Sunday, March 6, 2011

Thank you Mark Zuckerberg

Over the past few weeks it has become evident how strong of a role social medias such as facebook and twitter play in politics. Besides for the recent outbreaks of protesting and riots in Egypt and Libya, facebook is also being used as an outlet by the organization called Planned Parenthood. On February 18, there was a vote to pass the Pence Amendment, which if made into law, will strip Planned Parenthood of all its federal funding. This would prevent Planned Parenthood and 102 affiliated organizations from receiving any federal funds—including money for contraception, cancer screening, STD testing and treatment, education, and more. The Pence amendment would cut off 48% of Planned Parenthood patients—approximately 1.4 million people—from their source of health care.


Therefore, supporters of Planned Parenthood created an event on facebook, which includes a link to sign a petition to raise awareness of this issue. To be honest, without facebook, I would not have known about this issue at all. It's amazing how much more connected the world has become with these social medias, which have made me as well as I'm sure of many others, much more politically aware of issues that I may not have previously known about. 
I guess I owe it to Mark Zuckerberg for making me slightly more aware of what is happening in the world.  

5 comments:

  1. I see people posting links like this all the time on Facebook. It's useful for spreading information, but the catch is that if you're unsympathetic to the cause your friend is advocating, you're no more likely to care.

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  2. There are so many worthy causes, events, groups, pages, etc. on Facebook, which is good for raising "awareness", I guess, but when it comes to acting (in the physical, non-facebook world) on these causes, I'm not sure that it makes such a huge difference. You might follow a link and sign a petition, but what about attending a protest? Voting? Writing to a politician? Donating money? Does being a facebook activist translate into being an activist in the real world?

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  3. That's a good question. I don't think there's any simple way to answer it, but I hope some enterprising scholar is working on the issue right now. In his book "The Myth of Digital Democracy," Matthew Hindman argues that the internet is not leveling the playing field and making it easier for the everyday citizen to participate in politics. If he's right, this may be just blowing smoke.

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  4. I agree. I think it provides people with a satisfaction because they delude themselves that if they "attend an event" or "like" a specific cause, that they are taking a stance and showing that they care. It is a way of getting instant gratification and feeling good about yourself, but it is a trap. My parents have told me about the rallies they used to attend in the 70s for soviet Jewry. Nowadays, once in a while there are big rallies in support of Israel or against certain people or policies, but more recently the number of rallies have decreased and the number of people attending have dwindled due to indifference and fake empathy. I think this is because people fool themselves into thinking that the click of the button is really making an impact, when, in truth, taking time out of your busy schedule (ie sitting on facebook all day) and speaking to a congressman or representative is really shows where your loyalties lay.

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  5. That's a fair point - I agree with what you said about instant gratification, and there are less rallies now with facebook than there used to be. However, I still think that at least facebook is spreading knowledge and awareness. I would not have even known about this without facebook because I do not get the New York Times and although I try to read it online, I don't always do it. But, true our generation has gotten lazy when it comes to activism.

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