Changing the world via Twitter? Yeah, you should get out more

Yeah, I totally agree with Gladwell on this one. I'll go even one step further and claim that many to most of the people you see joining these Facebook charity groups do so almost involuntarily because their friends do. I was so irritated by this when the Save Darfur groups started gaining traction, that I created my own bogus group with the premise that we should recycle garbage and feed all the rotten thrown-out foods that supermarkets discard to African orphans. Within days I got several thousand members with some commenting about how great the cause was. I even threw in some really bogus stats, like 30 orphans die in the time it takes you to exhale. Morbid prank, I know, but it was an experiment that proved to me that most on Facebook don't give a damn about causes and join these groups for purely narcissistic reasons.

Dixon's claim that he's made strong ties through Twitter is interesting. I haven't heard that before, even from people who use Twitter frequently (I use it quite frequently too). I definitely believe that people can form strong ties electronically, and I've done so on BBSs, IRC, forums, even mailing lists. I've never thought of Twitter as a place for that, though; its conversations are just too short and disjointed for me to feel much in the way of personal connection.

So, the point is, it's not Twitter that matters, but the connection of the humans behind Twitter? How is this news? Does anyone argue that a telephone is responsible for major social good?

I agree. This sterile electronic communication is very fickle - people will be there, then suddenly not. I've found that something like twitter is very poor in building any kind of proper relationship, as mostly it's about people who want something from the other person.

One could say that twitter is good as a way of introducing people, but I most certainly could not identify enough with the people in any twitter or facebook collection to join in a battle with them.

Let's say it were the 40s and we made a facebook group called "resistance against the german occupation forces". Now, we all have the same interest in mind, but if we actually meet together, it's very likely there will be varying levels or intensity, varying agendas, varying personalities. We could not form an effective resistance group.

If, however, I would do this with my existing friends, we would have a cohesive and trustworthy group with which we could organise things and make things happen. Offline inviting of people to the group would go through a kind of vetting process where you actually get to see the whole of the person, and not just a single sterile attribute like "dislikes the occupation."

My experience with twitter and other boards is that the relationship you think you are building is very weak and fleeting. Most of the time, it's based on what one person wants from the other - for example, entertainment, connections, money, information. It's not based on shared interests or the ability to connect on a more fundamental level.

I don't know if it's a good example but the mister splashy pants on reddit incident was really cool and funny. Here's a ted talk about it: http://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash...

Most of the people who were part of that probably didn't do anything else but even if 1% bought shirts, that's a net win for Greenpeace. You don't need everyone to make an impact. Same with the facebook groups, even if only 1% are hardcore activists, it's better than 0.

I'm sure there are other cool examples.

I think everyone is missing the point here about using Twitter to form strong ties or cause tangible social change.

Are people working for Greenpeace or some other org on the streets of NYC harassing people actually more effective than tweeting or liking a cause? Tweets for causes definitely aren't as annoying, unlike these people who pester you every time you pass them by. If anything they're making you less inclined to support some kind of cause.

I think most demonstrations are there to make the demonstrators feel better. So changing your Twitter avatar can make you feel better - it works just like the real demonstration?

Except that if you go to a real demonstration, maybe you can make some real friends. You don't actually meet anybody by changing your Twitter icon. But that is another side effect - the original "I want to do something" works both on Twitter and on the street.

The question isn't whether or not social media activism is a powerful replacement for "real life" activism. The question is whether or not the people participating in social media activism would be doing anything at all if it weren't so easy to participate.

Did the activist marching on Washington retreat to his desk, or did the couch potato join the movement? I don't know the answer, but the difference is an important one.

Does anyone else have a problem with those numbers at the end?

1282339 * 0.09 + 22073 * 0.35 + 2797 * 0.15 = $123,555.61

That's pretty impressive IMHO.

What makes this NSFW?

What about the scientology protests? I think there was an element of social media fueling that fire.