Jenna Wortham Quotes

A hashtag is not a movement.

It no longer counts as remarkable that Egyptians organized their uprising on social media.

The two parts of technology that lower the threshold for activism and technology is the Internet and the mobile phone. Anyone who has a cause can now mobilize very quickly.

We need all the newfangled web-based Internet spread, you know, social media that can catalyze, you know, some serious consciousness about what's going on. But we also need people on the streets pounding the pavement to make a significant and dramatic appearance to suggest that what's going on here is unacceptable.

You can make the case that slacktivism is important because it makes people feel affiliated to a movement and be part of it, and talk about it.

Whenever a technology enables people to organize at a pace that wasn't before possible, new kinds of politics emerge.

It's extraordinary that revolutions taking place around the world were sparked by communication on the Internet.

In the 21st century, you have to use technology as one of the tools in the toolkit to bring about social change.

Digital activism did not spring immaculately out of Twitter and Facebook. It's been going on ever since blogs existed.

Twitter can make a lot of things happen if you get enough retweets.

I don't even know what a hashtag is. You don't turn a hashtag into a movement - people turn things into a movement.

What it takes to get people from liking and sharing and retweeting to organising is a hard and long process. Technology has really changed the game in terms of how people participate and what they decide to participate in.

You don't need role models to be part of a social movement as long as you care about the issues.

21st-century activism is different perhaps in the sense that the individual can be more present in the process, especially via social media, but the underlying drivers remain the same as desire to change the status quo.

With Black Lives Matter, we knew from the very beginning that it wasn't just going to live online. We were like, 'We're creating this thing and then it's also going to live with black folks on the street and protests and organizations.' It was very important for us to use the hashtag as a way to have a larger conversation and as an organizing tool.

I think the Internet is having an impact in very diverse ways anchored around amplifying voice, from enabling what I like to refer to as micro-activism.

Stop using your phones and laptops as toys and use them to start a revolution.

It's about using social media for social change: creating a community of advocates who can use their voices on behalf of the voiceless, or leverage their talents, skills, knowledge, and resources to put more children into classrooms, or pressure their elected representatives to get global education top of the agenda.

The way to get people civically engaged, not just during the election but throughout the year, is to tap into Facebook and let them do it with their friends.

What happens when you combine blogs, Google and millions of dissatisfied customers? An e-mob.

This week a group of activists, known as Anonymous, hacked the Twitter account of the KKK. The KKK is furious. They said Anonymous is just a bunch of cowards who don't have the courage to show their faces.

The use of the Internet, the use of Twitter, the way protest movements developed... This is a different world.

Political activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan use Facebook as their primary tool to mobilize support for their causes and activities.

What role did the Internet play in the Egyptian Revolution? People will be arguing about the answer to that question for decades if not centuries.

Just as the Internet drops transaction and collaboration costs in business and government, it also drops the cost of dissent, of rebellion, and even insurrection.