Internet activists loud, but shy

• Source: The Global Times
• [22:00 May 20 2009]
• Comments

In November last year, he uploaded scanned images of receipts detailing luxury hotel and sightseeing costs for some officials’ study trip to the United States that included Las Vegas, Niagara Falls and other resorts. Several officials were sacked amid a media storm and public outcry.

But I doubt if online activists will take off their masks even though the government has become more tolerant of domestic Web activism. At a time when China reports tens of thousands of mass incidents or demonstrations and protests a year, the Internet public sphere is a useful pressure valve for the government to minimize unrest.

However, while the Internet has provided powerful and cheap social networking tools for mobilizing readers and disseminating information, recent online witch-hunts of corrupt officials have had millions of Web users on the edge of their seats; there are legitimate concerns about the spread of anonymous cybersmears and racism, false information and mob justice.

This has weakened the credibility of Web campaigns, as their organizers are difficult to identify. Usually topics and issues discussed on the Internet can explode on the national scene and prompt government response only when they are double-checked and reported by traditional media.

China’s Internet users may have already become a formidable watch dog force. But for the virtual communities to exercise greater power online and offline, users need to develop solidarity based on mutual trust and responsibility. Unfortunately, anonymous members who cannot be identified and trusted don’t provide the social glue for community-building.

In the United States, some people have criticized the Internet-savvy Millennials, born between 1980 and 1995, for being too plugged into laptops, too quiet and individualistic to meet their potential to influence the real world.

Sally Kohn, a senior campaign strategist, wrote in the press that the real challenges in American society, from the growing gap between rich and poor to racism and discrimination, “won’t politely go away with a few clicks of a mouse. Or even a million.”

It will be even harder to make the issues go away if those who click the mouse are all fictional characters in a virtual world.