As presented to Sydney Atheists on 8th August 2010, Jason Brown's Pilot Online Activism overview.

1. online activism 101:A Crash course in internet campaigning Jason Brown, Little Known Skeptic

2. Activism? The practice of using action to achieve a result, such as political demonstration or a strike in support of or in opposition to an issue. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/activism

3. Three Levels Strategic Long term objectives Tactical Short term gain Skirmishing Harrying the opposition

4. Three Toolsets Research Getting your ducks in a row Collaboration Rallying the troops Outreach Spreading the message

5. Is this still just slacktivism? Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism) is a portmanteau formed out of the words slacker and activism. The word is considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. The acts also tend to require little personal effort from the slacktivist. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacktivism If you do it wrong: yes. But there are ways of doing it right.

6. First, some fundamentals 1. Choose your target wisely 2. Know your enemy 3. Determine your goal 4. Get others on side 5. Do not start a campaign without knowing what you’re letting yourself in for 6. School yourself on the basics: good logic, research, scientific sources. Know your fallacies. Know your bible/koran/dianetics/whatever KNOW YOUR ENEMY

7. B is For Blogs Blogs are easy, versatile and a largely unrestricted platform Building readership can be hard, but communities exist Specialised blogs may see more success than general in activism terms

8. Wikipedia Excellent for basic research, but follow citations Make sure the Wikipedia articles in your chosen area are fully updated “controversy” sections Specialised variants: SkepticWiki.org, RationalWiki.com, Ironchariots.org

9. Podcasts: Radio 2.0 Preaching to the choir is good to rally support It’s good for morale Not, however, an ideal platform to speak to fence-sitters or the opposition Definitely worth using to rally the troops

10. Youtube and vodcasting Huge user base Easily embedded elsewhere Usually best suited to short videos You can get started now. All you need is a webcam, a mic and something to say

11. Facebook Phenomenal, highly populated social media site Groups, Pages and Causes all allow for activism to flourish API means savvy programmers can innovate Censorship is rife

12. Atheist Nexus & Think Atheist Specialised social networking sites for atheists Many very active groups, Atheist News and Aussie, Kiwi and South Pacific Atheists Collaboration, not outreach!

13. Twitter Direct engagement Immediacy – realtime web Group discussion via #hashtags Individual engagement via @replies Can be tricky to get a point across in 140 chars Great medium for promoting other efforts

14. Sidewiki * (and its brethren) Hitting them where they live Countering misinformation at its source Can be flooded out if the “enemy” are numerous Audience penetration isn’t too high

15. Geotagging Props to Tim Farley for this one Tag your posts and tweets with the location of a target Even FourSquare can be used for activism

16. Email Campaigns and petitions Are these as effective as traditional letter campaigns? Not really, however in cases such as StopAVN, we’ve been able to use email channels to “add value” to our paper-based complaint Petitions: OK if you have a very large support base >10,000 Reason Makes a Difference

17. Organising Supporters Google Groups Mailing lists Meetup.com Your skeptical group may already be using some of these channels Remember: link them to your other channels, Facebook and Twitter

18. Miscellaneous others Web forums, IRC and usenet are still very much alive Great research tools such as skepticsannotatedbible.com Search tools – oh so obvious, but do you use scholar.google.com? What about Google Alerts? Custom Search? Yahoo Pipes? Skeptical Speakers Bureau SEO & googlebombing New tools are constantly coming online – watch this space!

19. Free your data! Web 2.0 is all about programmability Allow clever third parties to expand upon your work by syndicating your content Example: Skepticator

20. Don’t neglect IRL! The real world still matters Old Media still dominates Letters are still better than emails In-person events are great for morale

21. Some “Success” Stories Stop The AVN 10:23 #voterachie Chanology

22. Getting More Info Several skeptics worldwide can help @Sc00ter @krelnik @drunkenmadmanaka @theskepticator And a growing list of others…

23. Closing tips Screenshots, screenshots, screenshots. Be prepared to back down if necessary. Make it fun. Always be better people than “them”. The internet is not your private army. Ultimately, though, you don’t have to be a full-time activist to help

24. Discussion/Questions