Perfectly Imperfect

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been exploring how social media has played a substantial role in many social movements. Whether it’s #Ferguson, Kony 2012, or the Arab Spring, social media amplified the voices of participants and enabled these movements to organize and mobilize. And even though the impact is limited – and causation can’t be proved – it is evident that social media is a part of social movements and activism, and should be used for all it can offer. Social media has a strength, and it lies in the technology’s ability to broadcast messages on a grand level.

Notably, anyone can use the hashtag #Ferguson or #BlackLivesMatter, even if the post has nothing to do with the movement or actually comes from a negative point-of-view of these movements. This is important to understand, because in the case of global movements, language can be used to signify who is actually doing the talking.

In the case of the Arab Spring, language played a large role in how the movements were seen and interpreted in a world where English is the default. In comparing tweets from the Egypt uprising in comparison to the Libya uprising, researchers Axel Burns et al. observed the following:

We found that there is a substantially larger group of Arabic-speaking users participating in the #egypt discussion than in #libya… discussion under the #libya hashtag is likely to consist largely of outsiders looking in, rather than—as in #egypt—of locals and expatriates discussing the unfolding political crisis in their country.

While #Egypt contained tweets from people who were on the ground and actively involved in mobilization, #Libya was more often used by people who were making observations – think your traditional news media. Again, anyone can use a hashtag.

Which brings me to my main point – everyone is on social media. Yes, it’s not necessarily great that anyone can use the hashtag of a certain movement. But the ability to reach different people with your message is a strength that once was not available to the common person. Social media is a collection of different opinions and different thoughts from different people from different places and different backgrounds. It’s also where the attention is at.

A march can only be physically seen by a certain amount of people in a physical space at a certain amount of time. But a video of that same march can be seen by millions overnight. Of course, a march is more impactful than a social media post, but the ability of social media to spread a message on a broad scale outmatches that of physical reality.

To reach a world with your message, you must reach the world where the world is at. Social media doesn’t care about your language or location; it is open to all. Open to the messenger and the commentator, the protestor and the counter-protester, the good, the bad, and the ugly all in one. And if you aren’t the one to use social media for the good, someone else will use it for the bad.

Take, for instance, the country of my heritage, the Philippines. In the 1980s, a “People Power Revolution” toppled the more than two decades dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. This is before social media. As of today, his son – literally named Ferdinand Marcos Jr. – is President. How? Researchers and journalists credit his election to misinformation spreading on social media. Yes, social media can topple corrupt governments. It can also help to build them.

So, if you want to do good in the world, social media is a good starting point to spread your message. Be a good person, and counter the bad users. But don’t just stop there, even with social media’s broadness. Afterwards, use the physical world to mobilize, and make your case known.