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My biggest takeaway, in a purely analytical sense, was the huge shift in the way activists spread the word about their cause. In the 60's protesters and activists had to use special phone lines to contact each other, spread word and recognition of a misdeed, or simply to organize. Now activists can reach millions with a tweet or a viral video. They can organize away from federal eyes with encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp. The one big drawback is that with ease of spreading, an ease of harassment is inevitable. Harassment on an app like twitter makes it easy for awful people to harras activists. This hasn't changed much since the 60's, protesters were harassed, but it was in person. Now, with the age of social media, a "troll" can attack someone's post without at least being brave enough to face them in real life. This depersonalized harassment is encompassed well in the drake lyric, "trigger fingers turned to twitter fingers"(Drake). While, in the past, people used to attack people in person, with guns or slurs, now with the use of social media platforms, (like twitter) they can attack people with no threat of personal retaliation. This welcomes bad people to attack others with differing opinions. In this lies the paradoxical nature of activism on social media. As this continues to be a hot topic 2 years later, it is going to be interesting to see how online activism will shape society and politics.
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