Social media: a new avenue for protest

Every generation has its tool for protest.

The boomers had marches and sit-ins in the 1960s. In the ’80s, America had punk rock and, now, we have the Internet, primarily social media.

Our generation has embraced sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and now Google Buzz as our primary conduit for sharing information, like no other technology.

It was Twitter — and blogs — that inspired people to share their feelings about important issues and launch viral protests.
Over the past few years, we have seen time and time again the power social media can give people.

Last summer, we saw protests erupt in Iran after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won an election that was perceived as fraudulent.

The protests were well-documented by Iranian citizens, which resulted in much of the rest of the social media community to rally behind them and voice their support.

Last week, Google launched its new social network, Buzz, and saw an immense backlash on Twitter about its privacy settings. Google was auto-following other accounts for users based on who they e-mailed the most, whether those e-mail addresses were personal, professional, etc.

These contacts also were by default shared on users’ public profiles.

It was a major blunder on Google’s end.

After seeing the criticisms online, Google quickly acted to remedy the situation by changing the auto-follow setting to auto-suggestions.

Saturday afternoon, there was a very intense protest against Southwest Airlines for kicking filmmaker Kevin Smith off a flight for being too heavy.

After Smith was removed from the plane, he tweeted, “Dear @SouthwestAir — I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?”

This resulted in many of his fans sending Southwest Airlines less than kind tweets regarding the situation.

The airline responded quickly, apologizing to Smith in a public blog and giving him $100 in flight vouchers.

This is the power of social media.

It puts a lot of power in the hands of anyone and everyone on the Internet, if they know how to use it.

For example, let’s say there is an issue on campus, such as the rise in salary for incoming President George Ross’ salary while the university has asked each departments to make budget cuts of 3, 6 or 9 percent.

Take it to the Web.

Tweet it, Facebook it, Buzz it.

If you can get the word out enough, the university will notice.