Activism Through Social Networking
In the age of Facebook, Twitter, Digg and countless other services that allow us to connect with our fellow human beings, the exchange of information is becoming a lot more fluid. When I used to see an article that interested me, I would email it to a few friends. Now, I share it via some sort of social media. That way, instead of a couple people seeing it, a few hundred people are invited to see it, or in the case of twitter, nearly a thousand. Those people might share it and so on. One article shared by one person has the potential to reach thousands. All from a few clicks. That’s activism from the comfort of your couch.
People make fun of facebook and twitter because people post messages like, “Fred Fredson is eating a sandwich.” Well, Mr. Fredson, that’s not so interesting to me personally. But many of my friends on FB and people I choose to follow on twitter are writing about something bigger. They are sharing animal rights concerns, human rights violations and environmental take actions (in addition to talking about their personal lives). They are helping me to filter my news in the age of way too much information. In turn, I try to post information that I think is relevant to the world we live in. Whether that’s advocating for people, animals or the environment, it’s all important.
The big AR orgs are doing a great job using social media to bring about change. I mentioned a while back that HSUS is doing a campaign to get IHOP to switch to cage free eggs. So far, they won’t do it. But once HSUS put it’s army of facebook animal rights activists on the tasks, the IHOP fan page on facebook was hit with hundreds (maybe thousands) of comments all ripping into IHOP’s cruelty.
If you’re not doing so already, look into following your favorite non profits and activists online. Repost news that you think is important and do it all through that “frivolous” waste of time known as social networking.
If you’d like, start by sharing this video from HSUS about IHOP.
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