Social Media Activism or Digital Vanity? 🏳️🌈 ✊🏿
5 things to consider before engaging in social media activism
It was almost a year ago when we were all sharing a black square on social media to support the Black Lives Matter movement in response to George Floyd’s murder.
I remember how that story shocked me… just to even think what a human could do to another human. Gruesome.
I wanted so badly to do my part at least in some small way. I didn’t want to seem indifferent to the cause, especially because everyone else was talking about it. I mean, how could I not participate when people were sharing quotes such as “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” And I wasn’t on the side of the oppressor, right? I’m a good person, right?
I didn’t share a black square though. Instead, I started sharing resources from black people explaining why this movement was important and how to be a good ally. I felt so overwhelmed by all the things I needed to understand and learn quickly in order to genuinely support this movement; and it made me wonder if all those who shared the black square took the time to understand the problem with more nuance. I guess we all did what we thought was best in the moment, after all, we were all learning how to be ‘activists’ on social media. But this wasn’t paying off for the BLM movement as a whole, maybe some of us even harmed it a little bit by thinking that sharing a black square on our feeds was good enough, without taking it to the streets, without following up on the problem, without actually taking action in real life.
There are things I know now that I wish I knew then and that I’d gladly share in the hopes they help during #pridemonth2021🏳️🌈 and any other movement you’d like to join.
Here are 5 things to consider before engaging in social media activism:
1. Virtue Signaling: Are you making it about you?
Virtue Signaling is an attempt to show other people that you are a good person by expressing opinions that will be acceptable to them, especially on social media.
Virtue signaling can be harmful for a movement. If people join a cause only to look cool in the eyes of others or just want to be part of the zeitgeist without learning the real meaning behind it, the message risks to be distorted. Just like when there was a black and white photo challenge on social media where all women (including myself) started posting selfies in black and white as a way to empower and support each other, when in reality the challenge was started by women in Turkey to raise awareness for the alarming increase in femicide in the country and to stand in solidarity with the women who had lost their lives. The black and white pictures took off in a way that completely drowned out the original message, and it just became a fad, a chance to post that cute selfie.
We didn’t do our research well. We just wanted to be part of something that made us look cool. So… yes, it was more about ourselves than the cause.
Next time we should ask ourselves : Are we speaking up only to make ourselves look better? Do we see it just as an opportunity to take a good selfie? Or do we genuinely believe in (or even understand?) the cause we are publicly supporting?
2. False Accomplishment: Feeling like you’ve done enough
Social media has made it so easy to voice an opinion about a particular cause without taking real world action. By merely sharing a black square, using pride stickers and hashtags, we feel accomplished and satisfied just for the effort it took to do it (a.k.a slacktivism).
Don’t get me wrong, social media is a great place to raise awareness, however, that is not enough. The world is not better after liking and retweeting posts. The world will be better when we take things offline, with concrete actions, donations and measurable commitments to change.
We must remember that social media is a means to an end (real world action), not an end in itself.
3. Echo Chambers: Only listening to those who agree with you
Echo chamber: an environment where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own. Our social media feeds are a great example of this.
Social media platforms profit from engagement-based algorithms that incentivize tribalism (us vs them thinking) and push users into echo chambers to maximize screen time → so they can learn more about you → so they can deliver more targeted ads to you.
Think about it, we love our social media because it is a safe space custom built for ourselves and filled with the things we love. No matter what we post, we have our like-minded friends liking us, RTing us, loving us, praising us. That is addictive for users and great for the bottom lines of the tech companies that made them, but not so much for a movement or a cause. If we end up surrounded by people who are just like us, seeing all of them supporting the exact same causes that we support creates a false sense of progress in society.
That’s why it’s important to hold social media companies accountable for trapping users into ideological bubbles while at the same time making space for new and more diverse voices in our feeds, especially those that challenge our existing ways of thinking. That way we can grasp reality better.
4. Confirmation Bias: Not everything that confirms your beliefs is true
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring all contrary information.
Confirmation bias can be problematic for social movements too. Not everything that confirms your beliefs is true. When doing activism on social media, we should try to do our own research and make sure that what we are sharing is truthful and honest, even though at first glance it might seem like we completely agree with it. Mindlessly sharing everything can spread minsinformation and end up doing more harm than good to the cause.
5. Culture of Shame and Guilt: Shaming others into caring
We can’t expect everyone to be activists and care about the exact same things that we care about.
To be an activist, you need to have a certain understanding of the cause you are supporting. Perpetuating a culture of shame and guilt means that people only engage half-heartedly and share just because of peer pressure; without taking the time to understand the problem with more nuance, which can also end up hurting the movement you’re trying to support.
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Hope these insights are helpful if you plan on engaging on social media activism. If you can think of another thing to consider, hit me up! I’d love to know.
