By Maria Chirvanian | Staff Writer
Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of sexual abuse and genocide.
The internet realm has revolutionized activism in a time when social media platforms work as the virtual town square, hashtags are the new protest signs, and digital connectivity unites passionate individuals into a global collective. Today, most people use social media, and a big percentage of these users have taken part in online activism to voice opinions, raise awareness, help causes, etc. The reasons are endless, and so are the posts. However, with the rise of this very new type of activism, questions have also risen on the validity of it, and on the extent of the impact it has on current situations. While there is no denying that social media has definitely played a part in shaping opinions on certain situations happening and even helped information reach an unimaginably wide audience in a small amount of time, one cannot help but doubt the true power online activism has to really change people, mindsets, situations, behaviors, for the better. In this article, we will explore how users partake in this trend, and whether it really is as useful as one would expect.
Unity is a concept many have thrived to achieve, but only a few have succeeded. In this day and age, online activism has played a huge role in bringing people with shared opinions and ideas together, and that is one of its most important aspects, if not its most important. Social media has provided us with platforms to voice our concerns, our experiences, and find people who have undergone similar events. The “me too.” movement was founded in 2006 by Tarana Burke, a sexual assault survivor and activist, on Myspace, to support other survivors of sexual abuse and raise awareness about the issue (Brittain, 2024). Later on in 2017, actress Alyssa Milano’s tweet about producer Harvey Weinstein assaulting her using the hashtag #MeToo went viral and encouraged so many people, mainly women, to come forward with sexual harrassment claims, especially those in the workplace (Brittain, 2024). Today, this event is popularly known as the #MeToo movement.
You might be wondering, how did the #MeToo movement create impact in reality, outside of the virtual world? Well, other than the obvious fact that it brought women who have survived previous sexual assault together through social media platforms and, eventually, protests on the streets, this campaign led to some changes in law, such as the implementation of mandatory sexual harrassment training in the workplace (like in New York City, for example) and the elimination of NDAs whose purpose is to stop employees from speaking up, and keep settlements secret (Speak Out Act) (Brittain, 2024). This is a case where an Internet campaign had gained such popularity, bringing together women worldwide, to the point where it was able to create real impact.
Another case we can tackle is the genocide currently happening in Gaza. Ever since Hamas’ attack on October 7 of last year and the Israelis responding with such an inhumane fever, killing thousands of Palestinian civilians, namely children, the media has been radically divided in two: those who support the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) in the killing of innocent civilians and the bombing of schools and hospitals, calling this action “justified” under the pretext of Hamas’ so-called dangerous organization, and those who have been advocating against the genocide, constantly posting about the sufferings of these people whose only crime was to want their land back… Of course, there have been protests, and people raising their voices for this cause all over the world. However, one cannot help but notice that the big protests have gradually stopped, people have started to post less and less about this cause, and the Palestinians suffering a sadly successful, so far, ethnic cleanse, have been fading into the background of people moving on from these events, while they are very much still present. After thorough research, I have found no real impact all these posts and all these protests have made, no interventions have been done. At the end of the day, the IDF is still receiving support from the most powerful countries in the world, the USA is still funding the genocide and sending weapons to Israel, and thousands of Palestinians are still getting murdered every day.
To keep this short, online activism only works in certain situations where people are united for a cause, but even then, it is not as effective as one would like. The #MeToo movement did have an impact on measures taken to some extent, but have the rates of sexual harassment in the workplace significantly decreased? Are women really truly less afraid to speak up? Have brands really stopped covering up such scandals? I highly doubt that. To add to that, not only have Palestinians been living in the fear of getting killed, raped, stolen from, for decades now, with people posting about it and nobody really doing anything about it (which reinforces the point that if not enough people engage in this type of activism, voices will not be heard and posts will be heavily overlooked), but the sad reality of the genocide has also not changed. And on that note, I would like to end the article by emphasizing on the fact that today, the genocide is not being talked about as much as when it first started, and this trend will continue to decrease until people eventually forget about it (just like nobody is talking about the Russia-Ukraine war today), because that’s just what social media is about: trends which eventually fade away.
Sources:
Brittain, A. (2024, January 13). Me Too movement. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Me-Too-movement
thank you for pointing this out, the right time for this discussion! i liked how you summarized the issue in the last paragraph. for instance, “people posting about it and nobody doing anything about it” sums up this whole idea of online and passive activism. we don’t talk about colonialism and how to resist it until we see blood and massacres, unfortunately.