More than Friends: Social and Mobile Media for ...

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Apr 2, 2008 - by so-‐called “Web 2.0” technologies enable loosely-‐coordinated groups .... technology collective that since 1999 has provided email accounts, web hosting, and ... equivalent; for example, Facebook users are “friends,” not “best ..... http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/mapping-‐kenyas-‐election-‐.
More  than  Friends:  Social  and  Mobile  Media  for  Activist   Organizations   Tad  Hirsch    

Introduction  

Political  activists  around  the  world  have  been  quick  to  adopt  social  and  mobile   media  for  use  in  protests  and  mass  mobilizations.  In  recent  years,  demonstrators  in   Moldova  and  Iran  employed  social  networking  sites  like  Facebook  and  the  micro   blogging  service  Twitter  to  share  their  stories  with  international  audiences  [11, 10];   the  use  of  mobile  phone  text  messaging  by  protesters  in  Spain,  the  Philippines,  and   the  United  States  has  also  been  extensively  reported  and  analyzed  [for  example  2].   Scholarship  has  tended  to  focus  on  examples  of  activists  appropriating  commercial   products  and  services  to  mobilize  large  groups  of  sympathizers,  often  in  rapid   response  to  egregious  betrayals  of  the  public  trust.  As  these  studies  illustrate,  broad   mobile  phone  adoption  coupled  with  the  easy  social  networking  capabilities  offered   by  so-­‐called  “Web  2.0”  technologies  enable  loosely-­‐coordinated  groups  of   individuals  to  spontaneously  mobilize  and  share  information  to  confront  injustice.   Several  years  ago,  Howard  Rheingold  dubbed  these  collectives  “smart  mobs”  [14],  a   formulation  that  continues  to  hold  sway.   Activists  from  to  Argentina  to  Zimbabwe  have  exploited  the  ease  with  which  sites   like  Facebook,  YouTube,  and  Twitter  enable  spontaneous  information  sharing  and   collective  action  by  large  numbers  of  people.  However,  analysis  that  emphasizes   street  protest  and  mass  mobilization  risks  overstating  the  importance  of  tactics  that,   in  reality,  constitute  a  relatively  small  component  of  activist  practice.  Street  protest,   for  example,  is  most  effective  for  easily  understood  issues  with  clear  heroes  and   villains,  where  consensus  already  exists  among  a  sufficient  number  of  potential   actors.  As  Shirky  observes,  successful  demonstrations  are  predicated  on  large   numbers  of  people  already  agreeing  –  at  least  tacitly  –  with  the  protest  objectives   [15].  Without  this  consensus,  demonstrations  are  sparsely  attended,  attract  little   media  attention,  and  generally  fail  to  inspire  future  action.   However,  activist  campaigns  are  often  built  around  issues  for  which  there  isn’t   widespread  consensus  or  sympathy.  Most  activists  aren’t  able  to  mobilize  large   numbers  of  ordinary  people  in  extraordinary  acts  of  civic  engagement  or  public   dissent.  Rather,  campaigns  are  carried  forward  in  increments  through  the  persistent   efforts  of  small  groups  whose  members  are  deeply  engaged  with  their  cause  and   committed  to  each  other.  Accordingly,  activism  tends  to  be  less  concerned  with   particular  mobilizations  than  with  creating  and  nurturing  movements.  Central  to   this  effort  is  the  creation  of  activist  organizations  that  marshal  and  direct  resources,   coordinate  and  amplify  individual  action,  and  provide  mechanisms  for  collective  

decision-­‐making.  Organizations  provide  members  with  a  collective  identity  while   simultaneously  providing  a  focal  point  for  outsiders  including  journalists,   opponents,  and  new  recruits.  They  are  also  of  central  importance  in  enabling  social   movements  to  endure  over  time  [9].   When  we  look  across  the  broader  range  of  activities  that  make  up  activist  practice,  it   becomes  clear  that  technologies  and  services  designed  for  explicitly  commercial   purposes  are  often  not  ideally  suited  for  activist  use.  For  example,  they  may  not   provide  adequate  security  for  activists  working  in  particularly  contentious  climes,   and  they  often  impose  conditions  on  the  ownership  and  dissemination  of  data  that   are  at  odds  with  activists’  need  to  repurpose  and  rebroadcast  content  across  a   variety  of  media  and  contexts.  More  broadly,  the  model  of  social  relations  that   undergirds  commercial  services,  which  tends  to  emphasize  relationships  between   autonomous  individuals,  may  not  mesh  well  with  activists’  emphasis  on   organizations  and  movements.  Simply  put,  Facebook,  Twitter,  YouTube  and  the  like   are  not  activist  technologies  (despite  their  appropriation  by  activists),  and  often   don’t  mesh  well  with  the  complexities  of  real  world  activism.   Accordingly,  activists  around  the  world  have  come  to  rely  on  a  growing  number  of   social  and  mobile  media  technologies  that  have  been  developed  by  and  for  activists.   Although  less  well  known,  less  widely  used,  and  often  less  fully  developed  than  their   commercial  counterparts,  they  provide  features  and  address  concerns  that  are  of   particular  interest  to  activist  communities.  In  do  doing,  they  challenge  assumptions   that  underpin  the  design  of  commercial  services  and  broaden  our  understanding  of   what  social  and  mobile  media  can  be.   In  this  essay,  I  argue  that  activist  technology  projects  are  distinct  from  commercial   services  in  several  ways.  Activist  social  media  projects  proceed  from  a   fundamentally  different  orientation  towards  social  relations  that  privileges   organizations  and  collective  action  over  individuals  and  personal  behavior.   Accordingly,  they  have  unique  instrumental  goals  –  i.e.  they  are  designed  to  meet   needs  and  address  problems  that  are  different  in  both  form  and  substance  than   those  that  motivate  commercial  design.  Activist  technology  projects  also  embody  a   distinct  set  of  values,  meaning  that  they  are  shaped  by  a  different  set  of  concerns  (or   at  least,  a  different  weighting  among  competing  concerns)  than  their  commercial   counterparts.   I  will  present  three  recent  activist  social  media  projects:  Ushahidi,  an  incident-­‐ reporting  system  developed  during  Kenya’s  2007  post-­‐election  violence;  Crabgrass,   a  social  networking  software  platform  developed  by  an  American  radical  technology   collective;  and  The  Hub,  a  video  sharing  site  developed  by  an  international  human   rights  advocacy  organization.  I  have  selected  these  examples  because  they   demonstrate  a  range  of  activist  activities  and  modes  of  social  organization.  Ushahidi,   for  example,  began  its  life  as  an  informal  collaboration  by  a  network  of  Kenyan   bloggers;  Crabgrass  is  a  project  by  an  engineering  collective  associated  with  radical   leftist  movements;  the  Hub  is  an  offering  by  an  established  non-­‐governmental   organization  (NGO).  These  examples  are  also  noteworthy  for  their  similarities  to  

well-­‐known  commercial  services.  Crabgrass  and  The  Hub  are  roughly  analogous  to   Facebook  and  YouTube,  while  Ushahidi  combines  elements  of  Twitter  and   GoogleMaps.   I  describe  the  conditions  surrounding  each  project’s  conception,  detail  the  goals  and   values  that  influenced  each  design  process,  and  highlight  commonalities  and   differences  between  them.  Finally,  I  consider  how  these  examples  relate  to  existing   commercial  social  and  mobile  media  services.   This  essay  proceeds  from  the  assertion  that,  because  most  of  the  current  literature   on  activist  use  of  social  and  mobile  media  focuses  on  what  activists  can  do  with   commercial  services,  it  tends  to  overlook  what  they  cannot  do.  That  is  to  say,   analysts  who  study  activist  appropriation  of  services  like  Facebook  and  Twitter   often  miss  the  ways  in  which  activist  needs  outstrip  the  capabilities  that  these   services  offer.  I  suggest  that  examining  activist  alternatives  to  commercial  social  and   mobile  media  services  provides  valuable  insights  both  into  the  technology  design   and  into  the  nature  of  contemporary  advocacy  movements.    

Ushahidi:  Channeling  Citizen  Journalism  for  Crisis  Reporting  

The  aftermath  of  Kenya’s  disputed  2007  presidential  election  saw  an  eruption  of   violence  across  the  country,  resulting  in  over  1000  deaths  and  hundreds  of   thousands  displaced.  Concerned  that  official  reports  underestimated  the  extent  of   the  unrest,  several  bloggers  living  both  in  Kenya  and  abroad  created  a  website1   called  Ushahidi  –  Swahili  for  “testimony”  -­‐-­‐  to  collect  and  visualize  incident  reports   from  Kenyan  citizens.  Their  goal  was  to  provide  an  accurate  and  unbiased  account   of  the  post-­‐election  unrest.    

                                                                                                                1  http://www.ushahidi.com/  

  Figure  1:  Ushahidi.com     Ushahidi  allowed  citizens  to  report  incidents  of  post-­‐election  violence  by  sending   text  messages  from  their  mobile  phones,  which  were  displayed  on  an  interactive   map  (Figure  1).  Ultimately,  Ushahidi  recorded  nearly  140  incidents  including  riots,   murders,  and  rapes.  A  number  of  events  and  incidents  were  also  reported  that   promoted  peace  and  reconciliation.  While  Ushahidi  did  not  claim  to  provide  a  full   accounting  of  all  that  happened  across  Kenya,  the  site  documented  many  incidents   that  escaped  coverage  by  the  mainstream  media.  Subsequent  analysis  of  media   coverage  found  little  geographic  overlap  between  Ushahidi’s  coverage  and  the   mainstream  media  [8].     Since  the  elections,  the  Ushahidi  team  has  made  its  software  available  to  other  NGOs   under  open  source  licenses.  It  has  been  deployed  to  monitor  elections  in  Mexico  and   India,  medical  supply  shortages  in  Kenya,  Uganda,  Malawi  and  Zambia,  and  attacks  

on  immigrants  in  South  Africa.  Al  Jazeera  used  it  in  its  coverage  of  the  January  2009   conflict  in  Gaza,  and  it  was  combined  with  FrontlineSMS  –  another  open  source   activist  technology  project  –  to  monitor  Afghan  elections  later  that  year.  In   December  2009,  Ushahidi  received  a  $1.4M  grant  from  the  Omidyar  Network  that   will  enable  the  organization  to  continue  software  development  and  evangelism,  as   well  as  to  establish  a  board  of  directors  and  offices  in  Kenya.     Ushahidi  was  not  the  first  site  to  combine  citizen  journalism  with  map  visualization;   it  is  preceded  a  several  noteworthy  examples  including  Jonathon  Mendez  and  Greg   Stoll’s  Katrina  Information  Map,  which  visualized  eyewitness  accounts  of  post-­‐storm   New  Orleans  [16],  and  the  New  York  Times’  map  visualization  of  readers’  reports   during  a  New  York  City  transit  workers’  strike  in  2005.  However,  Ushahidi  was   unique  in  several  respects.  The  use  of  text  messaging  for  incident  reporting   provided  an  immediacy  that  was  lacking  from  earlier  efforts.  While  the  Katrina   Information  Map,  for  example,  relied  on  reports  submitted  via  laptop  and  desktop   computers  often  hours  or  days  after  events  occurred,  Ushahidi  featured  reports   direct  from  the  field.     Ushahidi’s  creators  were  also  committed  to  data  verification.  Not  content  to  rely   solely  on  eyewitness  accounts,  they  used  government  sources,  NGO  reports,  and   journalist  accounts  to  verify  the  incident  reports  it  received;  each  incident  that   appears  on  the  Ushahidi  site  is  marked  with  an  icon  indicating  whether  or  not  is  has   been  confirmed  by  external  sources.   This  commitment  to  verifying  the  accuracy  of  crowdsourced  data  sets  Ushahidi   apart  from  other  social  media  and  citizen  journalism  platforms.  Most  commercial   providers  take  the  stance  that  their  role  is  to  provide  a  platform  for  their  users;   responsibility  for  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  a  particular  piece  of  content  lies  with  its   author.  While  providers  might  exercise  editorial  control  from  time  to  time,  as  in   cases  of  libel  or  defamation,  such  intervention  is  usually  undertaken  in  response  to  a   complaint  or  threatened  legal  action  and  is  limited  to  editing  or  removing   questionable  content.  It  is  rare  for  a  commercial  service  provider  to  directly  endorse   particular  bits  of  user-­‐generated  content  as  accurate,  reliable,  or  valuable.   Ushahidi,  in  contrast,  took  an  active  role  in  monitoring  and  where  possible,  verifying   the  accuracy  of  its  users’  posts.  This  reflects  the  context  in  which  the  site  was   developed,  where  much  of  the  post-­‐election  violence  was  fueled  by  rumor  and   innuendo  and  there  was  the  very  real  possibility  that  accounts  appearing  on  the  site   could  further  inflame  passions  rather  than  help  to  calm  them.     Ushahidi’s  commitment  to  accuracy  and  verifiability  reflects  a  communications   strategy  that  one  finds  in  many  activist  campaigns.  Because  they  promote   marginalized  interests  in  the  face  powerful  state  and  corporate  opposition,  activists   often  assume  a  heightened  standard  of  credibility.  Public  statements  that  activists   make  are  closely  scrutinized;  errors  may  be  used  to  undermine  their  credibility.   Some  activists  argue  that  the  bar  is  higher  for  activist  communications  than  it  is  for,   say,  mainstream  media  outlets  or  public  relations  professionals.  An  

environmentalist  that  I  interviewed  in  the  course  of  this  research  put  it  succinctly:   “as  an  activist,  I  don’t  have  the  luxury  of  lying.”  For  example,  if  the  New  York  Times   makes  a  false  claim  in  its  reporting,  it  prints  a  correction  the  next  day  with  little  or   no  lasting  damage  to  its  credibility  as  an  institution.  If  an  environmental  activist,  on   the  other  hand,  overstates  the  health  impacts  of  emissions  from  a  local  paper  mill,   the  mills’  owners  may  use  the  error  to  undermine  the  validity  of  the  both  the   activists’  project  and  of  the  activists  themselves,  who  may  be  branded  as  “radicals”   or  “crazies.”    

Crabgrass:  Social  Networking  for  Collectives  

Crabgrass2  is  a  social  networking  and  collaboration  platform  for  social  movements   and  non-­‐profit  organizations.  It  was  initiated  by  Riseup  Labs,  a  Seattle-­‐based  radical   technology  collective  that  since  1999  has  provided  email  accounts,  web  hosting,  and   software  development  to  activist  organizations  around  the  world.  The  project   developed  out  of  the  collective’s  experience  working  with  social  movements,  and  its   deep  understanding  of  opportunities  and  limits  that  social  networking  and   collaboration  software  offers  for  activists.  While  Riseup  acknowledges  that   Facebook  and  Twitter  are  effective  outreach  tools  because  of  their  broad  user  base,   the  collective  believes  that  these  services  are  ill  suited  for  internal  communications   and  collaboration.     Crabgrass  includes  a  number  of  features  common  to  social  networking  and   collaboration  software  including  the  ability  to  make  links  and  send  messages   between  users.  However,  its  orientation  towards  social  movements  has  lead  to  a   number  of  design  departures,  including  more  nuanced  group  management,  greater   emphasis  on  privacy  and  security,  and  enhanced  collaboration  and  decision  making   tools.   Of  these,  the  group  management  features  are  the  most  significant,  and  arise  from  a   fundamental  rethinking  of  the  model  of  social  relations  that  undergirds  social  media   design.     Commercial  services  like  Facebook  and  Twitter  are  oriented  towards  what  we  might   call  “personal  social  networking”  (Figure  2).  These  sites  are  designed  to  support   lightweight  connections  between  individuals.  They  are  based  on  a  relatively  flat   model  of  social  relations  in  which  connections  between  people  are  more  or  less   equivalent;  for  example,  Facebook  users  are  “friends,”  not  “best  friends”  or  “casual   acquaintances;”  LinkedIn  users  are  “connections,  not  “employees”  or  “mentors.”    

                                                                                                               

2  http://crabgrass.riseup.net/  

  Figure  2:  Personal  social  networking   Personal  social  networking  is  a  simplistic  model  of  social  organization  that  trades   complexity  for  ease-­‐of-­‐use.  Connections  are  easily  established,  and  are  maintained   with  little  effort.  (The  are  also  relatively  ephemeral,  as  evidenced  by  Burger  King’s   2009  promotion  in  which  233,906  Facebook  users  were  de-­‐friended  in  exchange  for   free  hamburgers  [12].)  While  the  model’s  simplicity  has  no  doubt  contributed  to   social  networking’s  rapid-­‐fire  growth,  Crabgrass’  founders’  argue  that  it  is   insufficient  to  capture  the  “complexity  of  relationships  that  activist  organizations   face  in  the  real  world.”   Instead,  Crabgrass  is  takes  what  we  might  call  a  “collective  social  networking”   approach  in  which  the  primary  goal  is  communication  and  collaboration  within  and   between  groups.  The  central  concept  for  Crabgrass  is  the  “group,”  which  represents   a  collection  of  people  who  are  involved  with  each  other  on  an  ongoing  basis.     Starting  from  the  premise  that  activist  networks  are  centered  on  collectives  rather   than  individuals,  the  designers  have  developed  a  nested  model  of  social  organization   that  recognizes  hierarchy  and  supports  several  kinds  of  relationships  between   individuals  and  groups  (Figure  3).  The  software  makes  distinctions  between   “friends”  and  “peers,”  and  also  supports  “committees”  (subgroups),  “councils”   (subgroups  with  enhanced  privileges),  and  “networks”  (collections  of  groups  that   are  collaborating  together  on  a  project).  Each  of  these  configurations  comes  with  its   own  membership  and  privacy  settings  that  allow  individuals  and  groups  to  exert   fine-­‐grained  control  over  the  information  they  choose  to  share  and  with  whom.  In   addition  to  messaging,  groups  share  media  assets  including  audio  and  video  files,   and  collaborate  to  create  and  edit  documents,  events,  and  task  lists.  

  Figure  3:  Collective  social  networking   Crabgrass’  orientation  towards  social  movements  has  also  lead  to  a  reordering  of   other  design  priorities.  Like  many  other  activist  communications  systems,  Crabgrass   privileges  privacy  and  security  concerns.  Crabgrass  users  and  groups  set  their  own   policies  governing  information  sharing,  data  is  stored  in  an  encrypted  format,  and   the  default  configuration  only  accepts  secure  connections  between  servers  and   clients.     Crabgrass’  voting  features  are  also  more  supple  than  the  simple  “majority  wins”   tools  found  on  many  social  media  sites.  Crabgrass  users  can  create  straw  polls  that   allow  users  to  individually  rate  various  options  under  consideration;  the  platform   also  supports  instant  runoff  elections  that  allow  participants  to  rank  options  rather   than  simply  choose  a  single  preference.  Advocates  for  such  “alternative  voting”   mechanisms  argue  that  they  are  more  democratic  than  simple  majority  voting   because  of  the  protections  for  minority  viewpoints  and  the  ability  of  users  to   express  more  nuanced  opinions  [17].  That  they  are  included  in  the  Crabgrass   platform  reflects  deep  and  abiding  commitments  on  the  part  of  the  system’s   designers  to  democratic  decision-­‐making  and  egalitarian  processes.     Finally,  it  is  important  to  note  that  Crabgrass  is  offered  as  both  a  service  and  a   software  platform.  Activists  and  organizations  can  create  accounts  on  Riseup’s   servers  to  utilize  Crabgrass’  features,  but  are  also  encouraged  to  download  the   software  and  host  their  own  services.    Doing  so  enables  an  organization  to  maintain   stricter  control  over  its  data,  integrate  Crabgrass  into  existing  communications   systems,  and  customize  features  as  needed.  

Witness  Video  Hub:  Situating  Human  Rights  Video  in  an  Activist  Milieu  

WITNESS  is  a  US-­‐based  nonprofit  organization  that  promotes  the  use  of  video  in   human  rights  advocacy.  Since  its  founding  in  1988,  the  organization  has  provided   video  cameras  to  human  rights  groups,  worked  with  advocacy  organizations  around   the  world  to  produce  documentary  videos,  and  have  distributed  videos  to   journalists  and  politicians.   In  the  fall  of  2007  WITNESS  unveiled  “The  Hub,”3  a  website  where  individuals  and   organizations  can  upload  and  view  human  rights-­‐related  videos  (figure  4).    The  Hub   offers  similar  functionality  to  other  video-­‐sharing  sites,  like  You  Tube  or  Daily   Motion.  Users  can  upload,  view,  and  rate  videos,  and  engage  in  discussion  with  other   users  by  entering  comments.    WITNESS  lists  a  number  of  additional  features  that  are   currently  under  development  including  support  for  uploading  and  viewing  videos   from  mobile  phones.    

                                                                                                               

3  http://hub.witness.org/  

  Figure  4:  The  Hub  homepage.   While  WITNESS  continues  to  post  its  videos  to  a  variety  of  video-­‐sharing  sites,  the   organization  argues  that  the  Hub  provides  an  alternative  communications  channel   that  is  better  suited  to  activists  needs  than  its  commercial  counterparts.     For  example,  the  Hub  places  a  premium  on  protecting  the  identities  of  users  who   post  content  to  the  site  and  of  activists  who  may  appear  in  videos.  This  is  a  primary   concern  in  human  rights  video  work,  where  activists  can  face  imprisonment  or   worse  at  the  hands  of  the  authorities  their  works  expose.  The  Hub’s  commitment  to   security  extends  to  the  site’s  policies  of  not  requiring  users  to  provide  personal   information  to  the  site  and  their  commitment  to  “never  share,  sell  or  trade  your  

personal  information.  Ever.”    The  Hub  also  features  online  identity-­‐protection   tutorials  and  promotes  the  use  of  TOR,  an  open-­‐source  software  tool  that  masks  IP   addresses,  making  it  difficult  to  associate  Internet  traffic  with  specific  computers  or   physical  locations.   The  Hub  also  differs  from  commercial  sites  in  that  it  doesn’t  claim  ownership  of  the   videos  that  it  hosts.  Instead,  videos  are  published  under  Creative  Commons  licenses   that  allow  activists  to  repost,  repurpose,  and  reuse  videos  in  advocacy  campaigns.   Although  not  currently  supported,  the  Hub  intends  to  allow  users  to  download   videos  so  they  can  be  shown  in  offline  venues  or  reused  in  new  advocacy  video   productions.  The  Hub  contrasts  this  with  YouTube  and  other  commercial  services   that  own  the  content  on  their  websites  regardless  of  its  provenance,  which   WITNESS  says  both  limits  activist  ability  to  repurpose  videos  for  advocacy  and   potentially  leads  to  the  distasteful  spectacle  of  private  enterprise  profiting  from   human  rights  abuse  footage.   Thirdly,  the  Hub’s  sole  focus  on  human  rights  enables  advocacy  videos  to  be   highlighted  in  ways  that  are  impossible  on  commercial  services.  The  site’s  founders   describe  the  experience  of  looking  for  human  rights  videos  on  YouTube  as  akin  to   “finding  a  needle  in  a  haystack”  [7].  The  sheer  volume  of  videos  on  commercial  sites   coupled  with  the  tendency  of  those  sites  to  feature  videos  based  on  popularity  or   aggregate  ranking  often  has  the  effect  of  burying  human  rights  videos  under  a   mountain  of  pratfalls,  music  videos,  and  dancing  babies.  While  YouTube  has   introduced  a  “nonprofits  and  activism”  channel,  it  has  quickly  become  a  dumping   ground  for  all  manner  of  fringe  movements  and  conspiracy  theories.     Perhaps  most  importantly,  from  WITNESS’  perspective,  the  Hub  situates  human   rights  videos  in  an  activist  milieu.  Videos  are  categorized  by  issue  (for  example  “war   crimes”  or  “child  labor”)  and  by  country.  The  site  contains  blog  entries  and  feature   articles  that  highlight  particular  issues  or  campaigns,  such  as  “the  role  of  archives  in   human  rights”  or  “Bhopal:  25  Years  of  Injustice.”  The  Hub  encourages  users  to  join   groups  organized  around  various  issues  and  suggests  ways  for  viewers  to  become   directly  involved  with  human  rights  campaigns  by,  say,  attending  real-­‐world  events   or  donating  to  advocacy  organizations.  The  Hub  also  offers  online  training  to  would-­‐ be  video  activists  through  a  series  of  “Video  Advocacy  Guide”  videos  that  instruct   viewers  on  filming,  editing,  and  distributing  advocacy  videos.  These  features   represent  an  attempt  to  go  beyond  simply  distributing  human  rights  video  via  the   web;  they  are  aimed  at  providing  activists  with  all  the  tools  they  need  to  use  those   videos  in  a  variety  of  on-­‐  and  off-­‐line  advocacy  campaigns.  

Designing  for  Activist  Organizations   Ushahidi,  Crabgrass,  and  the  Hub  were  all  developed  with  activist  organizations  in   mind.  The  use  cases  envisioned  by  their  designers  centered  on  collective  action   rather  than  individual  behavior,  and  assumed  explicitly  political  objectives.  This   unique  perspective  yielded  a  distinct  set  of  requirements  and  features.  For  instance,  

Crabgrass  offers  more  sophisticated  group  management  and  decision-­‐making   capabilities  than  other  social  networking  platforms,  the  Hub  links  video  content  to   activist  campaigns  and  organizations,  and  Ushahidi  allows  editors  to  vouch  for  the   accuracy  of  users’  submissions.   These  projects  also  embody  a  set  of  values  that  reflect  the  activist  communities  from   which  they  emerged.  For  instance,  Crabgrass  and  the  Hub  privilege  user  privacy  and   data  security,  perennial  concerns  for  activist  technology  design  made  more  urgent   by  such  well-­‐publicized  incidents  as  Yahoo!  providing  information  to  the  Chinese   government  that  lead  to  the  arrest  of  a  leading  dissident  in  2005,  and  an   unsuccessful  attempt  in  2007  by  the  State  of  New  York  to  compel  the  author  of  this   essay  to  reveal  information  about  users  of  an  activist  text-­‐messaging  service  called   TXTmob.   Activist  designers  are  often  explicit  about  the  ways  that  ethical  values  shape  their   decisions.  For  example,  both  WITNESS  and  the  Riseup  collective  raise  concerns   about  commercialization  of  activist  media.  While  some  of  this  discussion  is  framed   in  instrumental  terms  (for  example,  activists’  need  to  distribute  and  reuse  videos   and  software),  both  organizations  include  a  moral  dimension  in  their  consideration.   Riseup  is  openly  anti-­‐corporate,  and  lists  a  non-­‐profit  orientation  among  the   desirable  features  in  choices  it  makes  about  software  platforms.  While  perhaps  less   radical,  WITNESS’  discussion  of  commercial  ownership  isn’t  limited  to  concerns   about  licensing  and  distribution;  the  organization  also  raises  the  distasteful   possibility  of  commercial  sites  appearing  to  profit  from  human  rights  video.    In   explicitly  acknowledging  the  ways  that  they  deliberately  encode  ethical  concerns   into  technology  projects,  these  designers  offer  a  template  for  what  Friedman,   Nussbaum  and  others  call  “value-­‐sensitive  design”  [3,  4].   These  projects’  shared  orientation  and  values  do  not  imply  a  uniform  or  consistent   set  of  features  or  requirements.  Indeed,  we  can  identify  instances  where  decisions   made  by  one  project  are  at  odds  with  those  made  by  another.  For  example,  one   might  suggest  that  the  anonymity  that  the  Hub  offers  its  users  might  allow  for  the   sort  of  uncorroborated  content  that  Ushahidi’s  creators  were  concerned  about   instigating  violent  backlash  in  post-­‐election  Kenya.  Recognizing  these  contradictions   points  to  the  importance  that  specificity  plays  as  a  value  undergirding  these   projects.  Each  project  presented  here  set  out  to  address  a  narrowly  defined  need,  for   a  narrowly  defined  audience.  Ushahidi  was  developed  to  catalog  incidences  of  post-­‐ election  violence  in  Kenya;  Crabgrass  to  facilitate  collaboration  across  activist   networks;  the  Hub  to  disseminate  human  rights  videos.  The  specificity  of  purpose   exhibited  by  these  projects  is  contrasted  with  commercial  services,  which  are   generally  designed  to  support  a  range  of  usages  by  as  broad  an  audience  as  possible.   YouTube,  for  example,  facilitates  virtually  any  type  of  video  sharing;  Facebook  hosts   an  ever-­‐expanding  portfolio  of  applications.   This  difference  in  scope  is  intimately  tied  to  the  institutional  goals  of  the   organization  responsible  for  each  project.  YouTube’s  and  Facebook’s  approaches  are   aligned  with  the  fact  that  they  are  commercial  services  whose  businesses  depend  on  

attracting  large  numbers  of  users.  While  the  revenue  streams  for  sites  like   Facebook,  YouTube,  and  Twitter  continue  to  be  works-­‐in-­‐progress,  evolving   business  models  appear  to  be  based  on  delivering  advertisements  to  large  numbers   of  users  organized  into  such  easily-­‐digestible  market  segments  as  geography  and   interests,  and  on  enabling  viral  marketing  campaigns  that  exploit  insights  about   social  network  structure  that  are  gained  by  conducting  data  analyses  on  users.   In  contrast,  activist  organizations  generally  operate  without  profit-­‐making   considerations  and  do  not  necessarily  depend  on  maintaining  large  constituencies.   They  can,  in  a  sense,  afford  to  be  more  specialized  than  commercial  services.  This  is   not  to  say  that  activist  technology  projects  are  immune  from  financial   considerations;  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere,  they  are  absolutely  influenced  by  the   economic  conditions  under  which  they  occur  [5].  However,  the  logics  that  drive   funding  decisions  affecting  activists  and  NGOs  are  different  than  in  the  commercial   sector  and  are  often  more  closely  tied  to  notions  of  social  impact  than  by  aggregated   numbers  of  users.  In  the  cases  described  here,  social  impact  is  understood  in  terms   of  global  networks  of  activist  organizations.   Each  project  described  in  this  essay  was  undertaken  by  an  organization  that  hoped   to  support  other  activists,  often  without  direct  financial  compensation.  Each   required  an  activist  organization  to  take  on  the  development  and  day-­‐to-­‐day   management  of  the  project.  In  all  three  of  the  examples  presented  in  this  paper,  the   design  of  an  activist  technology  was  accompanied  by  the  simultaneous  design  of  an   activist  organization  to  manage  it.    In  the  case  of  Ushahidi,  a  loosely  connected   network  of  bloggers  coalesced  into  an  NGO  initially  to  take  on  the  roles  of   developing  software  and  vetting  incident  reports,  and  ultimately  to  evangelize  the   software  to  the  global  activist  community,  solicit  funds,  and  direct  further  technical   development.  With  the  Hub,  the  development  of  a  video  sharing  site  facilitated  new   relationships  between  an  established  organization  and  other  advocacy  groups,  and   required  a  new  set  of  policies  and  additional  staff  responsibilities.  Similarly,   Crabgrass  provides  both  a  new  hosting  opportunity  for  the  Riseup  collective  and  a   set  of  new  organizing  capabilities  for  the  organizations  that  adopt  it.   Designing  technologies  and  services  for  adoption  by  organizations  adds  its  own  set   of  requirements  to  software  development  projects.  In  addition  to  thinking  through   end  users’  needs  and  experience,  designers  also  have  to  contend  with  the  adopting   organization’s  institutional  goals,  including  the  organization’s  ability  to  project  its   identity  through  the  technology  (what  we  might  think  of  as  “branding”),  and  the   ability  to  act  collectively  in  directing  projects,  coordinating  action  and  mobilizing   resources.  Solutions  intended  for  uptake  by  organizations  also  often  have  to  be   customized  and  integrated  with  existing  technical  systems  and  organizational   practices.  This  is  a  matter  of  both  technology  design  and  technology  licensing.  For   example,  Crabgrass  offers  flexible  group  management  tools  that  better  reflect  the   complexities  of  activist  social  arrangements  than  popular  social  networking   software.    Because  Crabgrass  is  available  under  open  source  licenses  that  allow  the   software  to  be  altered  with  little  cost  or  restriction,  an  organization  can  choose  

which  features  meet  its  needs  and  can  combine  Crabgrass  with  other  open  source   software  products.  As  a  result,  organizations  can  use  Crabgrass  to  integrate  group   management  and  other  social  network  features  into  customized  platforms  that   present  constituents  with  a  seamless  communications  experience.  Ushahidi’s   modular  design  and  its  open  source  licensing  similarly  facilitate  adoption  by  other   organizations.   Having  described  activist  projects  as  a  distinct  form  of  social  media,  let  us  now   consider  how  activist  social  media  relates  to  commercial  services.  As  Pinch  and   Bijker  observe,  there  is  often  significant  interplay  between  artifacts  produced  for   different  purposes;  innovation  is  often  a  process  of  appropriating  features   developed  by  one  social  group  for  use  by  another  [13].  There  is  certainly  a  great   deal  of  back-­‐and-­‐forth  between  activist  and  commercial  media.  For  example,  much   of  today’s  “citizen  journalism”  is  an  evolution  of  the  Indymedia  movement;  and   Twitter’s  creators  have  credited  the  activist  TXTmob  service  as  an  important   precursor  [6].  New  services  like  TwitterMap4  and  TwitterVision5  produce  map   visualizations  of  Twitter  feds,  extending  Ushahidi’s  core  functionality.  Facebook  and   other  social  media  services’  group  management  capabilities  continue  to  evolve  in   ways  that  echo  Crabgrass’  design.  Activist  media  projects  similarly  borrow  from   commercial  services.  Crabgrass  is  a  case  in  point  –  it  was  designed  from  the  get-­‐go   as  an  activist  response  to  the  widespread  adoption  of  popular  social  networking   sites.   However,  we  should  also  recognize  that  activist  technology  projects  proceed  from   an  orientation  and  set  of  values  that  is  at  least  partially  incompatible  with  business   requirements.  For  example,  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  Facebook  introducing   privacy  controls  that  prohibited  the  company  from  conducting  social  network   analysis  on  its  users.    Indeed,  incommensurability  with  business  objectives  is  largely   the  point  of  activist  technology  design.  Activist  projects  allow  organizations  to   create  communications  channels  that  function  independently  of  commercial   offerings.  While  the  need  for  such  channels  is  often  couched  in  terms  of  privacy  and   information  security,  it  also  reflects  deeper  issues  in  activist  communications   strategy.  As  activist  groups  engage  social  media  to  promote  their  causes,  they  often   find  themselves  to  be  “small  fish  in  a  vast  sea  “  [1].  Activist  media  tends  to  garner  far   less  interest  than  other  kinds  of  content  on  sites  that  are  primarily  used  for   entertainment.  Even  when  activist  messages  do  garner  significant  attention,   organizations  may  be  frustrated  by  the  tenor  of  discussion  and  the  difficulties  in   translating  viewership  into  committed  action.  As  WITNESS’  Sam  Gregory  puts  it,   activists’  goals  of  “transforming  a  transitory  audience  into  an  engaged  public”  is  at   odds  with  the  structure  of  commercial  sites  like  YouTube  [18].  Gregory  sees  a   greater  value  in  disseminating  human  rights  media  among  committed  activists  than   in  using  social  media  sites  to  reach  largely  disengaged  audiences  despite  their   numbers.  By  enabling  activist  organizations  to  create  separate  discursive  spaces  for                                                                                                                   4  http://twittermap.tv/   5  http://beta.twittervision.com/  

activist  concerns,  activist  technology  projects  facilitate  the  creation  of  what  Gregory   calls  “communities  oriented  towards  action”:  groups  of  people  who  share   commitments  to  one  or  another  cause,  and  who  are  oriented  towards  translating   those  commitments  into  concrete  action.  In  short,  activist  technology  projects   provide  a  material  substrate  that  enables  movements  and  organizations  to  create,   nurture,  and  mobilize  constituencies;  collectives  whose  orientation  towards   collective  action  distinguish  them  from  the  “users”  that  frequent  commercial  social   media  sites.    

Conclusion  

While  commercial  services  like  Facebook,  YouTube,  and  Twitter  have  become   important  components  of  advocacy  campaigns  around  the  world,  activist  technology   projects  like  Ushahidi,  Crabgrass,  and  the  Witness  Video  Hub  help  us  see  the  limits   of  corporate  media  services  for  political  activism.  As  we  have  seen,  activist   technology  projects  often  proceed  from  different  models  of  social  organization  than   their  commercial  counterparts.    Placing  activism  at  the  center  of  technology  design   highlights  new  requirements  and  leads  to  new  features  that  are  absent  from  tools   designed  to  serve  a  more  general  audience.  Activist  media’s  unique  context  leads  to   innovative  solutions  that,  in  some  instances,  anticipate  broader  technical  trends.   Examining  emerging  practices  in  activist  communities  can  thus  provide  a  glimpse   into  one  possible  future  for  social  and  mobile  media  more  generally.     Activist  design  projects  also  tend  to  operate  according  to  a  different  set  of  values   than  their  commercial  counterparts.  While  these  values  may  at  times  be   incommensurate  with  business  objectives,  looking  closely  activist  design  projects   can  help  us  think  critically  about  the  assumptions  and  biases  that  underpin  social   media  projects  more  generally.  In  particular,  they  help  us  understand  the  key  role   that  institutional  goals  play  in  shaping  social  and  mobile  media  technologies  and   environments,  and  the  policies  that  govern  their  use.  

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