Post on 10-Jul-2015
How to Create a Smart Mob:Understanding a Social Network Capital
P. Takis Metaxas, Ashley Hubbard Harmon
Wellesley College, USA
E-Democracy, July 2010
Web: cs.wellesley.edu/~pmetaxasE-mail: pmetaxas@wellesley.eduTwitter: takis_metaxas
Smart Mobs of the 21st Centurytechnologically-mediated self-structuring social organizationstechnologically-mediated self-structuring social organizations
Manilla e-Revolution
Go 2EDSA. Wear blckGo 2EDSA. Wear blck
Lost Sidekick
Balloon Spotting
Many more examples…
(partial) List of better-known Smart Mobs 2007 Kenyan post-election violence 2007 Burma riots 2009 Iranian elections Kiva’s micro-financing model Haiti earthquake relief initiative “Snowmageddon” Groupon network 4chan trolling
What do they have in common?
Can you create them on-demand? Rheingold’s blog: Characteristics of the leader (?)
Challenges in creating Smart Mobs
Not just a social network facebook, twitter: are not
Smart Mob on demand? Could I start a revolution? Could I find my stolen
laptop?
What does it take to create a Smart Mob?
An agreement between N participants seems to need a large number of handshakes
Sufficient (& necessary) ingredients
Desire for Communication Innate desire of humans to communicate “Man is by nature a social animal.” – John Locke
Affordable Communicating Devices Smart Mobs need to include a large group of people Possible, thanks to “Moore’s Law”
Opportunities for instantaneous communication A network, a forum to enable the formation “When the network enables transactions between the individual nodes, the value is
squared. When the same network includes ways for the individual to form groups, the value is exponential” – “Reed’s Law”
Shared Goal Without it, we simply have a social network. Traditionally successful actions towards a cause have often been limited to well-funded,
organized groups. Not anymore
Small time-frameNeed for urgency in its formation
Long periods of time will not provide the focus or urgency necessary.
Ingredients to create a Smart Mob
Manila e-Revolution
Lost Sidekick Balloon spotting
Desire for Communication
Seeking political justness
Sense of justice Seeking success in research goal
Affordable Comm. Devices
Cellphones Computers GPS-enabled cellphones
Opportunities for instantaneous Comm.
Texting network Web blogs, Web pages
DARPA’s challenge
Shared Goal Ending Pres. Estrada’s regime
Returning a cell-phone to owner
Financial gain; bragging rights
Small time-frame Jan. 17-20, 2001 Jun 6-15, 2006 Dec. 5, 2009
It is neither a particular technology, nor the skill of a leader:it is a confluence of 5 factors.
Kenya post-electionsviolence
Dec. 27, 2007 election results are disputed by opposition.
Violence erupts between ethnic/political supporters of Kibaki and Odinga.
At least 1,000 people killed, 200,000 displaced.
Difficult to find out where help was needed.
Proposition from Ory Okolloh attract attention of a few programmers who create Ushahidi in a few days.
Ushahidi: Smart Mobs on demand…
Smart (and nasty) Mobs: 4chan.org
Ongoing smart mob of unsocial types
Responsible for a variety of attacks for (their) fun Introducing new memes Threats against Church of Scientology Revenge YouTube by posting porn “Show off” by adding strobe-lights on Epilepsy page Voting “moot” as the 2009 Time 100, …
Persistent over time
Destroying a Smart Mob
Break any of its five criteria Desire for communication is innate, can only be broken from within Affordable communication devices: If available to few, SM ineffective
Opportunities for Communication Burma regime’s 2007 taking down the internet “for maintenance”
Shared Goal Iran regime’s insertion of rogue elements inciting violence
Small time-frame Declared effort to “defeat Creationism in schools” had no time urgency
So, all 5 sufficient criteria are also necessary