In June 2019, Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum was rattled by a violent government crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Security forces killed and wounded hundreds of activists and protestors, most notably in the invasion of a protest camp. One 26-year-old activist, Mohamed Mattar, was reportedly shot and killed while protecting two women during the violence. In a wave of online solidarity, global social media was draped in his favorite color, blue.
The widespread support for Mattar and Sudanese activists raises questions about the sincerity of social media activism. In the case of Sudan, hundreds of Twitter and Instagram accounts catered to the sympathies of the internet-savvy public, offering donations to the relief efforts in return for “reposts” and “follows.” The vast majority of these accounts turned out to be “sympathy scammers,” fraudulent promises exploiting well-wishers’ support for likes. At the same time, with internet access being controlled in Sudan itself, the Sudanese diaspora played a pivotal role in spreading awareness, particularly in the West. In addition to the swaths of blue profile and cover pictures, activists and layfolk alike shared infographics about the unfolding events and plastered the hashtag #BlueforSudan on stories and posts. Was this online movement as superficial as some would suggest? This unfolding social media paradox is not unique to the discussion around Sudan and points to a larger question regarding the role and perception of the West in matters of development: can social media activism count as really caring about a global cause? Despite sentiments of alarm about its pitfalls, online engagement has the potential to fundamentally reshape global movements.
“Slacktivism”
Opponents of social media activism are quick to saddle internet users who might change their display picture or repost infographics with the label “slacktivist.” Egged on by study results indicating that participating in socially-observable acts of goodwill does not lead to sustained involvement in that cause, skeptics decry a “bygone past” of organized college protests and fiery desires to change the world. They are convinced that social media activists are lazy, and only want to signal their interest and knowledge to their social circles through online activity.
There are, admittedly, reasonable concerns that can be raised about the effects of social media on activism. Not least of these effects is the inability of “likes” and “follows” to generate real understanding of the emotional labor of activism. Assistant Professor of Government at Colby College Laura Seay, in her 2014 Washington Post article, warns against equating social media activism with the real emotional and physical labor of “deeper engagement.”
“It’s really hard, because people have such busy lives,” said Remedy Ryan, activist and organizer with anti-rape culture group Our Harvard Can Do Better and Palestinian justice organization Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine in a conversation with the HPR. In hectic times, Ryan mused, “it’s our job, as organizers, to give them something meaningful to engage with.”
Susceptibility to fraud is another concern with social media. #BlueforSudan is not the sole case of sympathy scamming in recent memory. Calls for climate justice and restoration after the Australian bushfires created a prime environment to facilitate fraud. In addition to the fake Instagram and Twitter accounts claiming to donate to the cause, social media was also used to legitimize and gain traction for fake door-knocking and websites. The rapid spread of misinformation may highlight the lack of experience and knowledge among participants in social media activism.
Concerns with global social media activism highlight the growing opposition to the oversaturation of Western involvement in issues of development. Although aid and humanitarian support can prove invaluable for nations undergoing social and political upheavals, they can also beget ignorance. British anthropologist Mark Hobart recognized this tension early on and outlined it in his 1993 publication, An Anthropological Critique of Development: The Growth of Ignorance. Hobart bemoans Western dismissal of indigenous knowledge and tradition, and describes the cycle of ignorance that emerges from imposing Western knowledge to “solve” problems of development. At first glance, the fear of “slacktivism” seems to come from a similar anxiety. It is easy to write off the widespread hashtags as just another example of the Western world adopting paternalistic and ignorant sympathy for the suffering of the world’s disadvantaged. So are all social media activists just searching for painless validation and the unknowing approval of their followers?
A New Type of Movement
Despite these concerns, young activists have little nostalgia for traditional channels of information and organizing. To them, social media is a breath of fresh air, allowing them to subvert regular media coverage and bring historically-ignored narratives into public consciousness. In Sudan’s case, both government-mandated internet blackouts and a historic lack of media attention to human rights issues in Africa contributed to the suppression of activist narratives. Social media allowed activists a way to fight back.
“For as long as I can remember, even when I was too young to go out and protest, Sudanese people would go online with hashtags,” said Ilham Abdalla Tagelsir Ali, a Sudanese activist and student at Harvard College who spoke with the HPR. Ali remembers hashtags from as far back as 2013, which have gained even more traction on the international stage as years have gone by. #BlueforSudan is just the latest installment in a growing online movement. To Ali, social media activism is a way of including the voices that cannot physically protest, or are not spotlighted by global media.
In Sudan and other developing global regions, social media has provided an infrastructure for organizing, meeting and protesting that would otherwise be impaired by feasibility or government intervention. Studies in Latin America even describe social media as a sphere of interaction that strengthens democratic attitudes and increases democratic sentiment. This connectivity does not stop at logistics. #BlueforSudan is one clear example of social media facilitating human healing and emotional solidarity in a larger way. According to Ali, “The blue profile pictures started with Mattar’s friends and family,” remembered Ali. “It started as a symbolic thing…But it soon became a symbol of revolution.”
Christian Tabash, campus organizer with Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine and Harvard’s Palestinian Solidarity Committee, also noted the capacity for social media to help build momentum around geographically distant causes. “It’s been inspiring to see that … spatial separation from homelands or people that [activists] care about has not stopped them from mobilizing and educating communities here about things going on back home,” he told the HPR.
Ryan similarly highlighted social media’s power to revolutionize which types of movements are brought to the forefront of public attention: “Social media can be really useful in terms of increasing public awareness about an issue, especially when it’s not one that’s covered by the news as much.” She cited the New York City movement Decolonize This Place, which uses social media to spread instructions in effective allyship and support for New Yorkers targeted by police and government agencies.
Both Ryan and Ali believed it was more beneficial than problematic for social media users to engage in merely online forms of activism without working on the ground as well. “I don’t encourage blindly sharing posts with misinformation within them,” said Ali. Still, for her, there is value in how social media activism allows people to put unknown information about countries like Sudan “out there, to keep pressuring the government.”
Ultimately, as Tabash enthusiastically asserted, social media is loaded with the potential to generate energy on a wider scale than ever before. When social media is used to promote “a worldview driven by love, compassion and justice for all,” says Tabash, “that is the biggest energizer of people to get their hands dirty and do the meaningful work.”
What We Can Do
How can activism reap the rewards of social media movements without falling into the traps of Western ignorance and showy altruism? It appears that social media activism should be treated as an undertaking of emotional labor. Participating requires seeking out the narratives that are silenced by traditional media cycles and which need “shares” to lend them a voice. It requires diligently fact-checking online sources and accounts, and learning about what you “like” and “repost.” No, this is not “slacktivism”: it is a reimagining of what is important in the popular global conversation around development.
Image Credit: Pexels / Tracy Le Blanc