{"id":2309,"date":"2011-01-20T17:32:41","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T00:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talesfromthe.net\/jon\/?p=2309"},"modified":"2011-01-20T17:32:41","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T00:32:41","slug":"mooreandme-and-p2-learnings-for-progressives-on-twitter-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2011\/01\/20\/mooreandme-and-p2-learnings-for-progressives-on-twitter-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"#mooreandme and #p2: learnings for progressives on Twitter (REVISED DRAFT)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Draft, work in progress. Feedback welcome!<\/span><\/p>\n

Last updated February 5.
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\"#p2<\/p>\n

Twitter is an opportunity to engage with communities currently marginalized by the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153progressive blogosphere\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Demographically and stylisticly, Twitter is far less male-dominated than the big blogs of the progressive blogosphere …<\/p>\n

— Tracy Viselli and Jon Pincus, The #p2 Hashtag and Strategies for Progressives on Twitter<\/a>, February 2009<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Twitter is, quite possibly, the best available medium for this particular kind of protest. The format has a number of features that level a playing field that tends to push women into the outfield.<\/p>\n

– How #Mooreandme Worked<\/a>, Lili Loofbourow, December 2010<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Twitter was an instinctive choice for #MooreandMe, because it made the target of the protest accessible and ensured that he could hear us. But I liked it as a medium for #DearJohn too, because it was really equalizing, it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hierarchical, it ensured that voices and perspectives could influence the conversation regardless of how well-connected or well-known they were, and it was a very visible, trackable way to register dissent.<\/p>\n

– Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown<\/em>, interviewed in where is your line?<\/em><\/a>, January 2011<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

@myrnatheminx and I put a lot of time into our proposal for #p2, including discussions with the folks from #fem2, #rebelleft, and #topprog.\u00c2\u00a0 The first few months were exciting times.\u00c2\u00a0 #taxcuts.\u00c2\u00a0 #fairpay.\u00c2\u00a0 #askpres<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Gina Cooper and Jim Gilliam (along with me and Tracy) started up TweetProgress.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Presentations like Building Engaged Communities that Act<\/a> and Cognitive Evolution and Revolution<\/a> and a series of chats (1<\/a> , 2<\/a>, 3<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0 4<\/a> ,\u00c2\u00a0 5<\/a> ) and blog posts<\/a> discussed activism and diversity. Chris Mesarole developed TweetLeft<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Great stuff!<\/p>\n

Since then, even though #p2 has continued to be the largest progressive hashtag on Twitter and more than 5,000 progressives signed up for TweetProgress, momentum seems to have stalled.\u00c2\u00a0 Pity.<\/p>\n

Feminists, by contrast, continue to take the lead.\u00c2\u00a0 The recent #mooreandme campaign is a textbook example.<\/p>\n

How it should be done<\/h2>\n

Tracy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent experiment with #taxcuts and Jon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s with #digg it illustrate another strategic possibility: activists need to refine techniques for Twitter-based \u00e2\u20ac\u0153flash actions\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

— Tracy and Jon<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So thank God he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on Twitter. He is @MMFlint, in fact! And here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to do: We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to use the #Mooreandme hashtag to tell him why what he has done and said is wrong.<\/p>\n

– Sady Doyle, #MooreandMe: On Progressives, Rape Apologism, and the Little Guy<\/a>, Tiger Beatdown<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A lot of the people reading Sady’s post knew just what to do.\u00c2\u00a0 Tweet about it.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell your friends and get them involved.\u00c2\u00a0 Tweet about it some more.\u00c2\u00a0 Blog about it and tweet the links.\u00c2\u00a0 Retweet links to everybody else’s blog posts.\u00c2\u00a0 Get word to journalists who like to write about stuff like this — or feature it on their TV shows.\u00c2\u00a0 And tweet about it.<\/p>\n

As #rebelleft co-founder and early #p2 stalwart @matttbastard observed in Still Waiting at the Foot of the Tower<\/a>, the majority of participants on the hashtag “appear to be progressive feminists\/feminist allies.”\u00c2\u00a0 And these folks have worked been involved in a lot of Twitter-based activism campaigns together,\u00c2\u00a0 as early as November 2008 with #motrinmoms<\/a>, the AAUW-led #fairpay activism, using #diversityfail to engage with technology journalists conferences, the #Whittier moms…. and much much more. \u00c2\u00a0 So people are following each other and key hashtags like #fem2.<\/p>\n

Which makes it easy to see when something’s happening and get involved.\u00c2\u00a0 And everybody’s also developing instincts for what kinds of campaigns are likely to work.<\/p>\n

In this case, the results were pretty astonishing:<\/p>\n

After one day, #mooreandme had the attention of Keith Olbermann, among others \u00e2\u20ac\u201d including NYT reporter and Half the Sky co-author Nicholas Kristof; CauseWired author Tom Watson;\u00c2\u00a0Jezebel, Slate, Salon, Mediaite, and The Washington Post online.<\/p>\n

– Kate Harding, Why I’m on Board with #mooreandme<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last night, I did something I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t done in a very long time. I took a long, hot bath…. Because I could do that, sort of. Because we won one.<\/p>\n

– Sady, And Then He Came Down<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah really.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And as Bryce Covert’s #mooreandme Worked.\u00c2\u00a0 So What’s Next?<\/a> on where is your line?<\/em> discusses, #mooreandme has also been a starting point for #toshpointno, #DearJohn, and other activism.\u00c2\u00a0 Self-organizing campaigns like this get a lot easier with practice.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of other stuff that Tracy and I got right two years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Lili’s descriptions of how Twitter’s communication styles make it harder for loud-voiced guys to shut others out of the conversation and how trolling actually wound up reinforcing #mooreandme are great examples of our point that “some classic dominance techniques are much more easily defused in this environment.\u00c2\u00a0 And Michael’s “thank you<\/a>” to Sady ties back go something we quoted Maegan Carberry about: Twitter’s tone makes it much easier to bond with people you might otherwise have discredited.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Yay us!<\/p>\n

Recommendations<\/h2>\n

Many people write off Twitter before really understanding it.
\n— Tracy and Jon<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also sick of hearing that this is somehow a bullshit protest because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening on Twitter instead of the street.
\n— Kate<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Twitter remains a great place for progressives interested in diversity.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet progressives haven’t invested much in Twitter, and a lot of many of them continue to dismiss Twitter activism.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially with the new #1u hashtag<\/a> and the upcoming launch of DK4<\/a>, now’s a great time to start changing that.\u00c2\u00a0 Twitter remains the ideal place to engage with a diverse community to gear up for the political battles in DC and the states in 2011, and begin organizing and building capacity for the 2012 election.<\/p>\n

In aid of that, what can we learn from #mooreandme, the many other US and international Twitter activism campaigns, the first two years of #p2?<\/p>\n