From #OccupyWallStreet to #BlackLivesMatter to #MeToo, Twitter is now recognized as an important medium of progressive activism. But while hashtags may be the quickest way for anyone to tap into the turbulent and frenetic world of online social justice discourse, their record for building the sort of institutions that can build popular power is an unbroken pattern of defeat.
It’s like you refuse to consider the space between fully fixing the problem and actually building anything has to be crossed.
Sure. But that's the thing: That "space" hasn't been crossed by the Twitter movement. There's been "movements" but they aren't anywhere on a "national" scale. The national ones (BLM, OWS) have been pretty (IMO) abject failures. OWS notoriously so.
That's the book's point: Twitter can be a force of good (Arab Springs) but a lot of the "local"/US based movements have been pretty tepid in terms of response despite a lot of outcry on Twitter/online.
Sure. But that's the thing: That "space" hasn't been crossed by the Twitter movement. There's been "movements" but they aren't anywhere on a "national" scale. The national ones (BLM, OWS) have been pretty (IMO) abject failures. OWS notoriously so.
That's the book's point: Twitter can be a force of good (Arab Springs) but a lot of the "local"/US based movements have been pretty tepid in terms of response despite a lot of outcry on Twitter/online.