Social Activist? What does that have to do with Social Media?

Social media activism, we hear the world activist thrown around so much in current events but what does this actually mean? Media activism is a broad category of activism that uses social media and communication technology for social and political movements (Poell & Dijck, 2015). This was first seen as being a social activist, but with the widespread and easy access of social media, people have turned to the internet for their movements.

This can be seen in specific relation to the Poell and Dijck  referenced paper as it discusses the use of social activism and its power on social media and across different time zones as well as different language barriers. this paper discusses the power and use of social media activism in multiple cases where people were unlawfully detained in other countries and so people took to Twitter to alert others and try to raise awareness for these activists that were detained making all contributors social media activists in their own sense as they were advocating for others. This kind of behaviour and movements of social media and social activists or accelerated by social media as it became an easily accessible way to alert people in real time across different time zones and countries about activities that were taking place this made it easier for people to understand current events and get on board to raise awareness and help as well as donate to the causes. These movements were categorized and recognized by using a specific hashtag that go viral and make it easy for other to contribute and show support.

 

This caused a lot of distress for the countries and legal systems that were detaining these activists unlawfully as unlike other situations bees people had a bigger reach and political grasp on content that has not previously been seen. fees social media activists and this movement also created such an uproar and Scandal that the president himself got these activists pardoned and they were sent home mainly due to the widespread support I’ve been seeing on social media.

This has been seen repeatedly in cases in the last 4 or so years, with movements such as #metoo #blacklivesmatter and many many more. These movements help spread awareness and support to many communities and victims, but they don’t come without hecklers and trolls.

So what do you think of social media activists do they do more harm than good? Or are they doing what others cannot with technology that we have? 

 

Facebook Post:

Social Activist or Social Media spam? Find out what I think HERE: https://bit.ly/2X9XbmE

Twitter Post:

Social Activist? What does that have to do with Social Media? Find out HERE: https://bit.ly/2X9XbmE

 

REFERENCE:

Poell, Thomas & José van Dijck (2015). Social Media and Activist Communication. In The Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media, 527-537, edited by C. Atton. London: Routledge.

Youtube’s new terms for harassment?

 

In the last few months on youtube leading up to this week’s events, there has been a lot of concern regarding the content that has been allowed to be monetized on the video sharing site. Youtube themselves have faced a lot of backlash regarding content that the community has thought should be block but has ‘passed’ their harassment policies. This has for obvious reasons created some distrust in youtube as an organizations abilities to monitor their services. 

In recent months there have been issue not just with the content being created and shared, but the messages that these people and their fans have been spreading. Most recently there have been issues regarding creators and the hate speech they have been bringing to youtube’s community and spreading among other communities. This is most notable with the white supremacist content that has been present and growing on youtube for the last few years. 

This leads us to this past week, where they have posted a statement in regards to some content creators who have been getting flagged for their content by users for some time, but nothing has never been done about it before, until now. This has also been met with some backlash though as it seems if one of the creators take down some videos and some homophobic merchandise they will be able to continue to create content. 

What are your thoughts on this statement?

Do you think youtube will actually change their policies after years of ignoring user requests?

Facebook:  Find out what I think about Youtube possibly changing their harassment polocies.  Read more here: https://bit.ly/2Xhgx8A

Twitter:  Youtube is finally changing their policies? #youtubecreators https://bit.ly/2Xhgx8A

 

References:

Dale, C. (2019, June 05). Taking a harder look at harassment. Retrieved from https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/taking-harder-look-at-harassment.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR3Ao0cTO3zJvpiTxf9EG179QmQfYpoYh-wAqIGEsLdZLDGHTEMM3bkmSvw

Karlis, N. (2019, June 06). YouTube says it will remove thousands of videos pushing far-right views. Retrieved from https://www.salon.com/2019/06/05/youtube-says-it-will-remove-thousands-of-videos-pushing-far-right-views/

Seale, G. (2019, January 09). Making Sense of YouTube’s Monetization Policies. Retrieved from https://www.law.com/2019/01/09/making-sense-of-youtubes-monetization-policies/?slreturn=20190516191249

Yurieff, K. (2019, June 11). Prominent white supremacists are still on YouTube in wake of ban. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/11/tech/youtube-nazi-ban-update/index.html

 

CANCEL CULTURE, WHY IS IT A THING?

If you’ve been on the internet for any amount of time the last few years, then you know about cancel culture. But of not, no fear, today we are going to talk about call-out culture and cancel culture, and if it is really helpful in communities or just more toxic behaviour.

 

Call-out culture is  a way to call attention to those that might have wronged a community, this started online calling out mainly celebrities for their past behaviour – or even current- for things that were said or done. From this cancel culture appeared, it started as canceling people for actions such as assault or rape, and even comments that were racist or homophobic as a way for communities to raise awareness to these actions. This would culturally blacklist public figures from these communities and often ‘cancel’ them on many internet platforms.

 

So how has this evolved in the last few years with widespread media taking part? Cancel culture has moved from calling out major offenders like rapists, to calling out celebrities that have made comments on their social media years ago. People are searching through their accounts to find what seems like any little thing to call them on and ‘cancel’ them. This has caused a bit of a stir as people think no one is safe and no one can be redeemed from their past behaviours. These people are often acting as though celebrities can’t be educated and mature in that time, or that they haven’t changed as people, causing a lot of uproar on the internet and between communities.

Most recently in the beauty community on youtube, Tati Westbrook has publicly shamed and canceled James Charles who lost an astonishing 3 million subscribers in the first day after the news broke. This had broken the record for amount of subscribers lost in a 24 hour period and caused a lot of upset in the youtube community as well as the obvious upset in the beauty community.

So what do you think of cancel culture? Does it have a place in social media communities and our society?

Click HERE to learn more about cancel culture!

Wanna hear more about the Beauty Community cancel culture? Click HERE

 

References:

Bromwich, Jonah Engel. “Everyone Is Canceled.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 June 2018, http://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/style/is-it-canceled.html.

Brooks, David. “The Cruelty of Call-Out Culture.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2019, http://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/opinion/call-out-social-justice.html.

DeLucchi, Cait. “Cancel Culture: Too Late To Learn From Past Mistakes?” The Odyssey Online, 10 July 2018, http://www.theodysseyonline.com/cancel-culture-late-learn-mistakes.

“Have We Hit Peak Cancel Culture? | CBC Radio.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 13 Dec. 2018, http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/blog/have-we-hit-peak-cancel-culture-1.4944521.

 

The Future of Instagram Blog #1

 

Earlier in 2019 the platform Instagram made the announcement that they would soon be testing a version of the app that no longer let users see how many likes were on a post. Testing began in early May for Canadian audiences and has since sparked conversations among many. As we all know, since social media has been around, many people tend to focus on the amount of like and followers have and compare themselves to others. Instagram making this movement is big in the world of social media, especially for influencers.

(link to tweet and screenshot here)

The app now states “We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get” (as seen in this screen shot from the app). So what does this mean for users and influencers who make a living off of their content?

(link to article here)

Some believe this will be good for users, especially those that are often influenced and exceptionally conscious of there engagement on the site. Each user will still be able to see who likes their posts, their followers will be able to see a list of those that like others content but they will not be able to see a number beside the likes like they used to. This has been projected to help users self-esteem and mental health as it wont be as easy to compare their number of likes to others. This is a big step for a social media platform as it has been theorized (and proven) that social media is bad for users self esteem and image, especially the youth that so typically use it (Jacobson & Child Mind Institute).

But how about for influencers? So far with the new design and trial of hiding likes there have been no reports of influencers loosing any brand deals, but it will most definitely be making it hard for influencers to prove their engagement and reach to companies, it will also be harder for companies to keep tabs on their sponsored posts and content from creators.

So what is my opinion? I think it can be summarized by this tweet:

I think removing the ability to see likes removes the pressure to only post what performs best. You can post what you want without feeling like people can see the drop in engagement and judge you for it.

— Paige Williams (@paigeofsw0rds) May 3, 2019