Online Social Networking in Activism: A Quick Look at Diaspora

When Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli, two video blogging youth activists in Azerbaijan, were detained on trumped up charges in Baku, the country’s capital, supporters and friends naturally used Facebook to campaign for their release. Indeed, one contact started to add pretty much everyone she could find to the online social networking site, accepting pretty much every request she received even if in many cases she didn’t actually know them or have any mutual friends in common. While spreading her network wide in order to send out information and updates, there were obviously risks involved, with reports from neighboring Iran already providing enough cause for concern. And given the political environment in the region, there’s also no reason to assume that the same couldn’t happen in Azerbaijan as well, especially as whole networks of activists, and what they say online, could be monitored and revealed if privacy was compromised. 

For her, however, that didn’t matter. The important thing was that Facebook was crucial, and perhaps even pivotal, in the campaign to release her activist friends. And, as international awareness of the plight of the two men increased before their release last month, she was probably right. For activists, despite the inherent risks, there is no doubt that spreading information far and wide is one thing that Facebook excels at.

However, that doesn’t mean the dangers don’t exist, or that even one or two ‘inappropriate’ contacts, who might only be interested in monitoring what is being said, couldn’t be inadvertently added. It’s why some of us take who we add on the popular social networking site very seriously indeed. And in the area of peace building activities in what remains a highly volatile region, just one inflammatory comment from a contact, who might only be interested in banging the nationalist drum to prevent such communication, runs the risk of turning what could be an important exercise in cross-border communication into little more than a flame war. For these and other various reasons, some social media researchers and pundits are starting to question the viability of Facebook as a tool for activism. From concerns about Terms of Service (TOS), which few have probably read, to control and ownership of your own information, this has recently become a major issue.

One of those critical of Facebook is Harvard University and Global Voices’ Jillian C. York who, in fact, has even advised activists to stay off Facebook completely. However, she also notes that for many such a move is not really an option. 

I’ve watched over the past few months as a number of privacy-minded friends have abandoned Facebook for greener pastures. Some, like Lokman, have decided to stick with Twitter and the old-fashioned keeping-in-touch method known as e-mail. Others have sought alternatives, like the up-and-coming Diaspora. Still others have no alternative in mind, and just want out.

[…]

From the numerous examples of account deactivations I’ve received in my inbox over the course of the past few weeks, here’s what I’m noticing: All of these activists still want to use Facebook. Why? I don’t have all the answers, but I would surmise that it’s because Facebook is where the people are. […]

I’ve been involved in a number of Facebook-based campaigns myself, many of which were not based in the U.S.  I’m not one to argue that Facebook is the be-all end-all activism tool, or that it’s changing the world, but the fact of the matter is, activists use Facebook for successful organizing. Whether it’s simply to bring a group of like-minded people together to discuss potential campaigns, or to raise money for a shared goal, or otherwise, it’s happening.  If I leave Facebook, can I still support these people?  If I ditch my 1,000+ Facebook network, can I still reach the same contacts?

As you might have noticed, however, Jillian also mentions Diaspora, a new open source social networking site, currently at a very basic stage in its development, set up to counter some of the concerns raised with Facebook, but even the very idea that a newcomer could take on a giant with 500 million users worldwide seems unlikely at best. Recently, however, she sent me an invite to test the private Alpha of Diaspora so I naturally wanted to check out how it shapes up in the real world, especially when some are already dubbing it a “Facebook Killer.”

Share what you want, with whom you want.

Diaspora is the brainchild of a group of four New York University students and exists thanks to donations in excess of $200,000 raised via Kickstarter. Interestingly, despite observers pitching it head to head with Facebook, one of those donating to the project is the latter’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who apparently considers it a ‘cool idea.’ Unlike Facebook’s increasingly commercial approach, the main idea behind Diaspora, for now at least, is to create a decentralized social networking site where users have ownership and control of their own information and contacts. Accounts can also be clearly deleted, unlike Facebook which has caused a significant amount of controversy and concern with its default option to only deactivate them, leaving all information present on their own system. According to the Wikipedia page on Diaspora, the idea for creating an alternative to this situation was inspired by a speech earlier this year at Columbia University by Professor Eben Moglen who described centralized social networks such as Facebook as “spying for free.”

Anyway, using a system of ‘aspects,’ which might be best be thought of as more controllable equivalents of lists in Facebook or a collection of groups integrated seamlessly into a personal account, users can share just as they do at present, but more importantly get to choose with whom. For activists who want to use online tools to distribute sensitive or even non-sensitive information selectively among individual or multiple networks of contacts, it already sounds good. More importantly, perhaps, users can also host their own servers, called ‘pods,’ to further maintain ownership and control of their own information. 

Of course, at this stage in its development it’s not possible to make any definitive conclusion about the viability of Diaspora as a direct competitor to Facebook, but we can assess how it’s looking so far. For example, the interface is a lot simpler and refreshingly cleaner than Facebook which arguably goes through far too many cosmetic changes. With the latter, no sooner than you feel at home with a redesign, its user-interface gets radically overhauled again, leading to much initial disorientation and yet another learning curve to master. Diaspora might end up doing the same, of course, but I hope it doesn’t. A standardized interface throughout most of its evolution would really be welcomed.  Regardless, perhaps the main point to consider with Diaspora for now is how its ‘aspects’ function. Definitely, for those who take privacy incredibly seriously, the idea is a good one, allowing users to select which contacts get to see what content on their profile page.

This sounds great in practice, especially for activists who might have individual or multiple campaigns underway, or a collection of networks in existence, but who also want to keep in touch with friends and family who don’t want or need to be kept up to date with such matters. And, of course, there might be some contacts you really don’t want to share specific information with, so what this means for greater privacy is obvious, not least because Diaspora also currently prevents contacts from seeing who else you’re connected to. Moreover, when a contact is added, they also cannot see any previous posts even made in the ‘aspect’ they’ve been assigned to. Users can still post entries globally so that everyone can see and comment on them, of course, but this also means that many newcomers might find Diaspora confusing at first. And herein lies the main problem as it stands at present. At best, your contacts might wonder why you haven’t posted anything for days if they’re not in the relevant ‘aspect,’ and at worst they might simply wonder if they’re not trusted enough to have access to information that you may or may not be sharing with others.

The more sensitive among your contacts might even feel slighted as a result. For now at least, as a social networking site, Diaspora is not very, um, social.

And this perhaps is my main concern with Diaspora. Although there are many valid concerns with Facebook, especially in terms of privacy, I don’t think that Diaspora could have achieved anywhere close to the same results that I’ve achieved with my own project to use online social networks to bridge the Armenia-Azerbaijan information divide. Indeed, part of its success, along with that of other online campaigns by activists in both countries, has been precisely because Facebook is so open, with interaction between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in my case visible to everyone on my contact list. As I mentioned in my previous post, and despite some other problems now slowly emerging, this factor alone has been instrumental in forming cross-border relationships, breaking down negative stereotypes, and allowing for the dissemination of alternative opinions and streams of information which might otherwise never ever be read or heard.

Basically, in terms of spreading networks wider, especially between countries such as Armenia and Azerbaijan where other traditional forms of communication are blocked, Facebook really shines in comparison. And it is perhaps for this reason alone why Diaspora doesn’t so far look like a “Facebook Killer.” To be fair, however, it is not the developers of Diaspora who are describing it as such. Instead, they say, it is meant for other purposes, and so for now I’m inclined to view it as a custom tool for specific purposes such as maintaining and communicating with narrow networks of activists or work colleagues. In fact, and perhaps even used in conjunction with Facebook, its usefulness might be more as a serious and professional tool for specific work or campaign related activities. That said, however, I can’t help but wish that the advantages of Facebook be combined with Diaspora. 

At the very least, I would hope that Diaspora forces Facebook to deal with some of the criticisms made against it, perhaps incorporating some of the features of Diaspora, or that Diaspora opens itself up a little and incorporates some of the openness of Facebook even if only as an option or on its default settings.

For now, though, it looks likely that I will continue to (albeit increasingly reluctantly) use Facebook as my main online social networking tool while also examining the possibility to use Diaspora for more work-related purposes that don’t need to be shared on Facebook. In fact, perhaps Diaspora will simply turn out to be what we were led to believe Google Buzz and especially Google Wave would be. And if that’s the case, then as a tool for closed or selective communication and collaborative work it might be exactly what activists need. Certainly, Diaspora doesn’t offer a solution to the ‘imaginary cosmopolitanism’ that Ethan Zuckerman talks about, and might actually make matters worse, but I’ll be looking into how both Facebook and Diaspora fare for my own work in this area, and especially as the later evolves, over the coming year and keep readers updated. 

—

Also cross-posted on the Peace and Collaborative Development Network. For more coverage of the use of new and social media in conflict resolution and transformation in the South Caucasus, see our special coverage on Global Voices.