Last night as I was winding down, getting ready for a night in front of the TV I logged onto Twitter to get an update on the Tottehnam riots. I was surprised to see Brixton trending.
Brixton had been hosting the annual Brixton Splash only hours earlier, an event I had planned to go to but unfortunately missed. Looking earlier at the photo's of people enjoying themselves en masse, dancing, eating, drinking, socialising and generally having a brilliant time, I was pleased that the event had taken place without any major incident.
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| Brixton Splash |
Brixton Splash was an event celebrating multi-cultural Brixton, even more poignant having read and watched the events unfolding in Tottenham only the night before.
But Brixton wasn't trending only because of the Splash. There were literally hundreds of posts about a supposed riot kicking off in Brixton, post stating that gangs of youths had descended on Brixton and were causing trouble.
Locals were quick to point out that actually there was no trouble, that they were in fact in Brixton at the time and apart from people milling about as expected after a festival there was nothing particularly newsworthy going on.
That didn't stop the rumours though. It was becoming a frenzy at this point. Windows were being smashed, shops looted and police were battling to stay in control. Except it wasn't happening. Pictures emerged of a looted H&M, which was actually miles away in North London.
The next thing I know, it was actually kicking off for real. The looting, the fires, the smashing of shop windows was actually happening for real. In the UK at least this is the first real rioting of any substantial size that has taken place during the Internet generation and it felt last night, like the Internet, in the absence of any credible, accurate and up to date information from the media was the place to turn to get an update.
Social media can be a brilliant tool - I have witnessed campaigns ranging from saving a local cinema to taking action against the stoning of an Iranian women but it can have it's downsides too. The hysteria building on Twitter last night about supposed riots in Brixton, long before anything had even kicked off was nothing short of a red rag to a bull.
So is Twitter and other social media fuelling the London riots, pouring fuel onto the proverbial and literal fire?
Today, similarly to the events of yesterday, locations around London appear to be trending, with tweets about riots taking place long before they actually seem to happen - Croydon, Deptford, New Cross, Lewisham, Brockley. Is it really that social media is the quickest way to get news out there or a self-fulling prophecy, waiting to happen because the rumours on Twitter say it is? I fear the latter.
The police have said that they will be looking at Twitter to see if there is evidence of people inciting violence and encouraging the looting and rioting that has spread across the capital. I guess that will be like looking for a needle in a haystack, what with the tweets, re-tweets and suchlike that occurs on the site.
It's not that I blame social media entirely. The saying goes that there is no smoke without fire and there have been brilliant efforts by people today to re-tweet messages of how to help and get involved in the clean-up in Brixton. As I said at the start social media can be a tool that has positive uses. But it is worrying.
What do you think? Has social media - Twitter, Facebook etc played a part in these riots?
A few months ago I received a mesage, via Facebook I think, to 'Save Sakineh Ashtiani', an Iranian woman who faced death by stoning for supposed (and apparently unsubstantiated) adultery and being an accomplice in her husband's murder.
I clicked the link, read about her plight and signed up to 'help'. Using an already provided template, I sent an email to a number of embassies around the world to higlight my outrage at this injustice. I felt good, I had done something positive and for the next few days I kept up to date with what was happening. 'Was the campaign working?' 'Was her sentence going to be quashed'?
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| Sakineh Ashtiani |
A few days later, I received another email. I forget the cause now, but it was the first of many I have received since. From Conflict Cocoa in the Ivory Coast (which I have blogged about previously) to fighting against the Tory Government cuts, it seems not a day goes by where there isn't a new cause to get involved in.
Now, after signing up to more than a dozen campaigns, sending emails and writing to various Governments, embassies and multinational companies, I am wondering if it is all really making a difference?
Does clictivism, the snazzy name given by the media, often done from the comfort of ones home, (armchair activism if you like), really work? I decided to look into it and found that there was a wealth of opinion on the subject, passionate discussions about the merits or ineffectiveness of clictivism.
I learnt that the name clicitivism comes from the fact that for many of the organisations involved in raising awareness of these causes, the number of 'clicks' was the barometer of success. The more people that opened an email the more successful a campaign.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, A/B testing, bounces, click through rates, referrals - these were the jargon and marketing techniques that according to some appeared to be most important. Organisations boasted of having millions of active members but in truth it appears that many of these 'members' rarely open the emails, or bother to click the links.
However, there were also examples of where these campaigns appear to have achieved the desired effect. According to the BBC, "much of the world has agreed not to buy cocoa from Ivory Coast until Laurent Gbagbo hands over power to Alassane Outtara, widely recognised as the winner of the November 2010 presidential election."
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| Egypt Protests |
The goings on in the Middle East over the last few weeks has shown that people power, protest and demonstration can have a huge effect and bring about change - in some of these cases even a change in the Government. Millions of angry and frustrated Egyptians, Tunisians and Libyans, as well as those from a host of other countries in the region have made their voices heard.
With media blackouts being imposed, mobile communications blocked and in some cases the internet being shut off there have been many internet and email based campaigns to raise funds for satellite equipment to allow those on the ground to communicate with each other and organise themselves. Other campaigns have asked us to sign petitions, or write to the various Governments to voice our concerns. Whilst millions of people in these affected countries risk their lives to fight for what they believe in, we are being asked to click on an email link.
On the one hand, there is the argument that something is better than nothing. An email sent, or a link clicked, is better than just watching things unfold without taking any action at all.
On the other, is that this is the easy way out, that it doesn't really involve taking any action at all. That with the number of causes fighting for our attention growing, the messages are being diluted.
I am unlikely to go and physically protest against all of the injustices in the world. To put it bluntly, I am just too busy, and that is probably the case for most of you reading this too. I think clicktivism does have its place, but its place as an effective method for bringing about change probably ranks lower than actual activism, the kind where you get up onto your feet.
Passionately worded emails and petitions would not have brought down the Government in Egypt or Tunisia. Marketing speak and SEO will be useless in defeating Gadaffi. In these cases it is the physical presence and actions of the people that will have the desired effect.
I will continue to be an armchair clicktivist, I will continue to be horrified by the injustices in the world and try in my own small way to 'do my bit', but I won't be under any illusions that the real activism is happening on the streets and involves more than a click of a few buttons.
So what of Sakineh Ashtiani? Well she gained a temporary reprieve from her sentence of being stoned to death but the fight for her freedom still goes on. Click here to save her.
