Clicktivism is a principle where people can essentially become activists online, through ‘clicking’ petitions and sharing particular stories, hence the name clicktivism. Clicktivism is very popular in today’s society, because it’s easy, you don’t need to physically stand up and protest for fight for your beliefs, you can sit down and eat Cheetos and simply click the right stuff. Dwight Ozard calls this ‘slacktivism’. This is important because a lot of people in society are lazy, they’ll have beliefs, but when it comes to protesting for them, they “can’t be bothered”, so clicktivism shows a more accurate picture of who believes in what.

But it’s also easy to fall into an issue through clicktivism without even knowing all the facts. Take KONY 2012 for example. Almost instantly, everything became a human rights activist because they were so moved by the video from Invisible Children. It’s always good to stand up for human rights, but most people hadn’t researched the issue, and were believing almost anything they heard that was relevant to the issue.

I personally love clicktivism, because as I said earlier, it’s just so easy to broadcast your beliefs, all it takes is a click. I’ve participated in the KONY 2012 issues, SOPA/PIPA/ACTA, Anti-Liberal Marches and The Occupy Movement. It’s important to stand up for what you believe in, otherwise “the bad guys win”. It’s easy to join these clicktivism ‘trends’, they essentially are begging for your clicks.

Clicktivism has affected my offline activites, by physically going to marches and becoming more passionate about my beliefs, because I realise how many people think the same way as me. It helps me realise that i’m not alone with my beliefs, and there are thousands of similar people out there. Clicktivism can bring together people the same way religion does, through similar beliefs and values.

Social Media is a powerful tool for clicktivism, because it’s easy to share information, and broaden your audience to the issue. Everything is public, and by sharing clicktivism issues, you are broadcasting your beliefs. But anonymity is also important. We can hide behind our IP address and protest for less popular beliefs, or even share our not so popular opinion. We want to share our opinions, but people think of the consequences and the ‘damage control’, for broadcasting a particular message, and anonymity solves those issues. Which is why a lot of anonymous people are generally mean on the internet.

A current clicktivism event i’m currently participating in is the March in May, where people are protesting for a better government. People do this through the multiple March in May social media’s, but i’m planning on physically attending these marches and becoming an activist for this issue.