I think the social media websites do little or are actually detrimental in a way to causes such as the ones shes outlined. Sure they allow people to quickly 'donate' or shoot out a tweet, or change there profile picture as some form of protest. People will feel happy and think they have done something and then the it is all forgotten.
Case in point is Haiti. Everybody donates, concerts were held and everyone felt great. They assume there money was spent by some poor Haitian to rebuild his home. Yet no-one has followed up with the fact that the money isn't getting there [1].
Similarly she trots out the Tehran protests which I seem to recall being debunked pretty thoroughly as another feel-good American media frenzy, but with almost no effect on the ground in Tehran. For instance, most of the major Tweeters at the time were not even in Iran, and people involved in the actual protests were not tweeting at all. At best it raised American awareness—especially within tech circles, but very little tangible impact.
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I don't agree with the author here.
I think the social media websites do little or are actually detrimental in a way to causes such as the ones shes outlined. Sure they allow people to quickly 'donate' or shoot out a tweet, or change there profile picture as some form of protest. People will feel happy and think they have done something and then the it is all forgotten.
Case in point is Haiti. Everybody donates, concerts were held and everyone felt great. They assume there money was spent by some poor Haitian to rebuild his home. Yet no-one has followed up with the fact that the money isn't getting there [1].
[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake
Similarly she trots out the Tehran protests which I seem to recall being debunked pretty thoroughly as another feel-good American media frenzy, but with almost no effect on the ground in Tehran. For instance, most of the major Tweeters at the time were not even in Iran, and people involved in the actual protests were not tweeting at all. At best it raised American awareness—especially within tech circles, but very little tangible impact.