Zeynep Tufekci: Online social change: easy to organize, hard to win

Recorded atOctober 13, 2014
EventTEDGlobal 2014
Duration (min:sec)16:04
Video TypeTED Stage Talk
Words per minute166.41 medium
Readability (FK)44.5 difficult
SpeakerZeynep Tufekci

Official TED page for this talk

Synopsis

Today, a single email can launch a worldwide movement. But as sociologist Zeynep Tufekci suggests, even though online activism is easy to grow, it often doesn't last. Why? She compares modern movements -- Gezi, Ukraine, Hong Kong -- to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and uncovers a surprising benefit of organizing protest movements the way it happened before Twitter.

Text Highlight
     
100:03 So recently, we heard a lot about how social media helps empower protest,
200:08 and that's true,
300:09 but after more than a decade
400:11 of studying and participating in multiple social movements,
500:15 I've come to realize
600:16 that the way technology empowers social movements
700:20 can also paradoxically help weaken them.
800:23 This is not inevitable, but overcoming it requires diving deep
900:27 into what makes success possible over the long term.
1000:31 And the lessons apply in multiple domains.
1100:33 Now, take Turkey's Gezi Park protests, July 2013,
1200:37 which I went back to study in the field.
1300:40 Twitter was key to its organizing.
1400:43 It was everywhere in the park -- well, along with a lot of tear gas.
1500:46 It wasn't all high tech.
1600:48 But the people in Turkey had already gotten used to the power of Twitter
1700:52 because of an unfortunate incident about a year before
1800:56 when military jets had bombed and killed
1901:00 34 Kurdish smugglers near the border region,
2001:04 and Turkish media completely censored this news.
2101:09 Editors sat in their newsrooms
2201:10 and waited for the government to tell them what to do.
2301:13 One frustrated journalist could not take this anymore.
2401:16 He purchased his own plane ticket,
2501:18 and went to the village where this had occurred.
2601:20 And he was confronted by this scene:
2701:23 a line of coffins coming down a hill, relatives wailing.
2801:28 He later he told me how overwhelmed he felt,
2901:30 and didn't know what to do,
3001:32 so he took out his phone,
3101:34 like any one of us might,
3201:36 and snapped that picture and tweeted it out.
3301:39 And voila, that picture went viral
3401:43 and broke the censorship and forced mass media to cover it.
3501:47 So when, a year later, Turkey's Gezi protests happened,
3601:50 it started as a protest about a park being razed,
3701:53 but became an anti-authoritarian protest.
3801:55 It wasn't surprising that media also censored it,
3902:00 but it got a little ridiculous at times.
4002:03 When things were so intense,
4102:05 when CNN International was broadcasting live from Istanbul,
4202:09 CNN Turkey instead was broadcasting a documentary on penguins.
4302:15 Now, I love penguin documentaries, but that wasn't the news of the day.
4402:20 An angry viewer put his two screens together and snapped that picture,
4502:24 and that one too went viral,
4602:26 and since then, people call Turkish media the penguin media. (Laughter)
4702:31 But this time, people knew what to do.
4802:33 They just took out their phones and looked for actual news.
4902:36 Better, they knew to go to the park and take pictures and participate
5002:40 and share it more on social media.
5102:42 Digital connectivity was used for everything from food to donations.
5202:49 Everything was organized partially with the help of these new technologies.
5302:54 And using Internet to mobilize and publicize protests
5402:58 actually goes back a long way.
5503:01 Remember the Zapatistas,
5603:02 the peasant uprising in the southern Chiapas region of Mexico
5703:07 led by the masked, pipe-smoking, charismatic Subcomandante Marcos?
5803:13 That was probably the first movement
5903:15 that got global attention thanks to the Internet.
6003:18 Or consider Seattle '99,
6103:19 when a multinational grassroots effort brought global attention
6203:24 to what was then an obscure organization, the World Trade Organization,
6303:29 by also utilizing these digital technologies to help them organize.
6403:33 And more recently, movement after movement
6503:36 has shaken country after country:
6603:39 the Arab uprisings from Bahrain to Tunisia to Egypt and more;
6703:44 indignados in Spain, Italy, Greece; the Gezi Park protests;
6803:49 Taiwan; Euromaidan in Ukraine; Hong Kong.
6903:53 And think of more recent initiatives, like the #BringBackOurGirls hashtags.
7003:58 Nowadays, a network of tweets can unleash a global awareness campaign.
7104:05 A Facebook page can become the hub of a massive mobilization.
7204:08 Amazing.
7304:10 But think of the moments I just mentioned.
7404:15 The achievements they were able to have, their outcomes,
7504:19 are not really proportional to the size and energy they inspired.
7604:24 The hopes they rightfully raised are not really matched
7704:28 by what they were able to have as a result in the end.
7804:33 And this raises a question:
7904:36 As digital technology makes things easier for movements,
8004:40 why haven't successful outcomes become more likely as well?
8104:44 In embracing digital platforms for activism and politics,
8204:50 are we overlooking some of the benefits of doing things the hard way?
8304:54 Now, I believe so.
8404:55 I believe that the rule of thumb is:
8504:57 Easier to mobilize does not always mean easier to achieve gains.
8605:03 Now, to be clear,
8705:06 technology does empower in multiple ways.
8805:08 It's very powerful.
8905:10 In Turkey, I watched four young college students
9005:14 organize a countrywide citizen journalism network called 140Journos
9105:18 that became the central hub for uncensored news in the country.
9205:23 In Egypt, I saw another four young people use digital connectivity
9305:28 to organize the supplies and logistics for 10 field hospitals,
9405:32 very large operations,
9505:34 during massive clashes near Tahrir Square in 2011.
9605:40 And I asked the founder of this effort, called Tahrir Supplies,
9705:43 how long it took him to go from when he had the idea to when he got started.
9805:49 "Five minutes," he said. Five minutes.
9905:52 And he had no training or background in logistics.
10005:54 Or think of the Occupy movement which rocked the world in 2011.
10105:58 It started with a single email
10206:00 from a magazine, Adbusters, to 90,000 subscribers in its list.
10306:05 About two months after that first email,
10406:08 there were in the United States 600 ongoing occupations and protests.
10506:15 Less than one month after the first physical occupation in Zuccotti Park,
10606:20 a global protest was held in about 82 countries, 950 cities.
10706:27 It was one of the largest global protests ever organized.
10806:30 Now, compare that to what the Civil Rights Movement had to do in 1955 Alabama
10906:37 to protest the racially segregated bus system, which they wanted to boycott.
11006:43 They'd been preparing for many years
11106:45 and decided it was time to swing into action
11206:47 after Rosa Parks was arrested.
11306:49 But how do you get the word out --
11406:50 tomorrow we're going to start the boycott --
11506:53 when you don't have Facebook, texting, Twitter, none of that?
11606:58 So they had to mimeograph 52,000 leaflets
11707:03 by sneaking into a university duplicating room
11807:06 and working all night, secretly.
11907:09 They then used the 68 African-American organizations
12007:12 that criss-crossed the city to distribute those leaflets by hand.
12107:16 And the logistical tasks were daunting, because these were poor people.
12207:21 They had to get to work, boycott or no,
12307:23 so a massive carpool was organized,
12407:26 again by meeting.
12507:28 No texting, no Twitter, no Facebook.
12607:31 They had to meet almost all the time to keep this carpool going.
12707:34 Today, it would be so much easier.
12807:37 We could create a database, available rides and what rides you need,
12907:42 have the database coordinate, and use texting.
13007:45 We wouldn't have to meet all that much.
13107:48 But again, consider this:
13207:50 the Civil Rights Movement in the United States
13307:53 navigated a minefield of political dangers,
13407:57 faced repression and overcame, won major policy concessions,
13508:03 navigated and innovated through risks.
13608:06 In contrast, three years after Occupy sparked
13708:10 that global conversation about inequality,
13808:12 the policies that fueled it are still in place.
13908:16 Europe was also rocked by anti-austerity protests,
14008:19 but the continent didn't shift its direction.
14108:23 In embracing these technologies,
14208:26 are we overlooking some of the benefits of slow and sustained?
14308:33 To understand this,
14408:34 I went back to Turkey about a year after the Gezi protests
14508:38 and I interviewed a range of people,
14608:40 from activists to politicians,
14708:44 from both the ruling party and the opposition party and movements.
14808:48 I found that the Gezi protesters were despairing.
14908:51 They were frustrated,
15008:54 and they had achieved much less than what they had hoped for.
15108:57 This echoed what I'd been hearing around the world
15208:59 from many other protesters that I'm in touch with.
15309:03 And I've come to realize that part of the problem
15409:05 is that today's protests have become a bit like climbing Mt. Everest
15509:11 with the help of 60 Sherpas,
15609:14 and the Internet is our Sherpa.
15709:17 What we're doing is taking the fast routes
15809:21 and not replacing the benefits of the slower work.
15909:24 Because, you see,
16009:26 the kind of work that went into organizing
16109:29 all those daunting, tedious logistical tasks
16209:32 did not just take care of those tasks,
16309:34 they also created the kind of organization that could think together collectively
16409:39 and make hard decisions together,
16509:41 create consensus and innovate, and maybe even more crucially,
16609:45 keep going together through differences.
16709:49 So when you see this March on Washington in 1963,
16809:53 when you look at that picture,
16909:55 where this is the march where Martin Luther King gave his famous
17009:58 "I have a dream" speech, 1963,
17110:01 you don't just see a march and you don't just hear a powerful speech,
17210:06 you also see the painstaking, long-term work that can put on that march.
17310:11 And if you're in power,
17410:13 you realize you have to take the capacity signaled by that march,
17510:17 not just the march, but the capacity signaled by that march, seriously.
17610:22 In contrast, when you look at Occupy's global marches
17710:26 that were organized in two weeks,
17810:27 you see a lot of discontent,
17910:29 but you don't necessarily see teeth that can bite over the long term.
18010:34 And crucially, the Civil Rights Movement innovated tactically
18110:38 from boycotts to lunch counter sit-ins to pickets to marches to freedom rides.
18210:45 Today's movements scale up very quickly without the organizational base
18310:48 that can see them through the challenges.
18410:51 They feel a little like startups that got very big
18510:55 without knowing what to do next,
18610:57 and they rarely manage to shift tactically
18710:59 because they don't have the depth of capacity
18811:02 to weather such transitions.
18911:04 Now, I want to be clear: The magic is not in the mimeograph.
19011:10 It's in that capacity to work together, think together collectively,
19111:15 which can only be built over time with a lot of work.
19211:19 To understand all this,
19311:21 I interviewed a top official from the ruling party in Turkey,
19411:25 and I ask him, "How do you do it?"
19511:27 They too use digital technology extensively, so that's not it.
19611:30 So what's the secret?
19711:32 Well, he told me.
19811:34 He said the key is he never took sugar with his tea.
19911:41 I said, what has that got to do with anything?
20011:44 Well, he said, his party starts getting ready for the next election
20111:47 the day after the last one,
20211:48 and he spends all day every day meeting with voters in their homes,
20311:52 in their wedding parties, circumcision ceremonies,
20411:55 and then he meets with his colleagues to compare notes.
20511:58 With that many meetings every day, with tea offered at every one of them,
20612:02 which he could not refuse, because that would be rude,
20712:06 he could not take even one cube of sugar per cup of tea,
20812:10 because that would be many kilos of sugar, he can't even calculate how many kilos,
20912:14 and at that point I realized why he was speaking so fast.
21012:18 We had met in the afternoon, and he was already way over-caffeinated.
21112:23 But his party won two major elections
21212:27 within a year of the Gezi protests with comfortable margins.
21312:31 To be sure, governments have different resources to bring to the table.
21412:34 It's not the same game, but the differences are instructive.
21512:37 And like all such stories, this is not a story just of technology.
21612:41 It's what technology allows us to do converging with what we want to do.
21712:46 Today's social movements want to operate informally.
21812:50 They do not want institutional leadership.
21912:52 They want to stay out of politics because they fear corruption and cooptation.
22012:57 They have a point.
22112:59 Modern representative democracies are being strangled in many countries
22213:02 by powerful interests.
22313:04 But operating this way makes it hard for them
22413:08 to sustain over the long term and exert leverage over the system,
22513:11 which leads to frustrated protesters dropping out,
22613:15 and even more corrupt politics.
22713:18 And politics and democracy without an effective challenge hobbles,
22813:23 because the causes that have inspired the modern recent movements are crucial.
22913:29 Climate change is barreling towards us.
23013:32 Inequality is stifling human growth and potential and economies.
23113:37 Authoritarianism is choking many countries.
23213:40 We need movements to be more effective.
23313:42 Now, some people have argued that the problem is
23413:45 today's movements are not formed of people who take as many risks as before,
23513:52 and that is not true.
23613:54 From Gezi to Tahrir to elsewhere,
23713:56 I've seen people put their lives and livelihoods on the line.
23814:00 It's also not true, as Malcolm Gladwell claimed,
23914:02 that today's protesters form weaker virtual ties.
24014:05 No, they come to these protests, just like before,
24114:09 with their friends, existing networks,
24214:11 and sometimes they do make new friends for life.
24314:14 I still see the friends that I made
24414:16 in those Zapatista-convened global protests more than a decade ago,
24514:20 and the bonds between strangers are not worthless.
24614:23 When I got tear-gassed in Gezi,
24714:25 people I didn't know helped me and one another instead of running away.
24814:30 In Tahrir, I saw people, protesters,
24914:33 working really hard to keep each other safe and protected.
25014:36 And digital awareness-raising is great,
25114:38 because changing minds is the bedrock of changing politics.
25214:42 But movements today have to move beyond participation at great scale very fast
25314:49 and figure out how to think together collectively,
25414:53 develop strong policy proposals, create consensus,
25514:56 figure out the political steps and relate them to leverage,
25615:00 because all these good intentions and bravery and sacrifice by itself
25715:04 are not going to be enough.
25815:05 And there are many efforts.
25915:07 In New Zealand, a group of young people are developing a platform called Loomio
26015:12 for participatory decision making at scale.
26115:15 In Turkey, 140Journos are holding hack-a-thons
26215:18 so that they support communities as well as citizen journalism.
26315:23 In Argentina, an open-source platform called DemocracyOS
26415:26 is bringing participation to parliaments and political parties.
26515:29 These are all great, and we need more,
26615:33 but the answer won't just be better online decision-making,
26715:37 because to update democracy, we are going to need to innovate at every level,
26815:42 from the organizational to the political to the social.
26915:47 Because to succeed over the long term,
27015:51 sometimes you do need tea without sugar
27115:53 along with your Twitter.
27215:55 Thank you.
27315:56 (Applause)
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