Researchers from Cardiff University and Sapienza University of Rome have concluded that the faster someone’s internet speed is, the less likely they are to be involved in their communities through volunteering, politics, or other forms of civic engagement. “We observed that civic participation and the form of engagement in the …
Read More »‘P**s off you brats’: Rose McGowan blasts ‘fake activism’ of Netflix staff protesting Dave Chappelle’s ‘transphobic’ special
“I hear your feelings got hurt by Dave Chappelle,” McGowan tweeted, in a mocking message to Netflix employees and supporters who participated in Wednesday’s walkout demonstration, adding: “P**s off you brats.” Ahead of the protest, organizers called on Netflix to “do better” and claimed that Chappelle’s special, titled ‘The Closer’, “harms …
Read More »Occupy Wall Street had the potential 10 years ago to take activism to the next level. Instead, it may have crippled it forever
When activists began setting up tents in lower Manhattan 10 years ago, inspired in part by the Arab Spring and in part by the sheer rapacious greed of banks that had gambled with Americans’ money, lost it, and demanded to be made whole, the narrative managers fell into two camps. …
Read More »The ‘say anything, do nothing’ nature of online activism is abjectly failing to improve the world
If you’re an activist of any variety, you’re living in a golden era. While there have been more troubled periods of human history, there has never been more discussion of sociopolitical problems than in this first half of the 21st century. Fueled by a heady cocktail of 24/7/365 news services …
Read More »What is the problem with most social media activism? It’s ill-informed, changes nothing and oversimplifies complex issues
Online activism comes in many forms, from symbolic signaling of a position on a crisis or issue, such as changing one’s profile picture, to a more engaged form, such as writing posts about events online. Awareness can be good, and campaigns for humanitarian aid online can even be better. However, …
Read More »AP fires young news writer with history of pro-Palestine activism after controversy of agency ‘sharing offices with Hamas’
Emily Wilder lost her job with AP just over two weeks after she was hired to write news from Maricopa County, Arizona. She was fired for allegedly breaking the company’s social media rules, which require employees to stay publicly silent “on contentious public issues” and not engage in organized action …
Read More »The madness of radical trans activism: Shops sell knitted penises for girls of 3 to wear in their pants so they can look like boys
Referrals of children to gender identity clinics have surged in recent years. The impact on teenage girls is well documented, but there is no lower age limit. Last week, parents Matthew and Klara announced on British TV that their daughter came out as transgender aged two, apparently telling the family, …
Read More »In this age of narcissism, political activism is all about the activist, not about the cause
While house hunting recently, I strolled through an upscale, though approachable neighborhood full of younger residents – the millennials and post-millennials who define and drive much of today’s political debate. The leanings of the locals was made clear enough between the proliferating collage of lawn signs, bumper stickers and fluttering …
Read More »Activism for hire? By ditching climate change for Sikh separatism, Greta Thunberg shows her naivety and erodes her credibility
It was inevitable that as soon as Greta Thunberg grew up, her role as the global teenage icon of climate change would lose some of its allure. The international circuit for her spiel is only so big, and once she’d done a few laps the interest starts to wane with …
Read More »Time for some NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism Research: Forget activism, here comes ‘artivism’ in support of BLM’s aims
You could be forgiven for thinking an exhibition opening in Coventry this week was a spoof, a satirical piece of work by some comedian gently taking the mickey out of today’s increasingly woke art world. More’s the pity, it isn’t. Advance press releases for ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking’ (opening on …
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