Occupy Earth Together: Globally Controlled By Social Media Corporate Giants
18/10/2011 08:09Source: Guardian
Other Wires
Social Media Gives Wall Street Protests a Global Reach
Social Media enables Occupy Earth
Occupy Together: how the global movement is spreading via social media
At the beginning of October last year Malcolm Gladwell wrote in the New Yorker that activism via social media was no more than "weak-tie connections" which "makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact".
One year on, with #arabspring uprisings changing governments in north Africa and #OccupyWallStreet drawing the attention of senior Republicans and Democrats, the #globaldemocracy movement is gaining momentum via Twitter and Facebook. Now protests are planned for Saturday in four continents, I wonder if Gladwell will rethink the power of social networked activism.
Occupy Wall Street spread virally across the United States, and more recently a number of UK events have sprung up on Facebook, leading to the first protest events in England and the rest of Europe this weekend.
Occupy London Stock Exchange appeared on Facebook under the mantra "It's time to say enough is enough" – with just over 13,000 likes at the time of writing. Followed closely by Occupy England, with event timings and locations passed around Twitter via the trending hashtag #OccupyEngland and account @OccupyEngland.
On Saturday events are planned for Birmingham city centre (Bullring, 12pm), Manchester (Piccadilly gardens), Bristol (College Green, 12pm) to tie in with London protests. Occupy Scotland also has a Twitter account and blog. This crowdmap details 14 events planned for the UK. Here's a Twitter list of the accounts we know about.
