Freedom through Facebook?

Last February, a young man named Ivan Pernar issued a call on his Facebook profile for anti-government protests in Zagreb. After that, similar “Facebook” protests were called and organized in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Banja Luka, in Belgrade in Serbia, and in Podgorica.

Before that, in 2010, activist group “Ploštad Sloboda“ (Freedom Square) used its Facebook profile to organize a series of actions and protests against Government plans to thoroughly change the look of down—town Skopje. Of course, we also have the famous and glorious examples of use of “Facebook” – and other social networks, most notably Twitter – to organize civil resistance to authoritarian regimes and dictatorships, from Iran and Burma, to the latest examples in North Africa and all over the Arab world.

The success of the “Facebook protests” in the region is debatable and depends, we guess, on individual expectations and definitions of success. For example, in Zagreb, protests grew from initial number of several hundred people, to 10,000 at the height of the protests, and then to several dozens as the time passed. Of course, at their most numerous, they basically coincided with the protests of war veterans after yet another arrest of one of their own on war-crimes charges and, importantly, with the discovery of a number of huge corruption deals and actions by the government of previous prime minister Ivo Sanader. The protests in Belgrade, Banja Luka and Podgorica, and previously in Skopje, were far less successful, gathering, at best, several hundred people.

Of course, success is relative and, as we noted, depends on expectations. If one expected very few people to appear, several hundred is great success. However, in terms of being able to initiate actual social change, we have to admit they have failed.

One commonly cited factor that has led to their widely perceived failure is the claim that they are nothing but a fad, followed by young ‘hipsters’ who decided they should follow the fashion started in other parts of the world.

Gradanske inicijative (Civic Initiatives) NGO from Belgrade consulted several analysts in an article dedicated to the “Facebook” protest in Belgrade and the fact that just about 300 of the 3000 people that confirmed their participation to the call placed by the “Youth Strikes Back” group.

Ebart Media Documentation portal concluded, for example, that “existence of strong opposition, as in Serbia, proves much more restrictive to the influence of social networks than the activities of secret services”, having in mind that “organized opposition aims to take power in elections, not on the street”.

Sociologist Milan Nikolic said that social networks are given too much importance, which is due to the current focus on “transmission of information” which is not the most important thing.

“There is a lot of social discontent in the country (Serbia, our note) but this is rather small group of young people that go to the social network, with limited social charge”, Nikolic said.

We should add that, in a great number of cases, the unwillingness of initiators of such calls, either from the left or the right of the political scene, to seek the middle ground with the dominant public opinion trends, proves an obstacle that is decisive for the low turnout. Also, often such initiatives are open attempts at self-promotion and present not quite commendable political views.

On the other hand, the effectiveness of social networks is also undermined by our very human nature. We are quick to apply for anything online, because it is easy, it’s just one click with the mouse. The problem is then, to actually move our butts and take the concrete action that we pledge we would do. For instance, after the arrest of retired general Jovan Divjak, 2000 people applied immediately to the Facebook page demanding his release. The next day, there were 18,000 members, and yet, about a dozen people appeared at the support rally.

Srda Popovic from the Faculty of Political Sciences and director of the Centre for Applied Non-Violent Action noted, on the other hand, that Facebook proved successful in the fight to protect the sycamore trees on King Alexander Blvd in Belgrade which started on the social network and later grew into meetings, performances and actions.

The author of the commentary “Look who’s protesting now” on Croatian portal Fanfo.org, signed as “Darky”, makes another important point about effectiveness of social media in situations in which there are established (even if perceived as mostly formal) democratic institutions and practices in a country.

“Protests and ‘revolutions’ don’t get organized over the Facebook, at least not in democratic societies. Authoritarian regimes are another matter, since internet is often the sole media that the state can’t fully control or limit the access to it. Mass protests that could shake-up the depressed society and expose the hypocrisy of political elites in Croatia (you could freely replace Croatia with any other country in the region) would require creation of consensus of all layers in the society, farmers, workers, academic community, the Church, veterans of war. Until such a time when all those groups unite behind a common goal, programme and leadership, necessary changes are impossible to achieve”, Darki says.

Our own Valentina Pellizzer, owpsee executive directress, holds that view that social networks are primarily a tool to animate the general public towards a cause and should be measured by that criteria. She pointed out the case of “Ne damo Varšavsku“ (Can’t have Varšavska“) campaign implemented by Zelena Akcija environmental association and Pravo na Grad (Right to a City) initiative in Zagreb, which effectively used social networks to reqruit support and citizens in sit in vigils aimed to prevent start of construction works on the „Cvjetno“ project, which they rightly saw as a clear case of sacrifice of public interest, in favour of private developer of yet another shopping mall in down-town Zagreb.

For those interested in more about this, An important contribution to the ongoing debate about importance of social networks in activism and social change was made by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker, in an article titled “Small Change”, with illustrative subtitle “Why the revolution will not be tweeted”.

Now, that is not to say that all new media and technology is irrelevant in terms of social change. As we noted earlier, even social networks have worked out fine for the people of Egypt. In fact, here in the region, we have a number of positive examples of proper and successful use of new media and technology for social change, or to coordinate campaigns and activism.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, two important civil initiatives, the Dosta Movement (Enough) and Citizens’ Action (Akcija gradana) initiatives grew out of the most popular internet forum in the country. The organizers of Belgrade Pride have effectively used the Pride’s website to coordinate activities and, importantly, help prepare the participants in the Pride to avoid dangerous situations and the very real threat of violence by right wing homophobic groups.

Srda Popovic notes that members of the “Otpor” movement to Miloševic’s regime used mobile phones for communication and coordination.

“New media are interesting for three reasons, the first being that they are quick and cheap. Second, they reduce the influence of state-owned media, which is of great importance, knowing that the media are strictly controlled in some countries. The third reason is that they allow for quicker learning cycle, with manuals and instructions how to organize protests widely available on the internet”, Popovic says.

In fact, the Tactical Tech Collective, an international NGO that works to advance the skills, tools and techniques of rights advocates, empowering them to utilise information and communications as a critical asset in helping marginalised communities understand and effect progressive social, environmental and political change is a great source of records on past successful use of information and communication and new technology in activism, and has prepared several toolboxes and instruction cards with practical advise how to use new technology for rights advocacy and activism.

So, back in 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg and his three friends launched Facebook, they had the idea that it would help them get access to elite Harvard fraternities and date girls from elite sororities. Whether they hoped it would make them rich is now beyond the point, and frankly not of interest for this article. Somehow, also, we doubt that Zuckerberg thought, “One day, this will be an excellent tool for social change and activism, too”.

The question is, is Facebook, just like other social networks, such a tool? For the region of Western Balkans, for the time being, the jury is still out.