This week you may have noticed a certain similar post cropping up on your Facebook timeline from various friends. The post in question probably involved your friend checking into a location using Facebook’s check-in services.
Chances are that location was the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. If you were lucky, that post might have been accompanied with a caption like “be human,” or something else meant to simultaneously guilt those not involved and lift its poster up to near-angelic status.
Now, you were probably asking yourself, what the hell? My friends are definitely at Kilroy’s right now, not a thousand miles away in North Dakota. So, what gives?
In short, there has been an ongoing protest centered at the reservation that is directed against the impending construction of a crude oil pipeline known as the Dakota Access Pipeline. Recently it has garnered national attention and thousands of people have flocked to the area to picket. Katniss-Everdeen-wannabe actress Shailene Woodley was famously arrested for her participation in these protests.
The most recent wave of protests involved the Facebook tactic mentioned before. Somehow, word got around that the police were monitoring who was at the protest by using Facebook’s location services. In response to this, the idea was that by having people all over Facebook check in at the reservation, the collective internet could confuse the Morton County Sheriff’s Department.
As many, many things like this normally are, it was revealed that it was most likely a hoax. The sheriff’s department was not monitoring social media check-ins, and the Sioux had not asked people to check in. Which brings me to my point: positive activism is great, and everyone should find causes and support them, but please do your research first.
Bumbling about it on social media because you felt guilt-tripped or wanted to feel good is far from useful activism, and oftentimes, things like this can cause more harm than good. Anyone can be a “Facebook activist,” but the amount of measurable good that does is questionable, especially if that’s your sole form of contribution.
As I said before, I’m all for positive activism, any sane person should be. But not uninformed, click-of-the-mouse activism. If this is something you truly care about and support, surely you have time to look into the matter and determine how best to support it.
I think Facebook is a great tool for disseminating information, spreading awareness and supporting causes. But, as we see every day, there are a veritable number of posts that go viral that are either completely or mostly false.
For example, a post showing the bloodied face of a young woman went viral on Facebook and Twitter last year with captions like “Here’s what happened to female Trump supporter when she met ‘peaceful’ and ‘tolerant’ liberals.” The truth? She was an actress in the horror-comedy show “Ash vs. The Evil Dead,” and had shared a photo of her in makeup from the set.
People had no problem spreading this without verification if it appealed to their social groups and helped them make a point. This is the problem, and it is one we can help solve by simply doing our research. Driving positive social change should be something we all contribute to, but we should do it in a meaningful and informed capacity.
