Charities and campaigners can now speak directly to their audiences through social media - this means that the mainstream media cannot sidestep issues- watch our video about social media and human rights here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYyM3eGeQGA

"The invention of the World Wide Web (internet) by Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist while working at CERN [European Organization for Nuclear Research]. The Web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web - Read more on our social media and human rights timeline - https://eachother.org.uk/social-media-and-human-rights-a-timeline/

"More than a million demonstrators took to the streets across the United States after Los Angeles high school students used text messaging to organise a classroom walk-out against changes to U.S. immigration law. After the initial march, the Californian students reached out to other teenagers across the country using MySpace, creating sister movements across the country as protestors surged through Chicago, Denver, Houston, San Diego and many more major cities." https://eachother.org.uk/social-media-and-human-rights-a-timeline/

"The first Occupy movement - targeting Wall Street - took place in New York City as thousands gathered to vent their frustrations against the wealthiest 1%. Spread through social media, the Occupy protests took place in over 951 cities across 82 countries and in over 600 communities in the United States alone." Read more in our Timeline - https://eachother.org.uk/social-media-and-human-rights-a-timeline/

ALL AND ANY OF THE BELOW ANSWERS - we've cheated a little bit because this is what Lee Pinkerton says in our film "A term I've just come across recently, ‘sea lioning’, which is people questioning asking you to justify or give examples of the discrimination that you're facing." But we think this is an important microaggression to be able to identify - it can be a very exhausting thing to be dragged into - with the best of intentions to engage in conversation - which is often the hope of the people employing this tactic. You can read more here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

"During the national anthem before an American Football match, Colin Kaepernick took the knee in support of #BlackLivesMatter. It sparked controversy and has now grown into a global movement with football players at Euro 2020 taking the knee as a stand against racism." Read more on our timeline https://eachother.org.uk/social-media-and-human-rights-a-timeline/

Tarana Burke began using "Me Too" in 2006, on Myspace social network to promote "empowerment through empathy" among women of color who'd been sexually abused. American actress Alyssa Milano then posted the phrase on Twitter in 2017, "If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote 'Me Too' as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” The #MeToo movement took on a new life with a shockingly widespread response." Read more on our timeline https://eachother.org.uk/social-media-and-human-rights-a-timeline/

"With nearly two thirds (64%) of young people in the UK seeing social media as a crucial means of achieving social change, it is clear that social media activism – or ‘clicktivism’, as it’s sometimes called – isn’t going anywhere anytime soon." Read
Charlotte Colombo's op-ed piece on social media https://eachother.org.uk/activism-on-social-media-often-rings-hollow/

ALL AND ANY OF THE BELOW ANSWERS! EachOther recognises that many people are living with issues that might mean social media is the only space they can engage with activism. This might be because of a host of reasons not limited to the fact they are disabled, need anonymity because of threats to their job or relationships, or even their lives. However for people not dealing with these situations, social media should be seen as just one tool in a much bigger arsenal of tactics. As our Inspired Source op-ed writer Charlotte Colombo says "Sharing hashtags and petitions to show your support for a particular cause is easy – what’s more difficult is using what you’ve learned about on social media in the real world." Read her piece on social media here. https://eachother.org.uk/activism-on-social-media-often-rings-hollow/

All of these football players have been vocal off the pitch about social issues that are close to their heart, but it was Marcus Rashford campaigning against child poverty in the UK on social media who was able to affect and even reverse UK government policy. We love you Marcus!

Travel further through our timeline on social media and human rights here! https://eachother.org.uk/social-media-and-human-rights-a-timeline/

ALL AND ANY OF THE BELOW ANSWERS! Cara English from Gendered Intelligence talking on our first ever Spaces of Human Rights video "It just comes down to empathy, really, and it's just realizing and understanding that the people monitoring the accounts, the people who own these accounts, are at least by and large and not withstanding, you know, bots, real human beings… and we should just be treating these people as though we're speaking to them in real life. … So, we just need to be more empathetic really with people online." Watch it here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYyM3eGeQGA