The Pros & Cons of Digital Activism in Todays Society

Digital Activism, as the name suggests, is the act of creating awareness and being active in society, but is done digitally. This is mainly accomplished through online forums and social media. Rather than protests and mass gatherings, people gather online and post their support and awareness, such as reposting articles and awareness posts on their social media stories. But this comes with pros and cons as not everyone is themselves on social media, and the power of social media can cause falsity and the spread of misinformation.

A pro of digital activism is how quickly a message can be spread. Especially through social media, the function of being able to repost on your story or retweet an article truly shows how simple it is to spread content. This allows awareness to be seen by a large mass in society, but with this, comes the spread of misinformation. While an idea or a movement can be spread so easily, such as the recent #BlackOutTuesday, where people posted a black rectangle on their feed to spread awareness on BLM, actually was counterintuitive, as people started using #BLM which in case, silenced voices that were trying to spread awareness through #BLM.

A major con that was mentioned in “The Case for Digital Activism: Refuting the Fallacies of Slacktivism” (Madison & Klang, 2020), is the idea of slacktivism. Slacktivism refers to the idea that a simple like to a post or other little gestures is contributing to activism. The lack of meaningful contribution can lead to oversimplification of complex issues, which could result in misunderstandings or false information.