The ongoing Umbrella Revolution for fair elections in > Hong Kong has seen new innovations in using technology to steer protests. These include not only traditional social media platforms like Twitter, Weibo, Instagram and Facebook, but also a host of messaging applications like Whatsapp, FireChat and Telegram Messenger, which allow users to share information with relative privacy from security agencies. Photo-sharing application Instagram, not the most popular medium for protestors, saw protest images go viral prompting China to block the site in the mainland.
Digital activists have constantly improvised on electronic gadgets to get the word out faster. For example, Hong Kong-based Dutch data scientist Mart van de Ven developed a Twitter-based app that sets off an alarm if a police raid or counterattack takes place on protestors. The medium here is as important as the message. “I don’t know any protesters who don’t use social media,” he said. “It’s so pervasive in Hong Kong that it’s almost unimaginable not to use it!”
The expansion of social media tools into platforms to manage protests has been possible in Hong Kong due to large number of smartphone users and unrestricted Internet. While this has given protestors an edge over the government, there have been reports that protestors do not heed warnings by leaders. Groups there are also using traditional methods of canvassing with megaphones and pamphlets.
In 2011 and 2012, India saw waves of protests against political corruption, which were the result of the spate of scandals that came to light. Protests led by activist Anna Hazare, yoga guru Ramdev and former government officers like Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi drew people who were new to politics and protests. The India Against Corruption Movement — followed by the protests against the gang rape of a Delhi paramedic on December 16, 2012 — saw the extensive use of Facebook and Twitter in Indian languages as a key tool to gain critical mass. Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and Ramlila Maidan saw massive protests that went on for days. Although the police used force in Ramlila Maidan and at India Gate, the government refrained from censoring the media.
AAP spokesman Ashutosh, who covered the anti-corruption protests as a journalist and wrote a book about Anna Hazare’s 13-day hunger strike, said the use of social media for a movement can only reach a limited number of people. “It captured the minds of literate intelligentsia, but does not reach people below a certain level of economic development. The medium also did not grow in a vacuum but in an atmosphere in which people are hungry for change... For any class of people, activism always finds a medium.”
The Digital Activism Research Project (DARP) at the University of Washington has found that the medium varies in protests across the world. The researchers have tried to link this with the relative political freedom in the country. While social networks like Facebook are the dominant tool in South Asia, Australia and Scandinavian countries, videos are the most popular medium in Russia and Eastern Europe. In North America, e-petitions are the most popular tool.
“Campaigns overwhelmingly target governments but, in democratic contexts, businesses and civic organisations are also common targets. The success of campaigns at either mobilising street protest or achieving their stated goals depends on the type of target, the context in which activism is occurring, and the repertoire of tools that activists deploy. The form, process, and outcome of campaigns for change online show great diversity and... There is no easy or obvious route to success in using digital tools to push for change,” writes DARP researcher Frank Edwards in a report that is due for publishing.
During the EuroMaidan protests in Ukraine and other street uprisings in West Asia, Twitter and Facebook have not only been used to gain support but also to organise medical support. Tweets about the protests peaked whenever violence took place. The anti-coup protests in Egypt have reportedly learnt tactics of managing large gatherings from videos posted by protesters in Europe. Also, mainstream media houses have been crowdsourcing social media posts and filtering them for news in places where a dependable press is not present or viable.
Youssof Salhen, spokesman of Students Against the Coup in Cairo, said that though he was initially attracted to the protests through what was shared on social media, he did not think that the protests would escalate the way they did. “Many people, who were not able to express their opinion freely, were introduced to, studied, and were specialised in social media. They started to spread the word and highlight issues and problems. With the freedom that the Internet gives, they were able to say whatever they needed to.”
Anita Breuer, of the German Development Institute, has identified four common features in the Occupy Movement against income gaps in the U.S., the protests against austerity in European countries and the Arab Spring for democracy and justice. One, all these were broadly for democracy and socio-economic justice; two, the participants had a relatively higher chance of being heard within the movement; three, they attempted to re-appropriate public spaces non-violently; and lastly, the use of digital media for communication was unprecedented.
This holds true even for the Indian protests that saw street battles to re-establish India Gate as a space for public protest. The lawns around India Gate and Boat Club were closed to protestors in the late 1980s and political rallies saw record turnouts.
Interestingly, the debate generated on social media has hardened the positions of partisans rather than contributed to the resolution of disputes. New York-based data scientist Gilad Lotan analysed tweets on various events of Israel’s recent operation in Gaza. He found that those for and against the occupation used separate sources of news and there was little interaction between the two camps. Mainstream international news was also accessed more by the Palestinian side than the Israelis. Most people who were passionately interested in the conflict used the Internet to affirm their views rather than attempt to moderate previously held opinions.
Social media has not only made organising protests cheaper, but has also made censorship difficult. While state actors have effectively used social media in tracking paedophiles or launching civic programmes, their ability to counter agitations using the medium is yet to be seen. At the end of the day, the medium is but a tool of protest. The process of leading the movement to a resolution of disputes depends on the leadership on both sides of the barricade.
