The Mac Weekly

Issue date: 12/7/07 Section: Features

It's difficult, though not impossible to remember a time when "social networking" both within college and between different institutions implied something besides Facebook. In order to gather support for a social cause, for instance, all the low-tech devices once used in the 60s were the norm: petitions, fliers, pins and ribbons, simple requests for the interested to "tell their friends," all of which would culminate in rallies, marches, and greater and greater social interaction in the real, carbon-based, non-digital sphere.

But now, the case is leveled that not only are the activists of today increasingly reliant on digital means to advance their cause, but the ease of such means makes it so that virtually anyone with a mouse and a keyboard can join and claim to be a supporter. It's part of what Timothy Den Herder-Thomas and other Mac Weekly contributors have dubbed the "passive activist," or even more generally, a characteristic trait of what commentators throughout the popular news-media - the great majority of whom come from the generation immediately before ours - call the "apathetic generation."

But with the advent of Facebook, it's worth asking if the activist landscape has shifted ever so slightly into the digital realm and if the result is more than just the opportunity to pat oneself on the back and presume he's done his part to save the world.

A quick search for groups that feature "Darfur" in their title gets over 500 hits, ranging from the specific "Darfur Action Coalition of Milwaukee" (150 members) to the more general "faces for darfur" (1,017 members).

One group titled "They say nobody cares, let's hit 10,000 members. SAVE DARFUR NOW" has already passed its declared membership goal with 11,368 at press time, making it the third most popular such group on Facebook. I shot a message to the group's founder, Alex Kantrowitz, a sophomore at Cornell, asking if this meant that the group or any of its members had made a political statement. I was surprised when instead of returning my message via Facebook, Kantrowitz insisted on speaking over the phone to discuss this.

"I don't think of it as a political statement as much as it is a tool to raise awareness," he said. "The group has become an effective forum to discuss what can be done about the situation."

Kantrowitz said that in his experience, some people have come to the group uninformed but wanting to "do something" about the Darfur crisis and have found a way through the group to get involved. While the group might not have the same political influence as an organization such as the Save Darfur Coalition, it can direct people toward such organizations by posting a link on its profile.

Continued...

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