A paper I wrote for class in the fall of 2009 regarding the use of Twitter as a tool to promote social change.

1. Jodi Sperber
December 1, 2009
Tweetkun Olam* : Using Twitter to Promote Social Justice
It could be said that 2009 was the year of Twitter. This relatively
new service has seen staggering levels of growth since its launch
in 2006. It is currently the 13th most popular site in the Unites
States, and the 14th in the world (Alexa.com, 2009). Even the
word “Twitter” was recently named the word of the year by the
Global Language Monitor (Gaudin, 2009). It seems that a day
can’t go by without one news story or another on how this tool is
being used.
So what is Twitter, exactly? In brief, it is a free service allowing
users to send and receive messages of 140 characters or less.
Messages, called “tweets,” can be sent and received via the web,
Short Message Service (SMS – i.e., text messages), or third party
applications. Twitter is shareable, open, participatory, and not
specifically tethered to a desktop computer. Anyone with an
Internet connection can create content, and anyone can
participate in the conversation. This service is one component
within the larger universe of social media, leveraging the World
Wide Web to shift from broadcast media (one source, many
eyes) to social media dialogue (many sources, many eyes)
("Social media," 2009; Wikipedia, 2009). So, for example,
instead of reading the New York Times newspaper, one might
read and comment on one of the many topical blogs that are
updated frequently on nytimes.com, or communicate directly
with a journalist for the paper using Twitter (New York Times,
2009a, 2009b). The democratization of knowledge and
information enabled by social media is a radical departure from
conventional forms of information dissemination.
* * The title is a play on the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam, which means,
“repairing the world.” This concept is bound tightly to integrity within
the Jewish faith, encouraging us to challenge the pursuit of money and
power and instead work towards love, kindness, generosity, peace,
non-violence, and social justice.
Page 1

2. Sperber
An estimate of the number of active Twitter accounts is not
known, as the company does not release this information.
However, some statistics on site usage can be gleaned by
examining monthly visitors. Using this metric, Twitter is seen as
one of the fastest growing sites on the web, with a year-over-
year growth of 1,382 percent between February 2009 and
February 2009 (McGiboney, 2009). This does not include
individuals who access the service using third party software,
meaning these metrics could be conservative. At the same time,
the service is too young to truly understand its “sticking power” –
that is, if users will remain active, or if they simply create
accounts that then remain quiet.
Even if users create accounts that lie dormant, can the medium
show value? It can be argued that this is the case, if one
considers an idea put forth by Clay Shirky, a prominent thinker
within the social media field. According to Mr. Shirky, tools don't
get socially interesting until they get technologically boring
(Shirky, 2009). That is to say, the creation of the tool itself isn’t
the event of importance; it is when everyone can take it for
granted that it becomes interesting. Thus, even if a user rarely
uses the service, the connection to the larger world is always
close by, accessible at any time with the click of a mouse or a
mobile phone.
As the service has grown, so have the ways in which it is being
leveraged. What began as a simple way to update one’s friends
and followers en masse with an answer the question, “What are
you doing?” has become a powerful tool for grassroots
organizers, activists, and others working for social justice to
quickly and effectively communicate information and ideas. So
effective, in fact, that governments and traditional news sources
have taken notice and, in some cases, tried to control access to
the service.
Page 2

3. Sperber
To illustrate how this service has been leveraged since it’s
inception, six anecdotes are described below. They provide
specific examples of ways this has been used in relation to social
justice, including a shifting media landscape, where the focus is
less and less about crafting a single message to be consumed by
the general public and more about a means to create an
environment for organizing and sustaining groups.
Organizing Around Alleged Election Fraud – Moldova and Iran
One of the ways Twitter was first tested as a tool for mass
political dissent was the presidential election of April 2009 in
Moldova. After the Communist Party claimed victory with nearly
50% of the vote, members of opposing parties claimed that votes
had been tampered with, demanding a repeat election. Using
Twitter and other social media tools, news and other information
was disseminated using the hash tag (a text string preceded by
“#”, included anywhere in the message, used for categorization
and tracking purposes) #pman, which stands for Piata Marii
Adunari Nationale, (a central square in the Capital city of
Chisinau) (Morozov, 2009). In addition, several NGOs and other
opposing parties used the service to organize a rally that
attracted over 10,000 protesters (Barry, 2009). The impact of
these new organizing tools clearly touched a nerve within the
government, who shut down Internet service in Chisinau after
hundreds of firsthand accounts flooded onto the Internet (Barry,
2009).
A few months later, in June 2009, elections were held in Iran to
choose a new president. While the country’s official news outlet
reported that incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won with
62% of the vote, questions were raised by both Iranian citizens
as well as outside parties regarding the validity of the
outcome(BBC News, 2009; Worth, 2009). Similar to the Moldova
experience, mass text messaging made possible via Twitter was
utilized as one organizing tool to arrange large rallies to protest
the results.
Page 3

4. Sperber
In addition to the protests, citizens posted uncensored news
items throughout the day. The hash tag #iranelection was
established as a way for anyone around the globe to easily
search for information relating to conversation on this topic, and
send messages back. The use of Twitter as a means of
communication were significant enough that the U.S. State
Department reached out to Twitter headquarters and requested
they delay a scheduled network upgrade so Iranian citizens could
continue using the service and information could continue to flow
(Grossman, 2009; Lowensohn, 2009).
China is tested
China has a well-earned reputation for being a region that
traditional media sources have had trouble penetrating. Thirty-
three years ago, when a tremendous earthquake hit the
Tangshan province in eastern China, it took the government
months to admit that anything had happened despite the death
of over 250,000 people (Moore, 2009). When another
earthquake of sizeable magnitude hit the Sichuan province in
May 2008, however, the news was instantly reported via Twitter.
Within minutes, people posted messages about the event in both
text and images. While China may have been quicker to report
the news this time around, they were never given the choice, as
ordinary citizens took matters into their own hands. Similarly,
while the Chinese government had refused outside help in 1976,
grassroots organizing took matters into their own hands: within
12 hours, sites popped up to allow people from around the world
to donate money to help alleviate some of the cost of damages
incurred by the earthquake (Shirky, 2009).
Social media avenues like Twitter also supported the
mobilization, if not radicalization, of mourning mothers who lost
their only child due to the earthquake. Nearly 7,000 schools
collapsed, blamed in part to a corrupt administration overlooking
Page 4

5. Sperber
sub-standard safety precautions. With individuals now having
the ability to quickly organize and share their hurt, anger, and
energy over public channels, groups formed to demand justice.
In one instance, this resulted in a local official getting down on
his knees to beg forgiveness and to ask that they stop speaking
out (Shirky, 2009). In effect, ordinary citizens leveraged Twitter
to help gain some measure of control in a situation that they
may have previously viewed as beyond their control. This is
similar to efforts within the United States to encourage patients
to take charge of their own health, where previously they may
have simple believed their lives were solely in the hands of
doctors ("De-victimizing AIDS," 1993).
The Chinese government observed these outcomes and clearly
was not pleased. Thus, as the 20 year anniversary of the
democracy protests in Tiananmen Square approached, the
Chinese government decided to block access to Twitter and
similar social media services altogether (Branigan, 2009). They
understood that there was no way to filter what citizens could
report, and the only way to fully control the message was to
eliminate the medium.
A New Approach for US Presidential Candidates
Unlike the presidential election cycles highlighted above, the
United States presidential election of 2008 saw an embracing of
Twitter. Every candidate (or, more likely, a member of staff) had
an account, and used the service to share information on their
political positions, upcoming rallies and events, reactions to
other candidates, and news coverage. Today, President Obama’s
staff keeps his account active, frequently posting stories of daily
events at the White House and encouraging his nearly three
million followers to remain engaged in the civic process by taking
action on a variety of topics including health care reform,
environmental causes, and education. Unfortunately, the
President’s account falls short of truly participatory, as it is more
Page 5

6. Sperber
of a one-way stream of information. Still, it serves as a model
from which to build.
A Student is Arrested Overseas
The above examples are illustrations of how Twitter has been
employed to bring a mass of people together to organize around
a political cause. The service, however, has also been used to
provide assistance to a single individual in need. At 9:33am on
April 10th, 2008, James Karl Buck, a journalism graduate student
at UC Berkeley, typed a single word: “Arrested” (Buck, 2009).
Mr. Buck had been covering a labor rally near a textile mill
outside of Cairo, and after photographing the event he was
arrested for reasons not made clear to him. Having only his cell
phone with him, he took advantage of Twitter’s reach to alert
those who followed him online. Thus, he was able to
communicate that something was wrong, and he needed help.
Upon receiving the message, his friends contacted the US
Embassy and his school, who sent a lawyer to get him out of jail.
With the help of the lawyer he was released the next day (Simon,
2009).
Mr. Buck hadn’t been using the service for a long time prior to
his trip to Egypt, and opted to use text messaging because he
thought a call might look too conspicuous. After this experience,
however, he indicated that this service helped assuage fears he
would be entirely out of touch with people he knew. In his own
words, he described it thusly: "Whether it saved my life, or
whether it just kept me sane, I don't know" (Musgrove, 2008).
Organizing for Clean Water - Twestival
The final example of how individuals have exploited the reach of
Twitter was selected as it shows how this tool can be used as a
new means of fundraising and philanthropy. On January 8, 2009,
a tweet went out asking other cities to join in hosting a Twestival
(Twitter + festival), to be held on February 12 2009. The goal
was to raise money for a non-profit organization called charity:
Page 6

7. Sperber
water, which provides clean, safe drinking water to developing
nations ("charity: water," 2009). The concept was to organize
via Twitter, and meet up in person to raise the funds. In less
than 30 days, nearly 1,000 volunteers in over 200 cities hosted
an event, with more than 10,000 people attending overall. Over
$250,000 was raised, funding 55 water projects in Uganda,
Ethiopia, and India (Rose, 2009). This success of the effort has
prompted organizers to continue, with both local and global
events taking place throughout the year (Cashmore, 2009).
The above examples illustrate not only how Twitter is different
than tools that have come before it, but also that a simple
concept in the hands of imagination and creativity can have a
tremendous impact. This does not mean, however, that tweets
are a silver bullet to address social ills. What Twitter does well is
brevity and speed; messages are sent instantly, with no editing,
censorship, or delay. Eyewitness reports can be gathered from
anyone who has an account and access to text messaging or the
web. Seen from another perspective, the speed of Twitter can
be viewed as a hindrance. In the same ways that the service is
used to promote social justice and the sharing of accurate
information, it can just as easily be used for personal attacks, or
to spread misinformation. Individuals must rely on others’
honestly and integrity, or be savvy enough to question when a
message seems false. While this isn’t a common occurrence, it
certainly does happen. By purposeful design, Twitter also lacks
depth – at 140 characters maximum there is an inevitable lack of
substance. Thus, the service may be better suited to event
reporting than actual news reporting.
The nascence of the service has been raised as well, with some
noting that Twitter is still young, and perhaps is being imbued
with too much credibility. As one blogger put it, “in a major
international crisis, one of the prime channels of communication
and news for individuals, media outlets, and governments alike is
a employees, no discernible business model, a history of
Page 7

8. Sperber
technical instability, and a misinformation-related lawsuit on the
table. This is a problem” (McCarthy, 2009). However, the
rapidity with which the service has been adopted and gained
mainstream acceptance supports the idea that this type of tool
fulfills a significant communication gap.
While the commercial growth of this particular service is
significant, what is perhaps more momentous is the emergence
of a novel way to communicate in real time, at little cost, using a
common device, across geographical boundaries. People have
used Twitter to share ideas, indicate dissent, and organize a
gathering of likeminded supporters. It has shown a capability to
help reduce isolation, and the flow of information is expanded
beyond government-sanctioned channels. Indeed, the concept
of a Master Narrative, which describes an internalized and
assumed position of authority, can be turned on its head, as
anyone with access to a network and a cell phone can share their
reality (Hill, 2008 forthcoming). To this extent, Counter
Narratives, the voice of marginalized groups, can be quickly and
widely disseminated, providing opportunity to paint a more
complete picture of any situation or experience.
It may come to pass that Twitter does not survive as a company,
or that it becomes so bloated with companies and individuals
trying to use it as a self-marketing tool that people discontinue
use. To the extent that Twitter represents a novel way of sharing
information, it doesn’t matter if this particular company shutters
its doors. What will continue is the medium itself, as too many
people are invested in seeing this type of service utilized to
simply let it die.
We may not know what specific tool or service will follow, but it is
safe to say that this type of service is going to proliferate. There
is no going back. While individuals may have previously been
isolated and invisible, they now have a means to find others to
share their voice. This act of having a voice, or not being
Page 8

9. Sperber
invisible, has been argued to be one of the most powerful
aspects of political power. Writer and political activist Michael
Harrington described this with regards to poverty in his
influential book, “The Other America”:
“It is one of the cruelest ironies of social life in advanced
countries that the dispossessed at the bottom of society
are unable to speak for themselves.... They are without
lobbies of their own; they put forward no legislative
program. As a group, they are atomized… That the poor
are invisible is one of the most important things about
them. They are not simply neglected and forgotten as in
the old rhetoric of reform; what is much worse, they are
not seen” (Harrington, 1962).
Twitter may not be specifically aimed at the poor in society, but
it has opened the door for everyone to be less invisible.
References Cited
Alexa.com (2009). Twitter.com site information. Retrieved
November 29, 2009:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/twitter.comhttp://www.alexa.
com/siteinfo/twitter.com
Barry, E. (2009). Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of
Twitter. Retrieved April 7, 2009:
http://is.gd/58fMXhttp://is.gd/58fMX
BBC News (2009). Ahmadinejad defiant on 'free' Iran poll.
Retrieved November 20, 2009:
http://is.gd/58eUthttp://is.gd/58eUt
Branigan, T. (2009). China blocks Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail
ahead of Tiananmen anniversary. Retrieved June 3, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/02/twitter-
chinahttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/02/tw
itter-china
Buck, J. (2009). Twitter Status Update: "Arrested". Retrieved
November 28, 2009:
http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964http://twitte
r.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964
Cashmore, P. (2009). Twestival Local: Biggest Twitter Fundraising
Event in History Returns. Retrieved November 20, 2009:
http://is.gd/58i20http://is.gd/58i20
charity: water (2009). Retrieved November 20, 2009, from
http://www.charitywater.org/http://www.charitywater.org/
De-victimizing AIDS (1993). Going Home(Spring 1993), 4.
Page 9

10. Sperber
Gaudin, S. (2009). 'Twitter' is the Word of the Year. Retrieved
November 30, 2009: http://is.gd/58zithttp://is.gd/58zit
Grossman, L. (2009). Iran Protests: Twitter, the Medium of the
Movement. Retrieved June 17, 2009:
http://is.gd/58exshttp://is.gd/58exs
Harrington, M. (1962). The Other America: Poverty in the United
States. New York: Macmillan.
Hill, A. (2008 forthcoming). Choice, Social Structure, Education
Policy, and the Failure to Achieve Educational Equality. In
E. C. Jordan (Ed.), Race, Markets and Social Structures (1st
ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.
Lowensohn, J. (2009). Twitter downtime gets delayed for Iranian
election news. Retrieved November 8, 2009:
http://is.gd/58eFwhttp://is.gd/58eFw
McCarthy, C. (2009). With Iran crisis, Twitter's youth is over.
Retrieved June 18, 2009: http://news.cnet.com/8301-
13577_3-10267946-36.htmlhttp://news.cnet.com/8301-
13577_3-10267946-36.html
McGiboney, M. (2009). Twitter’s Tweet Smell Of Success.
Retrieved November 28, 2009:
http://is.gd/578vShttp://is.gd/578vS
Moore, M. (2009). China earthquake brings out citizen journalists.
Retrieved November 14, 2009:
http://is.gd/57aIHhttp://is.gd/57aIH
Morozov, E. (2009). Moldova's Twitter Revolution. Retrieved
November 8, 2009: http://is.gd/58gpehttp://is.gd/58gpe
Musgrove, M. (2008). Held by Egyptian Authorities? Time to
'Tweet'. Retrieved November 29, 2009:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/04/18/AR2008041802803.htmlhtt
p://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/04/18/AR2008041802803.html
New York Times (2009a). Blog listings. Retrieved November 30,
2009, from http://is.gd/59tuwhttp://is.gd/59tuw
New York Times (2009b). Twitter Lists. Retrieved November 30,
2009, from
http://www.nytimes.com/twitterhttp://www.nytimes.com/tw
itter
Rose, A. (2009). Twestival Raises Over $250K and Counting.
Retrieved November 20, 2009:
http://is.gd/58i6zhttp://is.gd/58i6z
Shirky, C. (2009). How social media can make history. Retrieved
November 2, 2009: http://is.gd/57c3lhttp://is.gd/57c3l
Simon, M. (2009). Student 'Twitters' his way out of Egyptian jail.
Retrieved April 25, 2008:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/http://w
ww.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/
Social media (2009). Retrieved November 20, 2009, from
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mediahttp://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/Social_media
Wikipedia (2009). Social media. Retrieved November 20, 2009,
from Wikipedia:
Page 10

11. Sperber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mediahttp://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/Social_media
Worth, R. (2009). Both Sides Claim Victory in Presidential
Election in Iran. Retrieved November 20, 2009:
http://is.gd/58f4Yhttp://is.gd/58f4Y
Page 11