Does Online Activism Help the Activists or the Government?
In his book The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom and in his article “The brave new world of slacktivism”, Evgeny Morozov, a young scholar from Belarus, explores the dangers of performing activism online. “Slacktivism” is the name given to the type of activism performed online which only makes people feel-good, but it is not really influential to encourage change in the political or social sphere. The yellow vests movement, among many others, makes use of the internet to do activism. Could its activism be considered “slacktivism”?
The yellow vests movement was born in France at the end of 2018 to fight the rise in fuel prices. Yellow vests activists are mostly known for their street demonstrations, even if the movement actually started online. On October 18, Jacline Mouraud, a once unknown French citizen, now considered one of the founders of the movement, shared a video on Facebook to denounce the decisions of President Macron (A).
(A) screenshot of Jacline Mourad’s video. Translation: Where is France Going? Enough is happening and staying silent means being a witness. Give your note to the president!
During the same month, a petition on change.org was created to protest the rise of fuel prices. The video got more than 6 million views, while the petition got more than a million signatures (B).
(B) screenshot of the petition. Translation: For lower prices of fuel!
Shortly after the two online protests, a Facebook group was created to organize the first public demonstration (C).
(C) screenshot of the Facebook group. Translation: Yellow Vests, November 17
Because the online protests performed by the yellow vests activists have quite successfully gathered a large amount of supporters, they should not completely be labeled as “slacktivist” actions. On one end, they had a social and political impact since they started the street protests. On the other hand, even if more than a million of people signed the petition, only 290.000 were the activists participating to the first street protest on November 17, 2018. The fact that only a portion of the people who signed the petition, shared the video, or joined the Facebook group actually attended the demonstration suggests that the majority of the internet users were only doing that to feel better about themselves. When it was actually time for them to put their body at risk on the ground, they preferred to remain at home. Therefore, the online protests performed by the yellow vests supporters can be considered “slacktivism”, but only in part.
Even if the use of online platforms by the yellow vests activists effectively gathered a lot of people on the streets and helped them communicate, online platforms are also exposed by cybersurveillance. In his book, Morozov explores the many ways in which governments have and still are exploiting the web to learn more about their citizens. Before the advent of social media, countries had to use domestic intelligence in order to gather such informations. After the spread of online platforms, citizens have been providing voluntarily personal informations in their profiles. Because governments have been able to access these informations, they have been able to monitor their citizens. In situations of unrest like the yellow vests protests, their movements can be easily tracked and, eventually, blocked. For instance, the French government has been able to plan when and where to locate their police just by using the details that the protesters have been giving via Facebook. Overall, activists should think twice when providing their informations online. How much will they be of help to their fight and how much will they be of harm?
