I Didn’t Do Social Media Blackout Tuesday in Support of George Floyd. Here’s Why.
Are You an Activist or a #Slacktivist?
We are witnessing a rising up of people across the globe, but particularly the USA, the likes of which we have not witnessed since the sixties civil rights movement.
The murder of George Floyd hasn’t just started a conversation about systemic, endemic racism against people of colour, but particularly African Americans — it has caused a volcanic eruption.
Black Lives Matter
We have seen embers and sparks prior to now. But when Alicia Garza posted her “Love Letter to Black People” on Facebook back in 2013 after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman and the injustice of Zimmerman being acquitted, we saw the true re-ignition of a movement around race relations when the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement sprang into life. Within a year, the streets of Ferguson erupted with yet another death, that of Michael Brown, and 300 days of protest followed, with BLM a major actor throughout.
It’s broken bodies…a hashtag didn’t call us into the street. It was Mike’s body for four and a half hours, that was real — DeRay Mckesson
BLM took on the Arab Spring model of utilising social media to encourage real action, and why wouldn’t it? Social media has the massive potential for scale to reach a wide audience; algorithms aside, it allows messages to blast past the old media gatekeepers; it can be personalised and therefore be more persuasive because it opens a conversation up rather than necessarily talks at those it is trying to effect; it is virtually free, immediate and fast in its dispersal, allowing for rapid groundswell; and it allows for some sense of anonymity and net neutrality, while also being easy to use, meaning those who once felt less inclined to get involved were more opening it, thus leading to a sense of democratising activism.
The Peril of Social Media and Slacktivism
However, for all the benefits social media offers, it also throws up a range of issues that can end up being counterproductive to real activism.
Back in 2010, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a great piece about this for The New Yorker, putting forward the central premise that social media created the weak ties “clicktivism” and “slacktivism”, both poor substitutes for the real thing, and if anything demotivating.
Social media also brings with it a series of other challenges or barriers to true activism, including the potential for filter bubbles, which stultify the Socratic method and stymie dissemination; misuse/abuse by nefarious social media trolls; algorithms that act more as gatekeepers than we know or will admit to; digital segregation as it leaves behind those who cannot afford or do not understand digital devices and platforms; and security and privacy concerns.
The Social Media Blackout
And so we come to that social media blackout on Tuesday June 3, 2020.
On one level, this was a brilliant takeover of social media, both as a memorial to Floyd with the clear metaphor that there is power in “black”. It gave many people of all colours the world over to show their support for the less words and more action from those in power about how to undo centuries of racism successive political administrations have made attempts at but which has still not taken enough of a real hold to stop people of colour dying at the boot of the boss.
Also, there is no denying that it was an accompaniament to hundreds of thousands of people actually taking to the streets, despite the health dangers around COVID-19.
And yet as I watched my Insta feed go black, all I could think about was how easy it was.
Too easy.
It made me wonder how many of those doing the blackout also marched, also wrote to senators or MPs to voice their concerns, also donated to causes trying to stamp out racial inequality, also speak out against racism every time they hear it.
It made me question how many voted at the last election and participated in the democratic process to ensure their voice was heard and how many didn’t.
In other words, it just didn’t rub with me.
Yes, I’d rather it happened than not because if another five people who did the social media blackout were inspired enough by it to then go on to be involved in activism in some real way, well that’s five more than before.
But I also fear that for many it was just the chance to be “slacktive” for a moment and to salve their sense of social guilt and engagement before once again getting caught up again in the stuff of their lives.
I hope I’m wrong.
