0:00:00.996,0:00:05.802
So recently, we heard a lot about[br]how social media helps empower protest,

0:00:05.802,0:00:07.181
and that's true,

0:00:07.181,0:00:08.836
but after more than a decade

0:00:08.836,0:00:12.501
of studying and participating[br]in multiple social movements,

0:00:12.501,0:00:14.303
I've come to realize

0:00:14.303,0:00:17.614
that the way technology[br]empowers social movements

0:00:17.614,0:00:20.720
can also paradoxically help weaken them.

0:00:20.720,0:00:24.604
This is not inevitable,[br]but overcoming it requires diving deep

0:00:24.604,0:00:28.897
into what makes success possible[br]over the long term.

0:00:28.897,0:00:31.458
And the lessons apply in multiple domains.

0:00:31.458,0:00:35.453
Now, take Turkey's[br]Gezi Park protests, July 2013,

0:00:35.453,0:00:38.490
which I went back to study in the field.

0:00:38.490,0:00:40.943
Twitter was key to its organizing.

0:00:40.943,0:00:44.337
It was everywhere in the park --[br]well, along with a lot of tear gas.

0:00:44.337,0:00:46.175
It wasn't all high tech.

0:00:46.175,0:00:50.053
But the people in Turkey had already[br]gotten used to the power of Twitter

0:00:50.053,0:00:53.993
because of an unfortunate incident[br]about a year before

0:00:53.994,0:00:57.785
when military jets had bombed and killed

0:00:57.785,0:01:01.874
34 Kurdish smugglers[br]near the border region,

0:01:01.874,0:01:06.618
and Turkish media completely[br]censored this news.

0:01:06.618,0:01:08.456
Editors sat in their newsrooms

0:01:08.456,0:01:11.355
and waited for the government[br]to tell them what to do.

0:01:11.355,0:01:13.955
One frustrated journalist[br]could not take this anymore.

0:01:13.955,0:01:15.645
He purchased his own plane ticket,

0:01:15.645,0:01:17.957
and went to the village[br]where this had occurred.

0:01:17.957,0:01:20.623
And he was confronted by this scene:

0:01:20.623,0:01:26.021
a line of coffins coming down a hill,[br]relatives wailing.

0:01:26.021,0:01:28.462
He later he told me[br]how overwhelmed he felt,

0:01:28.462,0:01:30.183
and didn't know what to do,

0:01:30.183,0:01:32.156
so he took out his phone,

0:01:32.156,0:01:33.924
like any one of us might,

0:01:33.924,0:01:37.122
and snapped that picture[br]and tweeted it out.

0:01:37.122,0:01:40.849
And voila, that picture went viral

0:01:40.849,0:01:45.237
and broke the censorship[br]and forced mass media to cover it.

0:01:45.237,0:01:48.418
So when, a year later,[br]Turkey's Gezi protests happened,

0:01:48.418,0:01:51.140
it started as a protest[br]about a park being razed,

0:01:51.140,0:01:53.443
but became an anti-authoritarian protest.

0:01:53.443,0:01:57.601
It wasn't surprising[br]that media also censored it,

0:01:57.601,0:02:00.533
but it got a little ridiculous at times.

0:02:00.533,0:02:02.603
When things were so intense,

0:02:02.603,0:02:06.998
when CNN International[br]was broadcasting live from Istanbul,

0:02:06.998,0:02:13.348
CNN Turkey instead was broadcasting[br]a documentary on penguins.

0:02:13.351,0:02:17.934
Now, I love penguin documentaries,[br]but that wasn't the news of the day.

0:02:17.934,0:02:22.231
An angry viewer put his two screens[br]together and snapped that picture,

0:02:22.231,0:02:24.098
and that one too went viral,

0:02:24.098,0:02:28.586
and since then, people call Turkish media[br]the penguin media. (Laughter)

0:02:28.586,0:02:30.751
But this time, people knew what to do.

0:02:30.751,0:02:33.710
They just took out their phones[br]and looked for actual news.

0:02:33.710,0:02:38.174
Better, they knew to go to the park[br]and take pictures and participate

0:02:38.174,0:02:40.125
and share it more on social media.

0:02:40.125,0:02:46.675
Digital connectivity was used[br]for everything from food to donations.

0:02:46.675,0:02:51.947
Everything was organized partially[br]with the help of these new technologies.

0:02:51.947,0:02:56.153
And using Internet to mobilize[br]and publicize protests

0:02:56.153,0:02:58.609
actually goes back a long way.

0:02:58.609,0:03:00.454
Remember the Zapatistas,

0:03:00.454,0:03:05.089
the peasant uprising[br]in the southern Chiapas region of Mexico

0:03:05.089,0:03:10.720
led by the masked, pipe-smoking,[br]charismatic Subcomandante Marcos?

0:03:10.720,0:03:12.599
That was probably the first movement

0:03:12.599,0:03:14.970
that got global attention[br]thanks to the Internet.

0:03:15.690,0:03:17.338
Or consider Seattle '99,

0:03:17.338,0:03:22.141
when a multinational grassroots effort[br]brought global attention

0:03:22.141,0:03:26.826
to what was then an obscure organization,[br]the World Trade Organization,

0:03:26.826,0:03:31.367
by also utilizing these digital[br]technologies to help them organize.

0:03:31.367,0:03:33.902
And more recently, movement after movement

0:03:33.902,0:03:36.740
has shaken country after country:

0:03:36.740,0:03:41.872
the Arab uprisings from Bahrain[br]to Tunisia to Egypt and more;

0:03:41.872,0:03:46.744
indignados in Spain, Italy, Greece;[br]the Gezi Park protests;

0:03:46.744,0:03:50.968
Taiwan; Euromaidan in Ukraine; Hong Kong.

0:03:50.968,0:03:55.680
And think of more recent initiatives,[br]like the #BringBackOurGirls hashtags.

0:03:55.680,0:04:02.536
Nowadays, a network of tweets[br]can unleash a global awareness campaign.

0:04:02.536,0:04:06.454
A Facebook page can become the hub[br]of a massive mobilization.

0:04:06.454,0:04:08.224
Amazing.

0:04:08.224,0:04:12.538
But think of the moments I just mentioned.

0:04:12.538,0:04:17.203
The achievements they were[br]able to have, their outcomes,

0:04:17.203,0:04:22.013
are not really proportional[br]to the size and energy they inspired.

0:04:22.013,0:04:26.034
The hopes they rightfully raised[br]are not really matched

0:04:26.034,0:04:30.502
by what they were able to have[br]as a result in the end.

0:04:30.502,0:04:32.914
And this raises a question:

0:04:34.204,0:04:38.429
As digital technology makes things[br]easier for movements,

0:04:38.429,0:04:42.452
why haven't successful outcomes[br]become more likely as well?

0:04:42.452,0:04:48.017
In embracing digital platforms[br]for activism and politics,

0:04:48.017,0:04:52.251
are we overlooking some of the benefits[br]of doing things the hard way?

0:04:52.251,0:04:53.468
Now, I believe so.

0:04:53.468,0:04:55.273
I believe that the rule of thumb is:

0:04:55.273,0:05:00.000
Easier to mobilize does not always mean[br]easier to achieve gains.

0:05:00.610,0:05:03.503
Now, to be clear,

0:05:03.503,0:05:06.357
technology does empower in multiple ways.

0:05:06.357,0:05:07.817
It's very powerful.

0:05:07.817,0:05:11.863
In Turkey, I watched[br]four young college students

0:05:11.863,0:05:16.093
organize a countrywide citizen journalism[br]network called 140Journos

0:05:16.093,0:05:20.524
that became the central hub[br]for uncensored news in the country.

0:05:20.524,0:05:25.671
In Egypt, I saw another four young people[br]use digital connectivity

0:05:25.671,0:05:29.518
to organize the supplies and logistics[br]for 10 field hospitals,

0:05:29.518,0:05:31.529
very large operations,

0:05:31.529,0:05:36.530
during massive clashes[br]near Tahrir Square in 2011.

0:05:37.500,0:05:41.217
And I asked the founder[br]of this effort, called Tahrir Supplies,

0:05:41.217,0:05:47.327
how long it took him to go from when[br]he had the idea to when he got started.

0:05:47.327,0:05:49.686
"Five minutes," he said. Five minutes.

0:05:49.686,0:05:52.234
And he had no training[br]or background in logistics.

0:05:52.234,0:05:55.957
Or think of the Occupy movement[br]which rocked the world in 2011.

0:05:55.957,0:05:57.935
It started with a single email

0:05:57.935,0:06:03.176
from a magazine, Adbusters,[br]to 90,000 subscribers in its list.

0:06:03.176,0:06:06.160
About two months after that first email,

0:06:06.160,0:06:12.509
there were in the United States[br]600 ongoing occupations and protests.

0:06:12.509,0:06:18.333
Less than one month after the first[br]physical occupation in Zuccotti Park,

0:06:18.333,0:06:25.174
a global protest was held[br]in about 82 countries, 950 cities.

0:06:25.174,0:06:27.919
It was one of the largest[br]global protests ever organized.

0:06:27.919,0:06:34.606
Now, compare that to what the Civil Rights[br]Movement had to do in 1955 Alabama

0:06:34.606,0:06:40.743
to protest the racially segregated[br]bus system, which they wanted to boycott.

0:06:40.743,0:06:42.495
They'd been preparing for many years

0:06:42.495,0:06:44.561
and decided it was time[br]to swing into action

0:06:44.561,0:06:46.764
after Rosa Parks was arrested.

0:06:46.764,0:06:48.430
But how do you get the word out --

0:06:48.430,0:06:50.593
tomorrow we're going to[br]start the boycott --

0:06:50.593,0:06:56.001
when you don't have Facebook,[br]texting, Twitter, none of that?

0:06:56.001,0:07:01.171
So they had to mimeograph 52,000 leaflets

0:07:01.171,0:07:04.364
by sneaking into a university[br]duplicating room

0:07:04.364,0:07:06.905
and working all night, secretly.

0:07:06.905,0:07:10.398
They then used the 68[br]African-American organizations

0:07:10.398,0:07:14.365
that criss-crossed the city[br]to distribute those leaflets by hand.

0:07:14.365,0:07:19.335
And the logistical tasks were daunting,[br]because these were poor people.

0:07:19.335,0:07:21.425
They had to get to work, boycott or no,

0:07:21.425,0:07:24.327
so a massive carpool was organized,

0:07:24.327,0:07:26.443
again by meeting.

0:07:26.443,0:07:28.838
No texting, no Twitter, no Facebook.

0:07:28.838,0:07:32.407
They had to meet almost all the time[br]to keep this carpool going.

0:07:32.407,0:07:34.679
Today, it would be so much easier.

0:07:34.679,0:07:39.667
We could create a database,[br]available rides and what rides you need,

0:07:39.667,0:07:42.949
have the database coordinate,[br]and use texting.

0:07:42.949,0:07:45.503
We wouldn't have to meet all that much.

0:07:45.503,0:07:47.779
But again, consider this:

0:07:47.779,0:07:50.773
the Civil Rights Movement[br]in the United States

0:07:50.773,0:07:55.267
navigated a minefield[br]of political dangers,

0:07:55.267,0:08:00.770
faced repression and overcame,[br]won major policy concessions,

0:08:00.770,0:08:04.006
navigated and innovated through risks.

0:08:04.006,0:08:07.539
In contrast, three years[br]after Occupy sparked

0:08:07.539,0:08:10.145
that global conversation about inequality,

0:08:10.145,0:08:13.970
the policies that fueled it[br]are still in place.

0:08:13.970,0:08:17.115
Europe was also rocked[br]by anti-austerity protests,

0:08:17.115,0:08:21.237
but the continent[br]didn't shift its direction.

0:08:21.237,0:08:24.173
In embracing these technologies,

0:08:24.173,0:08:30.581
are we overlooking some of the benefits[br]of slow and sustained?

0:08:30.581,0:08:32.450
To understand this,

0:08:32.450,0:08:35.573
I went back to Turkey[br]about a year after the Gezi protests

0:08:35.573,0:08:37.850
and I interviewed a range of people,

0:08:37.850,0:08:41.557
from activists to politicians,

0:08:41.557,0:08:46.174
from both the ruling party[br]and the opposition party and movements.

0:08:46.174,0:08:49.480
I found that the Gezi protesters[br]were despairing.

0:08:49.480,0:08:51.511
They were frustrated,

0:08:51.511,0:08:54.567
and they had achieved much less[br]than what they had hoped for.

0:08:54.567,0:08:57.105
This echoed what I'd been hearing[br]around the world

0:08:57.105,0:09:00.891
from many other protesters[br]that I'm in touch with.

0:09:00.891,0:09:03.198
And I've come to realize[br]that part of the problem

0:09:03.198,0:09:09.067
is that today's protests have become[br]a bit like climbing Mt. Everest

0:09:09.067,0:09:11.524
with the help of 60 Sherpas,

0:09:11.524,0:09:14.651
and the Internet is our Sherpa.

0:09:14.651,0:09:18.964
What we're doing is taking the fast routes

0:09:18.964,0:09:22.303
and not replacing the benefits[br]of the slower work.

0:09:22.303,0:09:23.999
Because, you see,

0:09:23.999,0:09:26.867
the kind of work that went into organizing

0:09:26.867,0:09:29.650
all those daunting,[br]tedious logistical tasks

0:09:29.650,0:09:32.279
did not just take care of those tasks,

0:09:32.279,0:09:36.954
they also created the kind of organization[br]that could think together collectively

0:09:36.963,0:09:39.238
and make hard decisions together,

0:09:39.238,0:09:43.175
create consensus and innovate,[br]and maybe even more crucially,

0:09:43.175,0:09:46.542
keep going together through differences.

0:09:46.542,0:09:51.330
So when you see this[br]March on Washington in 1963,

0:09:51.330,0:09:53.014
when you look at that picture,

0:09:53.014,0:09:56.355
where this is the march where[br]Martin Luther King gave his famous

0:09:56.355,0:09:59.207
"I have a dream" speech, 1963,

0:09:59.207,0:10:03.649
you don't just see a march[br]and you don't just hear a powerful speech,

0:10:03.649,0:10:09.122
you also see the painstaking,[br]long-term work that can put on that march.

0:10:09.122,0:10:10.917
And if you're in power,

0:10:10.917,0:10:15.216
you realize you have to take[br]the capacity signaled by that march,

0:10:15.218,0:10:19.724
not just the march, but the capacity[br]signaled by that march, seriously.

0:10:19.724,0:10:23.727
In contrast, when you look[br]at Occupy's global marches

0:10:23.727,0:10:25.369
that were organized in two weeks,

0:10:25.369,0:10:26.753
you see a lot of discontent,

0:10:26.753,0:10:30.907
but you don't necessarily see teeth that[br]can bite over the long term.

0:10:31.617,0:10:35.710
And crucially, the Civil Rights Movement[br]innovated tactically

0:10:35.710,0:10:42.496
from boycotts to lunch counter sit-ins[br]to pickets to marches to freedom rides.

0:10:42.496,0:10:46.311
Today's movements scale up very quickly[br]without the organizational base

0:10:46.311,0:10:48.900
that can see them through the challenges.

0:10:48.900,0:10:52.700
They feel a little like startups[br]that got very big

0:10:52.700,0:10:54.705
without knowing what to do next,

0:10:54.705,0:10:57.362
and they rarely manage to shift tactically

0:10:57.362,0:10:59.859
because they don't have[br]the depth of capacity

0:10:59.859,0:11:02.151
to weather such transitions.

0:11:02.151,0:11:06.858
Now, I want to be clear:[br]The magic is not in the mimeograph.

0:11:07.668,0:11:13.489
It's in that capacity to work together,[br]think together collectively,

0:11:13.489,0:11:16.671
which can only be built[br]over time with a lot of work.

0:11:16.671,0:11:18.747
To understand all this,

0:11:18.747,0:11:22.571
I interviewed a top official[br]from the ruling party in Turkey,

0:11:22.571,0:11:24.739
and I ask him, "How do you do it?"

0:11:24.739,0:11:28.442
They too use digital technology[br]extensively, so that's not it.

0:11:28.442,0:11:30.372
So what's the secret?

0:11:30.372,0:11:31.896
Well, he told me.

0:11:31.896,0:11:38.532
He said the key is[br]he never took sugar with his tea.

0:11:38.532,0:11:41.593
I said, what has that[br]got to do with anything?

0:11:41.593,0:11:44.759
Well, he said, his party starts[br]getting ready for the next election

0:11:44.759,0:11:46.300
the day after the last one,

0:11:46.300,0:11:50.281
and he spends all day every day[br]meeting with voters in their homes,

0:11:50.281,0:11:52.863
in their wedding parties,[br]circumcision ceremonies,

0:11:52.863,0:11:55.818
and then he meets with his colleagues[br]to compare notes.

0:11:55.818,0:12:00.384
With that many meetings every day,[br]with tea offered at every one of them,

0:12:00.384,0:12:03.736
which he could not refuse,[br]because that would be rude,

0:12:03.736,0:12:08.379
he could not take even one cube of sugar[br]per cup of tea,

0:12:08.379,0:12:12.335
because that would be many kilos of sugar,[br]he can't even calculate how many kilos,

0:12:12.335,0:12:15.979
and at that point I realized[br]why he was speaking so fast.

0:12:15.979,0:12:19.230
We had met in the afternoon,[br]and he was already way over-caffeinated.

0:12:20.527,0:12:25.000
But his party won two major elections

0:12:25.000,0:12:28.658
within a year of the Gezi protests[br]with comfortable margins.

0:12:28.658,0:12:31.997
To be sure, governments have[br]different resources to bring to the table.

0:12:31.997,0:12:35.147
It's not the same game,[br]but the differences are instructive.

0:12:35.154,0:12:39.009
And like all such stories, this is not[br]a story just of technology.

0:12:39.009,0:12:44.091
It's what technology allows us to do[br]converging with what we want to do.

0:12:44.091,0:12:47.877
Today's social movements[br]want to operate informally.

0:12:47.877,0:12:50.147
They do not want institutional leadership.

0:12:50.147,0:12:55.013
They want to stay out of politics because[br]they fear corruption and cooptation.

0:12:55.013,0:12:56.546
They have a point.

0:12:56.546,0:12:59.961
Modern representative democracies[br]are being strangled in many countries

0:12:59.961,0:13:01.604
by powerful interests.

0:13:02.244,0:13:05.518
But operating this way[br]makes it hard for them

0:13:05.518,0:13:09.268
to sustain over the long term[br]and exert leverage over the system,

0:13:09.268,0:13:12.530
which leads to frustrated[br]protesters dropping out,

0:13:12.530,0:13:15.889
and even more corrupt politics.

0:13:15.889,0:13:20.977
And politics and democracy[br]without an effective challenge hobbles,

0:13:20.977,0:13:27.370
because the causes that have inspired[br]the modern recent movements are crucial.

0:13:27.370,0:13:30.465
Climate change is barreling towards us.

0:13:30.465,0:13:35.348
Inequality is stifling human growth[br]and potential and economies.

0:13:35.348,0:13:37.633
Authoritarianism is choking[br]many countries.

0:13:37.633,0:13:40.384
We need movements to be more effective.

0:13:40.384,0:13:43.062
Now, some people have argued[br]that the problem is

0:13:43.062,0:13:49.521
today's movements are not formed of people[br]who take as many risks as before,

0:13:49.521,0:13:51.569
and that is not true.

0:13:51.569,0:13:54.131
From Gezi to Tahrir to elsewhere,

0:13:54.131,0:13:57.769
I've seen people put their lives[br]and livelihoods on the line.

0:13:57.769,0:14:00.188
It's also not true,[br]as Malcolm Gladwell claimed,

0:14:00.188,0:14:02.930
that today's protesters[br]form weaker virtual ties.

0:14:02.930,0:14:06.721
No, they come to these protests,[br]just like before,

0:14:06.721,0:14:09.333
with their friends, existing networks,

0:14:09.333,0:14:11.635
and sometimes they do[br]make new friends for life.

0:14:11.635,0:14:14.221
I still see the friends that I made

0:14:14.221,0:14:17.643
in those Zapatista-convened[br]global protests more than a decade ago,

0:14:17.643,0:14:20.615
and the bonds between strangers[br]are not worthless.

0:14:20.615,0:14:22.899
When I got tear-gassed in Gezi,

0:14:22.899,0:14:28.171
people I didn't know helped me[br]and one another instead of running away.

0:14:28.171,0:14:31.398
In Tahrir, I saw people, protesters,

0:14:31.398,0:14:34.208
working really hard to keep[br]each other safe and protected.

0:14:34.208,0:14:36.097
And digital awareness-raising is great,

0:14:36.097,0:14:39.816
because changing minds[br]is the bedrock of changing politics.

0:14:39.816,0:14:47.216
But movements today have to move beyond[br]participation at great scale very fast

0:14:47.216,0:14:50.715
and figure out how[br]to think together collectively,

0:14:50.715,0:14:54.456
develop strong policy proposals,[br]create consensus,

0:14:54.456,0:14:58.130
figure out the political steps[br]and relate them to leverage,

0:14:58.130,0:15:01.813
because all these good intentions[br]and bravery and sacrifice by itself

0:15:01.813,0:15:03.485
are not going to be enough.

0:15:03.485,0:15:05.381
And there are many efforts.

0:15:05.381,0:15:09.770
In New Zealand, a group of young people[br]are developing a platform called Loomio

0:15:09.770,0:15:12.771
for participatory[br]decision making at scale.

0:15:12.771,0:15:16.046
In Turkey, 140Journos[br]are holding hack-a-thons

0:15:16.046,0:15:19.879
so that they support communities[br]as well as citizen journalism.

0:15:20.619,0:15:23.725
In Argentina, an open-source platform[br]called DemocracyOS

0:15:23.725,0:15:27.133
is bringing participation[br]to parliaments and political parties.

0:15:27.133,0:15:30.518
These are all great, and we need more,

0:15:30.518,0:15:34.694
but the answer won't just be[br]better online decision-making,

0:15:34.694,0:15:40.247
because to update democracy, we are going[br]to need to innovate at every level,

0:15:40.247,0:15:44.740
from the organizational[br]to the political to the social.

0:15:44.740,0:15:48.692
Because to succeed over the long term,

0:15:48.692,0:15:51.064
sometimes you do need tea without sugar

0:15:51.064,0:15:52.697
along with your Twitter.

0:15:52.697,0:15:54.209
Thank you.

0:15:54.209,0:16:01.010
(Applause)