Social network workshop: activism examples

Initially started as notes for Jon Pincus' presentation at the workshop on Activism and Education Using Social Networks.

please help by filling in links and additional references

• Facebook Becomes Catalyst for Causes, Colombian FARC Protest by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo discusses Facebook's role in the 100-city, multi-million person worldwide rallies against FARC in February.
  • Economist article

• Twitter and blogs after Egyptian activists are arrested. (References needed!)
  • Also see Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everyone

• Courage Campaign's anti-Blackwater activism in Southern California
  • Video
  • Town of Potrero votes out city council and changes stance
  • Blackwater changes plans (AP article)
  • Petition to Pelosi
  • Letter to San Diego Mayor about new permit

• Mashups
  • Netsquared's contest

• No honorary doctorate for anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly

• Focused on Facebook
  • Free the Blackadder One: 2,700 members; Derek Blackadder's account was restored. See How to respond when Facebook censors your political speech on the Wired How-to Wiki for more examples of people's accounts being disabled when Facebook confuses political activism and spam.
  • Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!; 80,000 members; Facebook changed Beacon's policies and apologized
  • Official Facebook Petition: To ban the inviting of friends on Applications; 1,000,000+ members, led to change in Facebook's policies for application developers

• 2008 US presidential election
  • Will the 2008 USA election be won on Facebook? by Linnie Rawlinson on CNN International
  • Ron Paul Boston Tea Party
  • ClintonAttacksObama wiki
    • Wiki to track Clinton Attacks on Obama by Baratunde Thurston on GoodCrimeThink, crossposted on Jack and Jill Politics
    • Comedian Starts a Wiki To Track Attacks on Obama by Sarah Lai Stirland on Wired's THREAT LEVEL
    • the Clinton Attacks Obama Wiki
  • Black Blogosphere Proves Potent Force in Story of Race in the New South, by Reggie Royston of the Maynard Institute, interviewing Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune
  • "Yes we can" do grassroots activism on Facebook, by Jon Pincus on Liminal States, with some statistics tracing views of the will.i.am video
    • iLike's role in video propgation by Tony Thielen on Liminal States
  • Does “Obama Girl” help Obama?, Farhad Manjoo interviewing Clay Shirky in Salon’s Machinist
  • Double Bubble Trouble/"Count every vote" == need a chronology here similar to Operation Chaos. possible starting place here
  • Obama's MySpace Delegates, by Ari Melber on The Nation's Campaign Matters
  • Inside Obama’s Surging Net-Roots Campaign by Sarah Lai Stirland on Wired
  • Finding Political News Online, the Young pass it on by Brian Stelter in the New York Times'
  • YES WE DID!!!, message from Matt Adler to members of his Facebook group after he was selected as a delegate to the DNC, quoted on Liminal States
  • Students revolutionize access to voting: voter registration from Facebook (for Washington and Arizona, the only two of the 50 US states that allow online registration)
  • Wiki Woman: The battle to define Hillary online by Eve Fairbanks in The New Republic
  • Operation Chaos chronology, here on the CFP community wiki
  • McCain campaign including Democratic bloggers in conference calls on OpenLeft

• examples from Adam Sargant of Sitewriters] in the UK

1. International Activism Network on Small Arms - developed at short notice their for ther www.iansa.org/stoptheship...shipment.php campaign which achieved over 6 thousand signatures in about 6 days if I recall correctly... not massive by AVAAZ standards, but achieved almost entirely virally.
2. Garstang, the world's first fair trade town
3. Climate Stewards - carbon footprint calculator (a re-write is planned later this year so that the emphasis moves from offsetting to lifestyle management)
4. Conciliation Resources - "the shop is a particular bespoke piece of code, because they had many specific needs that would have been compromised badly if an off the shelf product had been used"
5. WorthBroadcasting, a central directory from Sitewriters for podcasts and vidcasts from charitable, voluntary and campaigning organisations, as well as a central resource for podcasting and vidcasting tutorials and tools

ACLU (Eric's presentation):

• blog
• Flickr
• on Facebook -- account currently disabled!

Ben Masel: 2006 Democratic Senate primary in Wisconsin, a MySpace-based campaign -- spent less than $1000