USES OF SOCIAL NETWORK PLATFORM IN ACTIVISM 1

Uses of Social Network Platform in Activism

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Author Note
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Uses of Social Network Platform in Activism

Social network platform has played a significant role by ensuring that information

gets to a multitude of people faster. In America, activism campaigns have been established

through different social media platforms such as Twitter. Examples of the modern-day

campaigns that used hashtags to express peoples’ views in the United States include #MeToo

and #BlackLivesMatter. The #MeToo was used for mobilizing the younger generation against

sexual assault cases. Subsequently, the #BlackLivesMatter passed information about racism

and race to all households in America; this helped to reduce the marginalization of certain

groups of people (Applied social psychology, 2020).

Social network sites acted as crucial factors that led to the Arab Nations Uprising. In

the ostracism of president El Abidine Ali of Tunisia and the overthrow of Egypt’s President

Mubarak, Facebook and Twitter were used heavily by young protesters. They mobilized the

countries for political opposition using smartphones. In Egypt, for example, the internet was

the most appropriate source of passing information when convectional restrictions were put

on media houses. Pew Research surveyed Egypt online searches and concluded that 84% of

the people who had access to the internet searched social media sites to obtain news about

Egypt’s political state in 2011. (Pew Research Center, 2020).

In Iran, during the 2009 elections, the use of internet platforms impacted on the

political position of the country. Two political leaders Ahmadinejad and Mousavi contested

for the presidential seat while citizens followed closely the tallying of the votes on social

networks. Civil unrest broke out when both leaders declared themselves winners. This

resulted in chaos, and a more significant population of people opposed the election fraud

through Twitter(#IranElections) terming Ahmadinejad as a dictator. The supporters of

president Moussavi used Facebook and Twitter to communicate with citizens and organized
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massive demonstrations that led to the end of dictatorial rule with the help of social

networking platforms (The State University of New York, 2018)

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References

Applied Social Psychology. (2020). The power of Social Media in Modern Activism. [Online]

https://sites.psu.edu/aspsy/2018/03/16/the-power-of-social-media-in-modern-

activism/

Pew Research Center. (2020). The role of Social Media in the Arab Uprisings. [Online]

https://www.journalism.org/2012/11/28/role-social-media-arab-uprisings/

The State University of New York. (2018). Social Networking Sites. [Online]

https://www.globalization101.org/social-networking-sites-2/