Online activism needs something more
Farzana Rasool
At every login and password, one is bombarded with pleas to ‘Save Palestine’ or ‘Fight for gender equality’.E-mail inboxes are full, Facebook group invites are never-ending and cellphones are beeping their little antennas off with automated SMSes. People simply delete these, as there are just too many.

Empty support

This is the first obstacle faced by activists trying to use the web as a medium for their messages. They can reach a large audience but can’t force them all to listen. The point is lost when you have people signing your e-petition or joining your Facebook group, but end at that.

A Facebook group that started off with the name “Stop the injustices in Palestine” saw a large number of people join initially. The group’s name then changed to “Stop the media bias against Israel”, but very few noticed. Group member Zubair Mahomed, however, did and was shocked at the fact that no one else had.

Mahomed made himself the administrator of the Facebook group and changed the name again to the absurd, “Lemon trees are our salvation”, to see who noticed.

Less than a handful of members noticed this change. One who did said: “It’s funny how many people you see joining these ‘activist groups’ and voicing their opinions…but how many of them get off Facebook and actually do something to help the situation? Typing on your keyboard isn’t going to make some rebel put his gun down.”

Take another step

These online efforts cannot, in themselves, do anything to help a cause besides gain a lot of supporters, who may or may not be fully committed. The fact that 5 000 members join a group called ‘feed the children’, for example, will not fill the belly of any child anywhere.

But groups like these can make a difference when a next step is taken. The fact that so many people attach their names to a certain cause needs to be shown to someone who can actually make a difference for that cause.

Taking this next step is what caused the success of the Facebook group called “Wachovia=Fail”. Outrage over bank charges on donations to Haiti and the specific bank’s refusal to waive these fees led student Heather Lynn to create a group and then take the story to the press. From there the story spread rapidly and gained a lot of online coverage. The result was that a representative of the bank commented on the page, saying that they would waive the fees and would refund transaction fees on donations that had already been made.

Had she not gone to the press, it’s doubtful she would have had the same result.

So, if you do decide to support a cause online, take the next step and go all the way, or nothing much will come of it in terms of addressing the real issue. There will only be a status on your Facebook page that you belong to the said group, and that means nothing in itself, now does it?