from The New Yorker

October 4, 2010
ANNALS OF INNOVATION

Small Change
Why the revolution will not be tweeted.

by Malcolm Gladwell

stupid, ignorant!" she said. reached six hundred. People

1. They didn't move. Around spilled out onto the street.
five-thirty, the front doors to White teen-agers waved
At four-thirty in the the store were locked. The Confederate flags. Someone
afternoon on Monday, four still didn't move. Finally, threw a firecracker. At noon,
February 1, 1960, four they left by a side door. the A. & T. football team
college students sat down at Outside, a small crowd had arrived. "Here comes the
the lunch counter at the gathered, including a wrecking crew," one of the
Woolworth's in downtown photographer from the white students shouted.
Greensboro, North Carolina. Greensboro Record. "I'll be
They were freshmen at back tomorrow with A. & T. By the following Monday,
North Carolina A. & T., a College," one of the students sit-ins had spread to
black college a mile or so said. Winston-Salem, twenty-five
away. miles away, and Durham,
By next morning, the protest fifty miles away. The day
"I'd like a cup of coffee, had grown to twenty-seven after that, students at
please," one of the four, men and four women, most Fayetteville State Teachers
Ezell Blair, said to the from the same dormitory as College and at Johnson C.
waitress. the original four. The men Smith College, in Charlotte,
were dressed in suits and ties. joined in, followed on
"We don't serve Negroes The students had brought Wednesday by students at
here," she replied. their schoolwork, and studied St. Augustine's College and
as they sat at the counter. On Shaw University, in Raleigh.
The Woolworth's lunch Wednesday, students from On Thursday and Friday, the
counter was a long L-shaped Greensboro's "Negro" protest crossed state lines,
bar that could seat sixty-six secondary school, Dudley surfacing in Hampton and
people, with a standup snack High, joined in, and the Portsmouth, Virginia, in
bar at one end. The seats number of protesters swelled Rock Hill, South Carolina,
were for whites. The snack to eighty. By Thursday, the and in Chattanooga,
bar was for blacks. Another protesters numbered three Tennessee. By the end of the
employee, a black woman hundred, including three month, there were sit-ins
who worked at the steam white women, from the throughout the South, as far
table, approached the Greensboro campus of the west as Texas. "I asked every
students and tried to warn University of North Carolina. student I met what the first
them away. "You're acting By Saturday, the sit-in had day of the sitdowns had
been like on his campus," student protests rocked people who log on to their
the political theorist Michael Tehran, the State Department Facebook page really the
Walzer wrote in Dissent. took the unusual step of best hope for us all? As for
"The answer was always the asking Twitter to suspend Moldova's so-called Twitter
same: 'It was like a fever. scheduled maintenance of its Revolution, Evgeny
Everyone wanted to go.' " Web site, because the Morozov, a scholar at
Some seventy thousand Administration didn't want Stanford who has been the
students eventually took such a critical organizing tool most persistent of digital
part. Thousands were out of service at the height of evangelism's critics, points
arrested and untold the demonstrations. "Without out that Twitter had scant
thousands more radicalized. Twitter the people of Iran internal significance in
These events in the early would not have felt Moldova, a country where
sixties became a civil-rights empowered and confident to very few Twitter accounts
war that engulfed the South stand up for freedom and exist. Nor does it seem to
for the rest of the decade— democracy," Mark Pfeifle, a have been a revolution, not
and it happened without e- former national-security least because the protests—
mail, texting, Facebook, or adviser, later wrote, calling for as Anne Applebaum
Twitter. Twitter to be nominated for suggested in the Washington
the Nobel Peace Prize. Where Post—may well have been a
2. activists were once defined by bit of stagecraft cooked up
their causes, they are now by the government. (In a
The world, we are told, is in defined by their tools. country paranoid about
the midst of a revolution. Facebook warriors go online Romanian revanchism, the
The new tools of social to push for change. "You are protesters flew a Romanian
media have reinvented the best hope for us all," flag over the Parliament
social activism. With James K. Glassman, a former building.) In the Iranian
Facebook and Twitter and senior State Department case, meanwhile, the people
the like, the traditional official, told a crowd of cyber tweeting about the
relationship between activists at a recent conference demonstrations were almost
political authority and sponsored by Facebook, A. T. all in the West. "It is time to
popular will has been & T., Howcast, MTV, and get Twitter's role in the
upended, making it easier Google. Sites like Facebook, events in Iran right," Golnaz
for the powerless to Glassman said, "give the U.S. Esfandiari wrote, this past
collaborate, coördinate, and a significant competitive summer, in Foreign Policy.
give voice to their concerns. advantage over terrorists. "Simply put: There was no
When ten thousand Some time ago, I said that Al Twitter Revolution inside
protesters took to the streets Qaeda was 'eating our lunch Iran." The cadre of
in Moldova in the spring of on the Internet.' That is no prominent bloggers, like
2009 to protest against their longer the case. Al Qaeda is Andrew Sullivan, who
country's Communist stuck in Web 1.0. The Internet championed the role of
government, the action was is now about interactivity and social media in Iran,
dubbed the Twitter conversation." Esfandiari continued,
Revolution, because of the misunderstood the situation.
means by which the These are strong, and "Western journalists who
demonstrators had been puzzling, claims. Why does it couldn't reach—or didn't
brought together. A few matter who is eating whose bother reaching?—people on
months after that, when lunch on the Internet? Are the ground in Iran simply
scrolled through the sat down at the lunch counter during the rest of the
English-language tweets were terrified. "I suppose if summer, thirty-seven black
post with tag #iranelection," anyone had come up behind churches were set on fire
she wrote. "Through it all, me and yelled 'Boo,' I think I and dozens of safe houses
no one seemed to wonder would have fallen off my seat," were bombed; volunteers
why people trying to one of them said later. On the were beaten, shot at,
coordinate protests in Iran first day, the store manager arrested, and trailed by
would be writing in any notified the police chief, who pickup trucks full of armed
language other than Farsi." immediately sent two officers men. A quarter of those in
to the store. On the third day, the program dropped out.
a gang of white toughs showed Activism that challenges the
Some of this grandiosity is up at the lunch counter and status quo—that attacks
to be expected. Innovators stood ostentatiously behind deeply rooted problems—is
tend to be solipsists. They the protesters, ominously not for the faint of heart.
often want to cram every muttering epithets such as
stray fact and experience "burr-head nigger." A local Ku What makes people capable
into their new model. As the Klux Klan leader made an of this kind of activism? The
historian Robert Darnton appearance. On Saturday, as Stanford sociologist Doug
has written, "The marvels of tensions grew, someone called McAdam compared the
communication technology in a bomb threat, and the Freedom Summer dropouts
in the present have entire store had to be with the participants who
produced a false evacuated. stayed, and discovered that
consciousness about the the key difference wasn't, as
past—even a sense that might be expected,
communication has no The dangers were even clearer ideological fervor. "All of the
history, or had nothing of in the Mississippi Freedom applicants—participants and
importance to consider Summer Project of 1964, withdrawals alike—emerge
before the days of television another of the sentinel as highly committed,
and the Internet." But there campaigns of the civil-rights articulate supporters of the
is something else at work movement. The Student goals and values of the
here, in the outsized Nonviolent Coordinating summer program," he
enthusiasm for social media. Committee recruited concluded. What mattered
Fifty years after one of the hundreds of Northern, largely more was an applicant's
most extraordinary episodes white unpaid volunteers to degree of personal
of social upheaval in run Freedom Schools, register connection to the civil-rights
American history, we seem black voters, and raise civil- movement. All the
to have forgotten what rights awareness in the Deep volunteers were required to
activism is. South. "No one should go provide a list of personal
anywhere alone, but certainly contacts—the people they
3. not in an automobile and wanted kept apprised of
certainly not at night," they their activities—and
Greensboro in the early were instructed. Within days participants were far more
nineteen-sixties was the of arriving in Mississippi, likely than dropouts to have
kind of place where racial three volunteers—Michael close friends who were also
insubordination was Schwerner, James Chaney, going to Mississippi. High-
routinely met with violence. and Andrew Goodman—were risk activism, McAdam
The four students who first kidnapped and killed, and,
concluded, is a "strong-tie" McCain, Ezell Blair, and Facebook is a tool for
phenomenon. Joseph McNeil—was their efficiently managing your
relationship with one another. acquaintances, for keeping
This pattern shows up again McNeil was a roommate of up with the people you
and again. One study of the Blair's in A. & T.'s Scott Hall would not otherwise be able
Red Brigades, the Italian dormitory. Richmond roomed to stay in touch with. That's
terrorist group of the with McCain one floor up, and why you can have a
nineteen-seventies, found Blair, Richmond, and McCain thousand "friends" on
that seventy per cent of had all gone to Dudley High Facebook, as you never
recruits had at least one School. The four would could in real life.
good friend already in the smuggle beer into the dorm
organization. The same is and talk late into the night in This is in many ways a
true of the men who joined Blair and McNeil's room. They wonderful thing. There is
the mujahideen in would all have remembered strength in weak ties, as the
Afghanistan. Even the murder of Emmett Till in sociologist Mark
revolutionary actions that 1955, the Montgomery bus Granovetter has observed.
look spontaneous, like the boycott that same year, and Our acquaintances—not our
demonstrations in East the showdown in Little Rock friends—are our greatest
Germany that led to the fall in 1957. It was McNeil who source of new ideas and
of the Berlin Wall, are, at brought up the idea of a sit-in information. The Internet
core, strong-tie phenomena. at Woolworth's. They'd lets us exploit the power of
The opposition movement in discussed it for nearly a these kinds of distant
East Germany consisted of month. Then McNeil came connections with marvellous
several hundred groups, into the dorm room and asked efficiency. It's terrific at the
each with roughly a dozen the others if they were ready. diffusion of innovation,
members. Each group was in There was a pause, and interdisciplinary
limited contact with the McCain said, in a way that collaboration, seamlessly
others: at the time, only works only with people who matching up buyers and
thirteen per cent of East talk late into the night with sellers, and the logistical
Germans even had a phone. one another, "Are you guys functions of the dating
All they knew was that on chicken or not?" Ezell Blair world. But weak ties seldom
Monday nights, outside St. worked up the courage the lead to high-risk activism.
Nicholas Church in next day to ask for a cup of
downtown Leipzig, people coffee because he was flanked In a new book called "The
gathered to voice their anger by his roommate and two Dragonfly Effect: Quick,
at the state. And the primary good friends from high school. Effective, and Powerful
determinant of who showed Ways to Use Social Media to
up was "critical friends"— 4. Drive Social Change," the
the more friends you had business consultant Andy
who were critical of the The kind of activism Smith and the Stanford
regime the more likely you associated with social media Business School professor
were to join the protest. isn't like this at all. The Jennifer Aaker tell the story
platforms of social media are of Sameer Bhatia, a young
So one crucial fact about the built around weak ties. Silicon Valley entrepreneur
four freshmen at the Twitter is a way of following who came down with acute
Greensboro lunch counter— (or being followed by) people myelogenous leukemia. It's a
David Richmond, Franklin you may never have met. perfect illustration of social
media's strengths. Bhatia doesn't mean spending a they've given. This is a
needed a bone-marrow summer being chased by powerful mechanism to
transplant, but he could not armed men in pickup trucks. engage this critical
find a match among his It doesn't require that you population. They inform
relatives and friends. The confront socially entrenched their community, attend
odds were best with a donor norms and practices. In fact, events, volunteer. It's not
of his ethnicity, and there it's the kind of commitment something you can measure
were few South Asians in the that will bring only social by looking at a ledger." In
national bone-marrow acknowledgment and praise. other words, Facebook
database. So Bhatia's activism succeeds not by
business partner sent out an The evangelists of social motivating people to make a
e-mail explaining Bhatia's media don't understand this real sacrifice but by
plight to more than four distinction; they seem to motivating them to do the
hundred of their believe that a Facebook friend things that people do when
acquaintances, who is the same as a real friend they are not motivated
forwarded the e-mail to and that signing up for a enough to make a real
their personal contacts; donor registry in Silicon sacrifice. We are a long way
Facebook pages and Valley today is activism in the from the lunch counters of
YouTube videos were same sense as sitting at a Greensboro.
devoted to the Help Sameer segregated lunch counter in
campaign. Eventually, Greensboro in 1960. "Social 5.
nearly twenty-five thousand networks are particularly
new people were registered effective at increasing The students who joined the
in the bone-marrow motivation," Aaker and Smith sit-ins across the South
database, and Bhatia found write. But that's not true. during the winter of 1960
a match. Social networks are effective described the movement as
at increasing participation— a "fever." But the civil-rights
But how did the campaign by lessening the level of movement was more like a
get so many people to sign motivation that participation military campaign than like
up? By not asking too much requires. The Facebook page a contagion. In the late
of them. That's the only way of the Save Darfur Coalition nineteen-fifties, there had
you can get someone you has 1,282,339 members, who been sixteen sit-ins in
don't really know to do have donated an average of various cities throughout the
something on your behalf. nine cents apiece. The next South, fifteen of which were
You can get thousands of biggest Darfur charity on formally organized by civil-
people to sign up for a donor Facebook has 22,073 rights organizations like the
registry, because doing so is members, who have donated N.A.A.C.P. and CORE.
pretty easy. You have to an average of thirty-five cents. Possible locations for
send in a cheek swab and— Help Save Darfur has 2,797 activism were scouted. Plans
in the highly unlikely event members, who have given, on were drawn up. Movement
that your bone marrow is a average, fifteen cents. A activists held training
good match for someone in spokesperson for the Save sessions and retreats for
need—spend a few hours at Darfur Coalition told would-be protesters. The
the hospital. Donating bone Newsweek, "We wouldn't Greensboro Four were a
marrow isn't a trivial matter. necessarily gauge someone's product of this groundwork:
But it doesn't involve value to the advocacy all were members of the
financial or personal risk; it movement based on what N.A.A.C.P. Youth Council.
They had close ties with the Morris writes. "Individuals There are many things,
head of the local N.A.A.C.P. were held accountable for though, that networks don't
chapter. They had been their assigned duties, and do well. Car companies
briefed on the earlier wave important conflicts were sensibly use a network to
of sit-ins in Durham, and resolved by the minister, who organize their hundreds of
had been part of a series of usually exercised ultimate suppliers, but not to design
movement meetings in authority over the their cars. No one believes
activist churches. When the congregation." that the articulation of a
sit-in movement spread coherent design philosophy
from Greensboro This is the second crucial is best handled by a
throughout the South, it did distinction between sprawling, leaderless
not spread indiscriminately. traditional activism and its organizational system.
It spread to those cities online variant: social media Because networks don't have
which had preëxisting are not about this kind of a centralized leadership
"movement centers"—a core hierarchical organization. structure and clear lines of
of dedicated and trained Facebook and the like are authority, they have real
activists ready to turn the tools for building networks, difficulty reaching
"fever" into action. which are the opposite, in consensus and setting goals.
structure and character, of They can't think
The civil-rights movement hierarchies. Unlike strategically; they are
was high-risk activism. It hierarchies, with their rules chronically prone to conflict
was also, crucially, strategic and procedures, networks and error. How do you make
activism: a challenge to the aren't controlled by a single difficult choices about
establishment mounted with central authority. Decisions tactics or strategy or
precision and discipline. The are made through consensus, philosophical direction
N.A.A.C.P. was a centralized and the ties that bind people when everyone has an equal
organization, run from New to the group are loose. say?
York according to highly
formalized operating This structure makes The Palestine Liberation
procedures. At the Southern networks enormously resilient Organization originated as a
Christian Leadership and adaptable in low-risk network, and the
Conference, Martin Luther situations. Wikipedia is a international-relations
King, Jr., was the perfect example. It doesn't scholars Mette Eilstrup-
unquestioned authority. At have an editor, sitting in New Sangiovanni and Calvert
the center of the movement York, who directs and corrects Jones argue in a recent essay
was the black church, which each entry. The effort of in International Security
had, as Aldon D. Morris putting together each entry is that this is why it ran into
points out in his superb self-organized. If every entry such trouble as it grew:
1984 study, "The Origins of in Wikipedia were to be "Structural features typical
the Civil Rights Movement," erased tomorrow, the content of networks—the absence of
a carefully demarcated would swiftly be restored, central authority, the
division of labor, with because that's what happens unchecked autonomy of
various standing committees when a network of thousands rival groups, and the
and disciplined groups. spontaneously devote their inability to arbitrate
"Each group was task- time to a task. quarrels through formal
oriented and coordinated its mechanisms—made the
activities through authority " P.L.O. excessively
vulnerable to outside have to be a hierarchy. The protester deviates from the
manipulation and internal Montgomery bus boycott script and responds to
strife." required the participation of provocation, the moral
tens of thousands of people legitimacy of the entire
In Germany in the nineteen- who depended on public protest is compromised.
seventies, they go on, "the transit to get to and from Enthusiasts for social media
far more unified and work each day. It lasted a would no doubt have us
successful left-wing year. In order to persuade believe that King's task in
terrorists tended to organize those people to stay true to Birmingham would have
hierarchically, with the cause, the boycott's been made infinitely easier
professional management organizers tasked each local had he been able to
and clear divisions of labor. black church with maintaining communicate with his
They were concentrated morale, and put together a followers through Facebook,
geographically in free alternative private and contented himself with
universities, where they carpool service, with forty- tweets from a Birmingham
could establish central eight dispatchers and forty- jail. But networks are messy:
leadership, trust, and two pickup stations. Even the think of the ceaseless
camaraderie through White Citizens Council, King pattern of correction and
regular, face-to-face later said, conceded that the revision, amendment and
meetings." They seldom carpool system moved with debate, that characterizes
betrayed their comrades in "military precision." By the Wikipedia. If Martin Luther
arms during police time King came to King, Jr., had tried to do a
interrogations. Their Birmingham, for the climactic wiki-boycott in
counterparts on the right showdown with Police Montgomery, he would have
were organized as Commissioner Eugene (Bull) been steamrollered by the
decentralized networks, and Connor, he had a budget of a white power structure. And
had no such discipline. million dollars, and a hundred of what use would a digital
These groups were regularly full-time staff members on the communication tool be in a
infiltrated, and members, ground, divided into town where ninety-eight per
once arrested, easily gave up operational units. The cent of the black community
their comrades. Similarly, Al operation itself was divided could be reached every
Qaeda was most dangerous into steadily escalating Sunday morning at church?
when it was a unified phases, mapped out in The things that King needed
hierarchy. Now that it has advance. Support was in Birmingham—discipline
dissipated into a network, it maintained through and strategy—were things
has proved far less effective. consecutive mass meetings that online social media
rotating from church to cannot provide.
The drawbacks of networks church around the city.
scarcely matter if the 6.
network isn't interested in Boycotts and sit-ins and
systemic change—if it just nonviolent confrontations— The bible of the social-media
wants to frighten or which were the weapons of movement is Clay Shirky's
humiliate or make a splash— choice for the civil-rights "Here Comes Everybody."
or if it doesn't need to think movement—are high-risk Shirky, who teaches at New
strategically. But if you're strategies. They leave little York University, sets out to
taking on a powerful and room for conflict and error. demonstrate the organizing
organized establishment you The moment even one power of the Internet, and
he begins with the story of the report under "lost," rather toward those which promote
Evan, who worked on Wall than "stolen," which resilience and adaptability.
Street, and his friend essentially closed the case. "By It makes it easier for
Ivanna, after she left her this point millions of readers activists to express
smart phone, an expensive were watching," Shirky writes, themselves, and harder for
Sidekick, on the back seat of "and dozens of mainstream that expression to have any
a New York City taxicab. The news outlets had covered the impact. The instruments of
telephone company story." Bowing to the social media are well suited
transferred the data on pressure, the N.Y.P.D. to making the existing social
Ivanna's lost phone to a new reclassified the item as order more efficient. They
phone, whereupon she and "stolen." Sasha was arrested, are not a natural enemy of
Evan discovered that the and Evan got his friend's the status quo. If you are of
Sidekick was now in the Sidekick back. the opinion that all the
hands of a teen-ager from world needs is a little
Queens, who was using it to Shirky's argument is that this buffing around the edges,
take photographs of herself is the kind of thing that could this should not trouble you.
and her friends. never have happened in the But if you think that there
pre-Internet age— and he's are still lunch counters out
When Evan e-mailed the right. Evan could never have there that need integrating it
teen-ager, Sasha, asking for tracked down Sasha. The story ought to give you pause.
the phone back, she replied of the Sidekick would never
that his "white ass" didn't have been publicized. An Shirky ends the story of the
deserve to have it back. army of people could never lost Sidekick by asking,
Miffed, he set up a Web page have been assembled to wage portentously, "What
with her picture and a this fight. The police wouldn't happens next?" —no doubt
description of what had have bowed to the pressure of imagining future waves of
happened. He forwarded the a lone person who had digital protesters. But he has
link to his friends, and they misplaced something as trivial already answered the
forwarded it to their friends. as a cell phone. The story, to question. What happens
Someone found the Shirky, illustrates "the ease next is more of the same. A
MySpace page of Sasha's and speed with which a group networked, weak-tie world is
boyfriend, and a link to it can be mobilized for the right good at things like helping
found its way onto the site. kind of cause" in the Internet Wall Streeters get phones
Someone found her address age. back from teen-age girls.
online and took a video of Viva la revolución.
her home while driving by; Shirky considers this model of
Evan posted the video on the activism an upgrade. But it is © 2010 Malcolm Gladwell
site. The story was picked up simply a form of organizing
by the news filter Digg. Evan which favors the weak-tie
was now up to ten e-mails a connections that give us
minute. He created a access to information over the
bulletin board for his strong-tie connections that
readers to share their help us persevere in the face
stories, but it crashed under of danger. It shifts our
the weight of responses. energies from organizations
Evan and Ivanna went to the that promote strategic and
police, but the police filed disciplined activity and