Equality? I “Like” It
BY SERENA LEKAWA
Facebook has been looking a little geometric lately. Scrolling down my newsfeed, it was impossible not to notice the pink-and-red equal sign appearing again and again: a small icon next to a friend’s name, or a large, bold upload.
I was into it. What an exciting day in the history of human rights, with the case for marriage equality before the Supreme Court! Everyone should know about it. My immediate reaction was gratification—I was proud of this forward-thinking generation that Facebook tells me I’m a part of. I made a mental note to update my own profile picture. This is, after all, a modern world, and the internet is the fabric of the future. Besides, poster paint and picket signs are not nearly as eco-friendly.
However, as well-intentioned as online movements like this might be, their net significance is debatable.
Furthermore, what implications does this have for the cause itself? Think back to Kony 2012. The video that launched the campaign to bring down the African warlord went viral, and anyone remotely in touch with the digital world heard of it. The campaign raised $17.7 million and influenced the House of Representatives to pass a bill meant to develop ways to bring down “the world’s worst.” The problem with Kony 2012, according to Washington and Lee law professor Mark Drumbl, was that it oversimplified the issue of child soldiers, and omitted important facts about the Ugandan government that seriously complicated the problem. The internet is fast and our attention spans are short. When a cause is oversimplified, so is the solution; and here is where things get dangerous.
It would be unreasonable to suggest that social media has no impact on the important happenings of our time. Online activism shows solidarity, which fosters hope. It can also act as decent barometer to gauge the national or even global mood on a specific issue in way typical electoral maps cannot. In fact, data analysts at Facebook produced a political map of the US by measuring the numbers of people that changed their profile picture for marriage equality across the country. Access to information like this could have a real influence on politicians in terms of their platforms and legislative decisions.
But this can only take us so far. Symbols, pictures, hashtags—they can all be useful mechanisms to bolster a movement. They have the power to take proponents of a common cause from across the globe, and give them a community network that transcends oceans and borders; they unite different people from different places, united under a slogan, an image. The problem arises when the icons themselves become the movement. They can’t replace the manpower necessary to bring a cause to its full potential.
At the dawn of a technological revolution, we find that revolution itself is evolving—social media is not to be discounted when it comes to contemporary widespread debate. But it is crucial to remember that it doesn’t work alone or replace tangible action. When integrated into meaningful activism the internet has great potential. Why not #writetoyourcongressman? It can help accomplish amazing things and overpower great evils. Lets just make sure it doesn’t overpower us first.