February 04, 2015

Social media can be a powerful force if harnessed for social or environmental activism. Social media also has the benefit that it can rally public opinion very quickly, even overnight, far faster than conventional petitions or other means. A racist person can lose their job in a day, national legislation can be altered or retracted and companies and governments can be forced to change their position on an issue.

Here are some examples of the effectiveness of social media that resulted in public outcry and effective action.

AMY CHEONG AND ‘WEDDING-GATE’

Amy Cheong was the Membership Assistant Director of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) in Singapore.

Amy Cheong put a public posting on her personal FaceBook page, late on Sunday night, complaining about the noise from a Malay wedding held at a void (party) deck near her home. She used profanities, related Malay weddings to high divorce rates and stated that void weddings should be banned.

By 3 am there was a page on Facebook called “Fire Amy Cheong.” By 7 am, Amy’s post had gone viral on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Amy responded by telling people that her Facebook comments were private and they had no right to read them.

The “Fire Amy Cheong” Facebook page had 1,725 likes before noon (and would go on to accumulate tens of thousands of likes). A Facebook page called “Stop Racism in Singapore’ started a petition on its page calling for her dismissal.

By 10 am, NTUC Secretary General Lim Swee Say made a public apology on social media. By 10.20 am, a member of the public had filed charges against Ms Cheong. (In many countries, if you put a comment onto social media, you have, legally speaking, “published” that remark and can be sued for defamation. Singapore goes even further, charging offenders for race crimes by using public hate speech.)

By 12.30 pm, NTUC had issued a formal statement about Cheong’s dismissal. By mid afternoon, advertisements for her position appeared on Jobstreet. By 5.30 pm, Amy issued a full statement of apology, but it was far too late to save her job or her reputation.

PRITA MULYASARI & OMNI HOSPITAL

Prita Mulyasari, a bank employee and mother of two, was admitted to the Omni International Hospital in Jakarta, running a high fever. At Omni, Prita was mis-diagnosed with dengue fever, despite undergoing a battery of tests.

She moved to another hospital and was correctly diagnosed with mumps. Prita sent an email to 20 friends informing them of her poor treatment at Omni and the excessive tests, which she attributed to a desire to make money from medical insurance policies. Without her knowledge, one of her emails was posted on an open bulletin board. The Omni Hospital tracked the email back to her and filed a defamation complaint under Indonesia’s new and untested, Information and Electronic Transaction Law.

Prita, still breastfeeding, was sent to jail and charged by prosecutors with defamation, which can result in a jail term up to 6 years. Omni Hospital also filed a civil suit.

The story was picked up by Indonesian bloggers and a Facebook support page was set up, attracting tens of thousands of members. There was a huge outcry from media, bloggers and politicians, including Indonesia’s then-President SBY.

The High Court found Prita guilty of defaming Omni Hospital, gave her a fine of 204 million rupiah (USD $21,680) in damages and a jail sentence of 6 months. A group of bloggers started the “Help Prita” movement across the country, asking people to donate coins. A Coins for Justice website was set up. People from all backgrounds contributed. Beggars and school children were shown on news media donating coins. A benefit concert was held in Jakarta. Over USD$90,000 was collected. Prita made a public statement that any money beyond the fine amount would be donated to charity.

The Omni Hospital proposed dropping their civil suit if Prita agreed to a settlement. She refused. The civil suit was still dropped. Former President Megawati became personally involved in the case and Prita was released from jail. The High Court reversed its ruling and Prita was acquitted of defamation charges.

The new Cyber Law, under which Prita was charged, is being reviewed.

GREENPEACE’S ‘ARCTIC READY’ CAMPAIGN

In 2012, Greenpeace developed a social media campaign, together with the activist group, Yes Lab, targeting Shell Oil’s plans to begin drilling in the Arctic. Shell had previously won a legal injunction preventing Greenpeace activists from coming within a kilometer of any Shell assets worldwide, so Greenpeace had to devise a virtual campaign to protest against Shell’s actions.

Greenpeace spent $10,000 to set up a website mimicking the real Shell’s website about Arctic drilling. Visitors to the fake Shell website could use an ad generator to make up their own ad; over 10,000 ads were created and shared on social media. Greenpeace chose one of these ads to place on a billboard on a highway in Houston, Texas, that led to Shell’s American headquarters. Greenpeace also set up a Twitter account, named @Shellisready, pretending to be an incompetent social media team from Shell that was ineffectively trying to handle negative publicity from Shell’s ads.

Many people who saw the website and Twitter feeds assumed that both were genuine Shell sites and broadcast both the ads and the associated tweets to show corporate social media gone horribly wrong.

The links went viral, with over 2 million page views of the fake Shell website.

Twitter refused to close the fake Twitter account based on complaints from Shell, and defended their decision, saying that parody was allowed as freedom of speech.

When one of Shell’s drilling rigs in the Arctic went adrift, the news caused the Arctic Ready campaign to go viral for a second time.

Greenpeace has collected 900,000 signatures to a petition calling for a block on Arctic drilling and has reached many new audiences, with many new supporters and donors who are joining because of the campaign and the highlighting of the issue of Arctic oil drilling.

Shell recently announced they are halting Arctic drilling, due to logistical and environmental issues, but one has to wonder how much effect the Greenpeace campaign had on this decision.