often been used against
whistle-blowers.
In many cases, the legal expenses alone make mounting a de-
fense (a court case can go through several appeals) impossible for
bloggers or activists; they are, accordingly, forced to remove their
posts. Where the law does not provide corporations with a legal
means of silencing their critics, corruption and cronyism can still
deny activists justice. In January 2009, an Egyptian court fined
Mohammed Mabrouk for blogging about environmental pollution
by, and working conditions at, a chemical company. In a sentence
called “overly harsh” and “an unacceptable violation of freedom
of expression” by the Arab Network for Human Rights Informa-
tion, Mabrouk was ordered to pay a fine of about US$450 plus
more than US$7200 in compensation to the company he alleg-
edly libeled. Activists who commit themselves to environmental
or workers’ issues are especially vulnerable to the strength of en-
tangled economic and political interests.
Generally, arrests based on attacks on powerful economic in-
terests are most likely to be made by the local police. Arrests that
take into account, or are solely based on, an activist belonging to
Targeted Groups
The above examples clearly show that the reasons given and
those actually behind an arrest are rarely identical. In general,
I propose to differentiate two patterns of arrests. Pattern one is
arrests of individuals in response to a specific action; pattern two
is the detentions of activists affiliated with some kind of group.
Both patterns are common, though pattern two is most common
in countries under authoritarian rule.
I would like to distinguish four different kinds of targeted
groups: political parties, civil rights movements, religions, and
ethnic minorities. While affiliations with these groups are not mu-
tually exclusive—because no clear line exists between parties and
movements or those who belong to both ethnic and religious mi-
norities—some distinctions about their treatment can be made.
P o l itical Partie s
Egypt has a strong culture of digital activism, with some of the
most impressive uses of digital technologies for political opposi-
tion originating there. But the Egyptian regime also has a long his-
tory of repressing political parties and has never shied away from
arresting even the most prominent cyber-dissidents.
Many of the country’s digital activists are either members of
the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood or one of the liberal parties that
make up the Kefaya coalition. Bloggers and digital activists asso-
ciated with the Muslim Brotherhood, by far the largest opposition
party in Parliament, are special targets and are regularly harassed
and detained.
Rel ig i o us G rou ps
Religious discrimination is particularly concentrated in Islamic
countries, where evangelizing for any other religion or converting
to another religion is often considered to be a crime. Saudi Arabia,
in particular, has repeatedly arrested individuals who posted on-
line about their conversion to Christianity; similar instances can
be found in Iran. Egypt, where Copts make up more than 10 per-
cent of the population, has repeatedly arrested members of this
ancient branch of Christianity.
Atheist bloggers and activists, too, have been victims of per-
secution in many places. Again, they are most at risk in Islamic
countries. When atheist Kareem Amer, the first blogger to be sen-
tenced in Egypt, was sent to prison for four years, three of those
years were given for “defamation of Islam.” Other nonbelieving
activists throughout the Arab world have also been imprisoned,
many of them from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But belonging to a particular religious group is not the only
reason for government repression of digital activists. China has
repeatedly arrested those who reported on marginalized religious
groups such as the Roman Catholic underground church.
Citizen Leaders
“Twitter revolutions”—uprisings instigated through the use of
digital technologies—have led to another category of arrest. Be-
cause social media-powered activism does not need strong hi-
erarchies, governments often have trouble finding a campaign’s
leaders. When citizen leaders do rise to prominence, they are
often persecuted. For example, on April 6, 2008, workers in the
Egyptian textile industry went on strike, attracting a lot of atten-
tion. A Facebook group started by Esraa Abdel Fattah called for a
nationwide general strike in solidarity with the workers and was
one way information about the workers’ grievances and the strike
itself was disseminated. Prior to the date of the strike, Egyptian
authorities, fearing that the unrest would spread, had started to
arrest activists who supported the workers. “The police simply
arrested people they knew as they had no exact information as to
who was behind the disturbances,” noted the journalism advocacy
Forms of Persecution
Arrests are not the only form of persecution; in many cases, gov-
ernment officials intimidate activists through harassment, which
can range from phone calls and insulting or threatening com-
ments on blog posts to visits at the home or workplace of an ac-
tivist. Authorities threaten to harm not only the activist, but also
his or her family, to try to silence critical voices.
Many regimes restrict the international travel of both online
and offline activists. China has repeatedly refused to let critics
leave the country to receive awards, while Saudi Arabia has put a
general travel ban on many of that country’s activists. Some activ-
ists, returning home from abroad, have been held at airports for
hours and often have their personal belongings, especially their
laptops and memory devices, confiscated.
Activists have also been summoned to police stations. In Chi-
na, this practice has become known as “being invited for tea.”
Once at the station, a person is held for hours. My research has
found that approximately one in seven arrests did not last longer
than a single day. Most of these short arrests are actually aimed
Bloggers in Prison
My research shows that the average time a blogger spends in pris-
on is 87 days, and we can safely assume that other digital activists
are treated similarly. It is interesting to note that arrest and in-
carceration figures vary significantly. In 2003, Sina Motallebi was
not only the first but also the only blogger to be arrested. In the
following years, the number of bloggers arrested has risen. How-
ever, 2008 saw fewer new arrests (39) than in 2007 (44). Because
of the number of long-term prisoners, however, 2008 was the year
in which more bloggers than ever before were in prison. A total
of 61 individuals—4 more than in 2007—spent some time behind
bars within those 12 months.
Long-term prisoners who sometimes have been in jail for
years, significantly affect the statistics, skewing the average up.
If we remove those who were still in jail as of August 1, 2009,
the average jail term for bloggers sinks drastically—from 87 to 32
days. Clearly, a small group of detained bloggers experiences the
extreme hardship of extended incarceration. On August 1, 2009,
at least 14 bloggers had already been in jail for more than a year
and were still awaiting their release.
Countries that detain bloggers most frequently do not neces-
sarily detain them for long periods. A look at the data from the
three countries that repress bloggers the most—China, Egypt,
Countermeasures
Unreliable judicial systems make it impossible for digital activ-
ists to be sure that their actions are within the law. Even where
authorities respect national laws, those laws may not include hu-
man and civil rights protections; they may also restrict freedom
of expression and leave little room for activism. I have written a
great deal about what states do to limit activism, but online activ-
ists have found three ways to avoid persecution: anonymity, fame,
and the use of campaigns.
A no ny mity
Anonymity is the principal way online activists avoid persecu-
tion. Activists can protect their anonymity by posting under a
pseudonym, using a proxy Web browser that hides the IP address
of their computer, encrypting data that are stored or transmit-
ted from their computer, and never revealing personal informa-
tion online. While these measures can help achieve a high level
of anonymity, absolute safety can never be achieved as govern-
ments are becoming more and more sophisticated in tracking the
Fame
Fame, anonymity’s counterpart, is also a much-discussed way to
avoid persecution. Many activists assume that public outrage will
protect a famous individual from retaliation by the state. In some
cases, fame can protect an activist, in other cases it can lead to
problems. When the prominent Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El-
Fattah was detained in 2006 during a protest in support of an
independent judiciary, an international group of activists put to-
gether the Free Alaa campaign to demand his release. After 45
days, Abd El-Fattah was indeed released. He later reported that
his elevated profile had actually kept him in prison longer, since
he was perceived by authorities as being a more important fig-
ure, though he also acknowledged that the fame the campaign
C ampaign s
If fame and anonymity cannot save activists from being detained,
can the efforts of others offer them any protection when they are
imprisoned? Campaigns attempt to confer fame on an activist
and, as noted in the case of Alaa Abd El-Fattah, are sometimes
able to protect those who are imprisoned.
Successful campaigns include the one to free the Moroccan
prankster Fouad Mourtada, imprisoned for creating a joke profile
of the king’s brother on Facebook, and a campaign to free the
Islamist blogger Abdel Monem Mahmoud in Egypt, presumably
detained for his condemnation of state-sponsored torture. Both
campaigns resulted in freedom for the activist, though other fac-
tors, such as mainstream media attention and the domestic and
international political climate, also played an important role.
The case of Kareem Amer, who was sentenced to four years
in prison in early 2007, and which I have cited so often in this
chapter, has also attracted much attention because of the Free
Kareem campaign that digital activist Esra’a Al Shafei has been
Notes
1. As with all statistics in this chapter, I acknowledge a margin of error and
that other bodies collecting statistics on this topic, such as the Threatened Voices
Project of Global Voices Advocacy and Reporters Without Borders, may have
different figures than mine. I have made a good-faith effort to produce accurate
statistics despite the efforts of many governments to obscure the truth about
their political prisoners, and I apologize for any inaccuracies.
Use email 73% 94% 93% 90% 90% 91% 79% 91%
Digital Activism Decoded has mapped the past and present of digi-
tal activism. How can we now build its future? The field’s ulti-
mate success or failure will be determined by the daily practice
of digital activists. For digital activists to succeed in using digital
tools in contests against the forces of oppression and injustice,
those practices must continually increase in effectiveness. Thus,
the success of digital activism lies in creating sustainable means
for the continual improvement of practice.
Glossary 219
communities. Whether for intellectual developing the software. Software
stimulation or social banter, netizens developed in a closed system is most
communicate with other online users often sold by the developing company
with a variety of tools, including blogs, at a profit.
email, Facebook, Twitter, and a host of
online activism: The practice of using
other social networks.
the Internet to increase the effective-
netroots: A combination of “Inter- ness of a social or political change
net” and “grassroots,” the term refers campaign.
to political activists who organize
phishing: An illegal attempt to acquire
through online social media. It is par-
sensitive, personal information by
ticularly associated with progressives
falsely assuming the identity of a
in the United States. The annual Net-
person or organization trusted by the
roots Nation convention, which seeks
recipient of an online communication.
to be the center of this movement, is
A common example of phishing is to
an outgrowth of a yearly meeting of
send mass emails requesting banking
people associated with the influential
information or usernames and pass-
progressive blog “DailyKos.”
words for email accounts.
online organizing: The use of the
SIM card: A device found in mobile
Internet to increase the effectiveness
phones, usually a small piece of
of the community organizing model, a
plastic, that contains the subscriber
system developed by trade unions that
identity module (SIM) that uniquely
defines how grassroots organizations
identifies a user to the mobile phone
should advance the political interests
network on which his or her calls are
of their members. Like community
routed. The card holds personal iden-
organizing, online organizing includes
tity information such as a user’s phone
recruitment though personal net-
number, email accounts, and text mes-
works, volunteer labor, and empower-
sages and can be switched between
ment of community leaders. While
different phones, thus allowing a user
strategies remain largely the same as
to make calls from multiple handsets
in the pre-Internet era, these activities
while retaining the same phone num-
are now supported by digital tools
ber and contact information.
like email, social networks, sophisti-
cated supporter databases, and online smart mob: A type of rational yet
events tools. loosely connected social organiza-
tion, made possible by the ubiquity of
open source: A means of producing
networked communication devices.
software in which the source code
Such devices and their associated
is accessible to anyone who wishes
information-sharing practices allow for
to examine or improve it. Because
self-structuring among members. The
open source code is freely accessible,
term was coined in 2002 by Howard
the resulting software is also often
Rheingold. The flashmob is a type of
available for free to the end user. This
smart mob.
practice of software production differs
from a closed or proprietary means of SMS: Short message service (SMS),
production—wherein code is a closely also referred to as texting or text
guarded secret and considered to be messaging, allows for short messages,
the intellectual property of the firm usually 140 characters in length, to
Glossary 221
About the Authors