The successes and failures (but mainly the successes) of SpeakZA

25 Mar 2010

On its own terms, the online campaign yesterday, Wednesday, 24 March 2010, protesting the ANC Youth League's disregard for media freedom has been an unqualified triumph. The day has also been an important one for South African social media. Wouldn't it be great, though, if there could also be a real-world victory?

The successes and failures (but mainly the successes) of SpeakZA

Digital activism, if it's to be worthy of the name, needs to be measured by its results in the offline world.

On Wednesday, the same day that Sipho Hlongwane made South African web history by organising what appears to be the country's largest ever online protest, digiactive.org announced the "crushing" of giant corporation Nestle by online green activists.

The site was not engaging in hyperbole: aside from 122 000 views of a Greenpeace Youtube video, which shows an office worker finding an orangutan finger in a KitKat wrapper, 90 000 protesters took over Nestle's Facebook page, thereby creating, according to digiactive.org, "one of the largest digital protests since last summer's Iranian election protests."

Continue reading the full article on www.thedailymaverick.co.za.

About Kevin Bloom

Kevin Bloom, associate editor of www.thedailymaverick.co.za, is an award-winning journalist, editor and author who has written for a wide array of South African and international publications. In his magazine career, he was the founding editor of The Media, editor-at-large of Maverick and joint editor of Empire. Email him at kevin@thedailymaverick.co.za.

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