Clicktivist Criticisms do little to Push Substantive Change
While social media has been used to productively push social movements forward, many digital activists have recently used platforms to spout negative rhetoric with little forethought.
The inauguration of President Joe Biden elicited a spectrum of emotions from those within the American electorate. For many of the 81 million who voted for the new President, the event was a welcome sigh of relief from the chaos of the previous administration. For others, the day served as a catalyst for organizing political opposition ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
All of these feelings are valid. As it has been made clear now more than ever before, differences in opinion are what make the United States unique on the global stage. However, what rhetoric was most alarming was the digital in-fighting on the left in regard to the Jan. 20 inauguration. Many took to social media to criticize those celebrating the change of power, stating that “Biden is not your friend” and “people celebrate Biden because he’s not Trump and don’t realize how dangerous that is.”
The negative rhetoric surrounding those taking their sigh of relief reflects a broader trend in folks using social media to make bold, and at times unnecessarily rude, critiques without offering any substantive solutions to actually make the change being advocated for. Those who engage in this sort of unproductive rhetoric are known as clicktivists: people whose socio-political activism stops at the log-out button.
Clicktivism is by no means a new phenomenon, nor is it rooted solely in offering unproductive critiques. Throughout summer 2020, many social media users promoted the Black Lives Matter movement on their accounts. While on the surface a good thing, many were criticized for only using the movement as a trend for self promotion rather than genuinely pushing for racial justice. This included a “black out day” on Instagram, which was criticized for blocking out Black voices, and the posting of aesthetic infographics on racial justice, which have been criticized for being difficult to fact-check.
This phenomenon is also not tied to one political ideology. The Lincoln Project, a Republican political action committee which had the goal of preventing the reelection of Donald Trump, has been criticized as being no more than a large clicktivist operation. The PAC has relied predominantly on making viral ads and tweets rather than using its millions of fundraised dollars to help candidates and efforts to get out the vote.
The danger in clicktivism, and specifically clicktivist criticisms, lies in the fact that empty rhetoric which seeks to only demean others risks isolating folks from the broader movement and prevents tangible success for whatever cause is being advocated for.
In Dec. 2020, many clicktivists on the left took to social media to demand that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the Progressive Caucus deny Speaker Nancy Pelosi the support needed to retain the speakership unless she held a floor vote on Medicare for All. When this did not happen, AOC and others were labelled as the “#FraudSquad,” and the validity of their progressive beliefs were scrutinized by these same critics.
This case of clicktivist criticism was not productive — AOC herself said in a tweet that the “Problem [with] this idea is that there isn’t enough thought given to [holding the floor vote]. The Dem votes aren’t there yet, and with a razor-thin margin the Dem NOs are [above the fifty percent] margin.”
Had the vote even passed, the bill would have been dead on arrival in the Senate, as Republicans held the majority at the time and there is still no clear consensus within the Democratic Party on universal healthcare. The criticisms launched towards the progressive representatives did not take into account the logistics and nuances involved with making a bill become law.
This sort of rhetoric risks alienating folks who may want to run for office themselves or get involved in socio-political movements. Many progressive representatives, including AOC, Cori Bush, and Ayanna Pressley, were activists themselves before holding office, and were originally praised for coming to Congress as representatives of the broader progressive movement. Seeing how heavily criticized these representatives have been for needing to balance progressive policy goals and Congressional compromise, prospective political leaders may be turned off from ever getting involved out of genuine fear for facing similar criticisms themselves for simply doing their job.
One of the hallmarks of American democracy is free speech. That said, acknowledging that in the broader global community, free speech is a privilege, clicktivists would be wise to be more conscious in what they post online, taking time to educate themselves on what it is they are speaking on before making hasty, unproductive remarks which risk alienating potential members of the movement they are advocating for. Likewise, social media users should make the transition from clicktivist to activist by logging off and engaging in grassroots efforts like voting, donating, protesting, and using their free speech in a productive manner which pushes the broader conversation forward.