Since the socialization of online culture, which came about with the creation of Web 2.0, online communities and networks have not only been developed, but have been recognized for their ability to efficiently connect users to one another as well as for their significant value in regard to their influence and population. As activism and social change movements have begun to find their place in online environments, it is met with varying responses which encourages users to ask whether the engagement of online networks with social change leads to more harm than good. The following paper will argue that online networks play a significant role that directly influences the way social change is conducted in a modern online environment. To support said argument, this paper will conduct an evaluation to understand the relationships between online networks and social change, whether that be: an endorsement where networks make positive real-world change; a deterioration where performance activism is a leading factor in the death of real activism and social change movements; or extremist responses in which networks provide a safe haven for hate speech and restrict information in favour of supporting a biased ideology. 

By engaging in specific internet activities such as linking, tagging, searching, authoring (McAfee, 2006), sharing, liking, commenting, and reacting, online networks are the epitome of social internet culture; their ability to overcome boundaries ranging from geographical location to language barriers in order to connect users with one another in a way which was previously unattainable is what makes the system so remarkable. These networks can be formed on the basis of a common interest/goal or even for no reasoning at all other than the internet allowing them to do as such; a common example of such has coincided with the rise of fan culture and the construction of online networks being dedicated to specific fan bases. Due to a network being comprised of many users, messages and information which reach one part of the network are bound to travel to all or most users through this connectivity. With this information at hand, it becomes obvious how these online networks have earned themselves a reputation for having extreme loyalty and creating significant real-life impact when called to participate in social change. Online networks can become affiliated with social changes and activist movements through a variety of ways; the one which is most seen throughout fan-group networks relies on the testimony of the person/group which unites them. One fan group in particular which the media has witnessed engaging in political activism and social changes on multiple occasion is the ‘BTS army’, the named fans of South-Korean K-Pop band ‘BTS’. In 2020, during the early heat of the Black Lives Matter movement, those who objected to the message proposed that White Lives Matter should be just as significant, and as such, the #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag began circling online networks. This hashtag was quickly adopted by right-wing radicals who used the hashtag to promote white supremacist ideologies and hate speech. Thus, when BTS publicly showed their support for the Black Lives Matter movement and condemned violence, fans took it upon themselves to communicate with one another throughout their fan-dedicated networks and decided to saturate the #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag with memes and irrelevant videos so that the hate speech and far-right propaganda would be overpowered and lose any significance it may have held. If this wasn’t enough, during the 2020 election campaign the ‘BTS army’ began reserving seats online for Donald Trump rallies with the intention of never attending. Therefore, when whole arenas would be reserved and Trump prepares to speak, he would be addressing a near-empty audience. Because of socialization aspects of this formed network, the users involved were able to participate in real-life political events or at the least attempted to limit the spread of harmful misinformation. These events hold significant value as it presents a strong argument and example of how social change and activist movements which have been orchestrated solely through online networks without any pre-existing movements or requirements for offline organization (Earl et al., 2010) can retain a significant impact. With online networks possessing the ability to share information to individuals at a rapid rate, it proposes that the future of activism and social change movements can potentially be conducted entirely online and have an impact just as substantial as traditional methods for activism whilst saving time, efforts, and other resources. 

Since the rise of participatory media culture with the birth of Web 2.0 affordances, users are encouraged to engage with one another in connected online networks, developing an overall social web. As this sociability has evolved, users are encouraged to present their online identity to multiple online publics, additionally these displays of self must carry meaning whilst also being authentic and true to the user’s sense of self; this practice is recognized as a “networked self” (Papapcharissi, 2010). As the internet becomes more politically aligned, there is an expectation for users on social media platforms to engage in such conversation and use their platform to promote a message or bring awareness to certain subjects. In recent years, it has become more apparent that the negative consequences of these online social expectations are that users who possess any kind of influence have a responsibility to participate in this online activism and the pressure to do so feels almost forceful. Due to their distinct following, influential users are the focal or common interest which connects each user to one another, therefore encasing themselves within their own built network. With every new social change movement comes an expectation for these online influencers to promote it within their network, otherwise they run the risk of severe criticism which suggest that the influencer is not in support of said movement which can potentially lead toward them being ‘cancelled’ or losing career opportunities as a result. To amend this issue, influencers often engage in low effort activism, an action where they are able to fulfill the bare minimum requirements of these online expectations in order to stay relevant, stay influential, and stay honest to their promoted messages. The harm from this comes when the expectation to constantly be promoting and participating in these social movements results in the rise of online performance activism, or rather ‘slacktivism’. Slacktivism is a way for online users to do the bare minimum to showcase that they are supporting certain messages and movements without having to actively participate or make any change offline. Relating back to the idea of this networked self, not only are online users supposed to practice genuineness and share meaningful posts, but there is also a societal pressure to simultaneously highlight the best and most flattering aspects of their lives on their social networking platforms. By engaging in slacktivism, the users ultimately benefit themselves as, from their unknowing audience’s perspective, they are adhering to these expectations associated with the networked self whilst not having to sacrifice any effort in doing so. As low effort activism slowly becomes accepted as the new norm, it has spread beyond individual online users and had been adopted by larger companies who utilize it for its ability to strengthen a company’s image or profits in a way recognized as ‘corporate clicktivism’. Capitalist corporations like to associate themselves with progressive movements as social change itself aims for a utopian-like future which resonates with consumers that “desire for a better way of being” (Levitas, 2007). Due to this, corporations will align themselves with ideas of social change to conjure this feeling of yearning for Utopia within consumers in order to boost their own profit (Mortula, 2010) and to manipulate their publics into believing that they are an integral part of this movement. On March 8^th, 2022, a gender pay gap robot was activated on Twitter. When any large corporation, company, or organization tweeted something in support of International Women’s Day using the hashtag #IWD2022, the bot would reply to their tweet with data outlining the average pay gap between men and women within said institution; this was used to shame companies who used engaged in slacktivism and corporate clicktivism and publicly reveal their hypocrisy. This online behaviour has led to a line of questioning which asks whether activism can even be successful online or is it simply a means for exploiting social change for greed. Consequently, it can be argued that performance activism harms real activism as it rewards users despite them making no real social change, a behaviour which online networks have gradually taught its users to accept. 

Purely by construction, online networks are designed and built by users who are connected to one another through a certain common interest, goal, or other subject matter. In the instance that this common focus which unites them is a source of information (whether that being a certain network, an ideology, or a person of influence), it creates a tendency that the users within said network, will agree with each other and with the information presented. Whilst this can be viewed as a way for users with these commonalities to effectively communicate with one another, it can also lead to the development of echo chambers. Echo chambers occur when the network itself becomes an environment that only welcomes information which adheres to and supports their own ideas; furthermore, the ideas and information available within these echo chambers tend to adhere to “pre-existing attitudes and biases” (Lewandowsky et al., 2017). Furthermore, echo chambers can assist in the development of the false consensus effect in which users within said network overestimate the external support for their ideas outside of their own networks, thus naively believing that their ideas are widely endorsed because they have chosen to only surround themselves with perspectives which support their own. In instances where this has become actualized, networks whose members have promoted negative or toxic ideas have developed niche communities of networks for themselves in which the spread of hate speech and bigotry is condoned. An example of such has been the recognition of ‘incel’ culture, a shortened term referring to individuals, primarily men, who are ‘involuntarily celibate’. Whilst it can be easy to laugh off this community, within their networks they promote ideas which state that their celibacy is an act of persecution, that men are being oppressed, and that women are to blame for this shift in a traditional gender hierarchy. The combination of these ideas ultimately fosters extremist beliefs with misogynistic and bigoted views on society which, when acted upon, can be violent in nature (O’Malley et al., 2022). Because the ideas promoted within this network are extremely regressive, it is inevitable for them to clash with the ideas promoted within progressive social change movements. Their anti-feminist ideology, which villainizes the entirety of the female sex, opposes any social movements in support of gender equality. In several instances, self-identified incels have engaged in violent acts against women, motivated by the ideas spread within their network and the praise that comes from fellow incels for their actions. This violence is not always manifested in attacks targeting solely women; violent acts conducted by self-proclaimed incels have included stabbings, vehicular homicides, and shootings in which even men and children have been targets of their wrath (Hoffman et al., 2020). One particularly significant instance of this being in February of 2018 when Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and wounded 17 more during a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. This supports the argument as to how the ideas which circulate throughout incel echo chambers and online networks can motivate extremist behaviour, especially when in response to calls for social change which do not align with their beliefs, and when actualized, adopt a violent form.

With the support of the information presented within this paper, it is undisputable that in a modern internet environment, online networks have an overlapping relationship with social change. Additionally, online networks are accredited with the impact they have on social change movements in the offline world, whether they be positively influential, negatively complacent, or even detrimental to the social issues themselves. The argument as to whether online networks do more harm than good is dependent on the circumstances, intentions, and nature of the network itself. With the evolution of the internet, the way in which social change is conducted must also evolve to suit these developments. Since online networks are an effective way of relaying information to many users at once, they can succeed in making activism simplified for those who wish to participate. Without the need for any effort, whether these actions can truly be considered real activism is beyond the scope of this paper, but the argument that online networks have a significant role in social change is an indisputable fact. 

References

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