Social Media and Protests

Earlier this year, one of my friends had a dangerous encounter on social media. A picture of one of my Palestinian friends from Hands of Peace this past was posted on a radical pro-Palestinian blog, claiming he was participating in a "normalization" program, citing personal information about him and his family. The Hands of Peace website had to be shut down briefly to protect the privacy of all involved until the incident simmered down.

With the ability to express any opinion with the click of a button, social media has revolutionized the notion of protest. The Arab Spring was the first major instance of online protests, with social media causing a ricochet of pro-democracy and pro-revolution sentiment. This article from the University of Washington states that in Egypt, the number of tweets skyrocketed the week before Hosni Mubarak's election from 2,300 political tweets per day to 230,000. Protest videos went viral, and social media became an easy and effective way of sharing grievance and demonstrating dissent.

A visual representation of the hashtags that appeared this past summer 

 This past summer, I paid particular attention to the Israel-Gaza conflict, also known as "Operation Protective Edge". I was with a group of 40 Palestinian and Israeli kids, and daily we would get news blurbs about what was happening. After a long day of peaceful discussion, kids would go to Facebook and things would suddenly get heated. Simple hashtags such as "#freegaza" and "#prayforisrael" would spark heated debates, with ignorance on every side. Medium did an interesting analysis of social media responses from last summer, creating visual depictions of the overlays of hashtags and political stance of news sources.

An instance that comes to mind is when one anonymous friend of mine, a huge advocator of peace, made a seemingly harmless post saying "I believe in human rights, and I #supportgaza". Yet the post provoked a huge debate of which I witnessed many of my peers partake in. And while the majority of the conversation was civil and intellectually-driven, there were quite a few moments that frightened me. My educated friends were making ignorant claims and blatant generalizations to do anything to advance their point. People were saying things such as:

"When you say that you support Gaza, I assume that you then support the way that they go about things, at least more than you support what Israel does. I may be wrong in that assumption, but to the extent that the English language is reflected in the hashtag, I will assume that."

"Gaza never needed an army since they were never attacked by anybody. This all starts because Gaza has a pseudo military in their terrorist government. Israel would NEVER first strike a weaponless Gaza in a time of peace." 

"That's like saying that special needs students deserve more attention than gifted students because they deserve it more."

Really?!??!?!?!

An image I took from a protest I went to this past summer

Social psychologists say those that protest online are not necessarily inclined to protest offline. Social media is most frequently used to express dissent, but physical protests are for more expressive and less informationally-driven methods of protest. We tend to distance the idea of expressing an opinion online and attending a protest, but in reality the two aren't so different. I went to a protest on the same issue sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. This is what I learned:


1. If it gets violent, leave.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Or...will they? Throwing stones isn't much different from personally attacking someone. And with a digital footprint, online stones may be even more permanent than throwing literal stones. If you disagree, keep your cool.

2. Do your research.
In the same way that you wouldn't want to be present at a protest that didn't reflect your beliefs, don't engage in an online conversation making claims just to prove a point. In the article from Medium I posted above, I noticed that the repeated phrases were very polarized. It's easy to forget the implication behind words.

3. Pay attention to the people around you.
We tend to think that our statuses, tweets, and pictures are exclusive to us and our friends, and are similar to having a casual conversation. But these statuses are permanent. And who really sees them? I have 794 friends on Facebook. My best friend has 1,349. My best friend's older sister has 2,686. Who are we really sharing our messages with?

Social media has completely altered the way we protest, and in doing so, we need to be cautious of what exactly and how exactly we are protesting.