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“Slacktivism” catching on

You don’t have to work in a soup kitchen or stand in a picket line anymore to make a difference in the world. At least that’s what a new website is promising.

The Extraordinaries is a group of online activists who “micro-volunteer” from the comfort of their home — or bus stop, or lineup — using their computer or cellphone to perform “micro-tasks” like tagging photos.

“A lot of us are really busy in our day-to-day lives and devoting six hours in a weekend is not a possibility for a lot of people,” Dale Zak, mobile software developer for the Extraordinaries, said. “But there’s a lot of downtime,” he added.

Now people can use that downtime to upload photos and translate passages one sentence at a time, Zak noted.

It’s a kind of small-scale activism based on “crowdsourcing,” which asks many people to contribute in small ways, according to Kane Faucher, an assistant professor in Western’s faculty of information and media studies.

“The idea of ‘many hands make light work’ is at the heart of any crowdsourcing effort,” Faucher said. “Its success may depend on how well it can mask the idea of volunteer labour with an entertaining premise.”

According to Faucher, the earliest example of this is Wikipedia, which was originally designed so users volunteered their time to add information to a free database. NASA also uses “crowdware,” an online video game where users navigate millions of pictures of Mars’ surface — a task too daunting for NASA staffers.

But critics call micro-volunteering and crowdsourcing a sneaky way of making an easy buck on the backs of volunteers.

“We are providing the value. They are harnessing our labour,” John Reed, another FIMS instructor, said. “I’m not saying it’s insidious or even bad. But let’s just call it what it is. It’s unpaid labour.”

The Extraordinaries recently added a way to make money by charging organizations for some micro-tasks like getting users to take photographs and upload them to the site.

“The application and the website will be free for people to use, but organizations will pay to have missions published on the system,” Zak said.

This kind of small-scale activism has also been called “slacktivism” — a light protest where people can join a Facebook group or sign an online petition thinking they’ve made a difference.

“The idea that minimal effort by a maximum number will result in great social change remains to be seen,” Faucher explained, adding not all social movements benefit from online involvement as much as having your feet on the ground.

One “grounded” organization is United Way, whose volunteers usually commit more time than any online activist, according to CEO Andrew Lockie.

“Some volunteer roles, like being on our board of directors, takes a lot of time and effort,” Lockie said.

Lockie believes online activism like crowdsourcing can rope more people into the cause and he said United Way is trying to find more ways to get people involved using their Facebook and Twitter pages.

“I could be overly optimistic but I don’t think I am,” he said. “[Crowdsourcing] is a way for people to feel like they can be engaged even if they’re really busy.”

In recent years, United Way of London and Middlesex has seen an increase in community involvement and philanthropy. Lockie predicts the web and micro-volunteering will round out their participation and make it easier to get involved.

But Zak and the Extraordinaries believe exposure for these groups is enough to make a difference. When a user tags a photo or does a translation for an organization, they also learn about the group and their issues.

“I think just being knowledgeable about these kinds of topics in their day-to-day lives is important,” he said.

Beth Zener, a third-year student in the media in the public interest program at Western, said people joining activist Facebook groups care more about being perceived as socially aware than actually understanding the issues.

“If you don’t care, I don’t think you can start caring, even if it’s on a smaller scale,” Zener said. “I don’t think there’s anything bad about it, but it’s not a great method of making people more sensitive about the issues.”

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