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Attack of the Nerds! Cyber-Activism Comes of Age
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2010-1-020 Lin Hsin-ching/photos by Jimmy Lin/tr. by Phil Newell Printing date：2009/12/31

For a number of recent protest ac-tivities-such as those connected with the

Lo Sheng Sanatorium, the Su'ao to Hualien highway, the Wild Strawberries
movement, the proposed gambling zone in Penghu, Phase IV of the Central
Taiwan Science Park, and construction of the Eighth Naphtha Cracker-the
Internet has been a critical platform for spreading information. Through one
link after another, a new generation of young people who are versed in the
manipulation of new technology are gathering from every corner of Taiwan into
a powerful force capable of affecting important policy decisions.

But they do not confine themselves to protest and opposition. When there
are natural disasters or emergencies, these Internet-savvy youths can make
timely use of their skills to effectively compensate for the gaps in the
overwhelmed government information network. Whatever you may think of the
stereotypical "homebody nerd" online addicts of today, the new generation of
cyber-activists has been having an impact on Taiwan's politics, society, and
media environment that cannot be ignored.

At two in the afternoon on September 24, 2009, nearly 30 members of

Taiwan's most important media-related NGOs-including Mediawatch, the
Association of Taiwan Journalists, and the Campaign for Media Reform-as well
as the Taiwan Labor Front, gathered in front of the Taipei District Court. They
were all there to support two former staff people of the ERA television network
who had been fired from their jobs and sued for defamation for stating on
their personal blogs that the network had failed to pass along emergency
information to the authorities during the Typhoon Morakot disaster.

Nowhere beyond reach

This David vs. Goliath incident was just another of the many minor
controversies of the world obscured by the daily mass-media diet of celebrity
gossip and partisan abuse that passes for political commentary, and had little
chance of attracting the attention of the man in the street. But it is interesting
that through Plurk, blogs, BBS, Facebook, and other Internet tools, in the short
span of two weeks this movement backing the fired journalists attracted more
than 20 NGOs and nearly 500 citizens to sign a petition in support,

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constituting a balancing force not to be ignored against ERA's domineering

behavior.

In fact it is not completely novel for online activists to use blogs, microblogs,
web badges, social bookmarking websites, Google Groups, and other
innovative Internet tools to draw attention to issues or set the stage for
political or social action. Back during the 2006 elections for the Taipei City
Council, bloggers such as Zhu Xiao Cao and Portnoy who supported the
pro-environment stance of the Green Party launched an online petition to get
people to commit to "vote green." Within a few days several hundred other
blogs had set up links, and the movement even caught the attention of
mainstream media like the China Times and Liberty Times. Although the action
didn't succeed in getting its favored candidates elected, it set a model for other
bloggers to follow in getting involved in democratic elections.

The Wild Strawberries student movement which flourished for a time in 2008
provides a classic example of how capabilities can be concentrated through the
Internet. At that time Taiwanese students in faraway France, Germany, the UK,
and the US, acting via Yahoo's "Y! Live" free web broadcasting platform,
were simultaneously staging sit-ins in support of the local students braving the
elements in Liberty Square. All you needed was a notebook computer and a
3.5G wireless Internet adapter and you could dialogue in real time with
cybercomrades anywhere on the planet-from Taipei to Paris, from Tokyo to
New York-who similarly sympathized with the student protesters.

The broadcast power of the Internet, deriving from the high quality of the
sound and visual images and its geographically limitless reach, has overturned
the traditional model of social movements. In the past it was necessary to
invest a great deal of effort in spreading information, personal networking,
and staff training to prepare for any action. But cyber-advocates need only
know their respective niche audiences, proactively manage the websites that
cater to each, and provide timely information, to have an opportunity to
broaden the impact of their appeals. Activists no longer need to take to the
streets every day and shout themselves hoarse just to get their opinions
heard by more and more people.

Accentuate the positive

The perspective of the cyber-activist generation is not, however, limited

to linking up organizations for protest movements. The other side of the coin is
their ability to use their Internet skills to provide information that government
agencies unfamiliar with up-to-date technology may miss. One of the most
prominent examples of this in recent years is the Association of Digital Culture,

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Taiwan (ADCT).

This group was formed three years ago by several dozen well-known
bloggers and online groups, with the avowed goal of making a positive
contribution through the Internet and thereby dispel the widely held stereotype
of "homebody nerds" and "NEETs" detached from reality and living in a
fantasy world.

One of their ideas was to hold regular "punch parties," where bloggers who
had long been following each others' work could meet face to face and build up
personal friendships. More importantly, each fall the group organizes a large
scale event using conference and seminar formats to introduce and analyze the
pros and cons of new digital concepts like Web 2.0, People Post (a news
exchange platform), blogs, and microblogging, as well as to showcase
successful examples of the use of these Internet tools in public service
activities. These meetings have been quite well received, and to date more
than 1000 netizens have taken part.

Besides regular activities to bring together the blogging community, the

association also brings the power of these new technologies to the corners of
Taiwan that need them.

For example, in mid-2008 they launched the "Puncar Action" project,

providing computer education to over 100 remote communities in southern and
central Taiwan. Traveling in an old minibus that was on the verge of being
junked, dedicated young bloggers taught digitally marginal people like
grandparents, small children, and foreign spouses how to use computers-from
turning them on, to typing practice, to getting online, to surfing for
information, and even to setting up web pages.

ADCT founder Tim Shyu, whose online handle is "Slime," notes that although
the government and some foundations also offer courses to people in rural
areas in an effort to close the digital gap, these are generally pre-packaged
with prescribed steps that prove both boring and difficult. People have to start
from learning word processing software like MS Office, "so a lot of people can't
even sit through the first class before they scurry away."

Shyu says that Puncar Action, though relatively resource-poor, starts by

getting people interested in learning, and instruction is largely customized to
the individual, which means that the teachers teach what the students want to
learn most. For example, Grandma might want to go online to check out the
stock market, or send pictures of her adorable grandchild to her son who is
working in mainland China, Grandpa might want to start a blog to market
agricultural products, and a foreign spouse might want to learn how to use

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Skype to call home to Vietnam. These are the kinds of course contents that
really get people excited.

Shyu concludes: "Because these things are closely connected to their daily
needs, people won't forget once they learn how to do them, which is the only
real way of achieving the objective of using computers to improve the lives of
people in remote areas."

Filling in the gaps

This "homebody-nerd direct delivery" service to remote areas really bore fruit
when Typhoon Morakot hit in 2009. On August 9, local staffers from the Puncar
Action project-which was focused on Tainan County, one of the three hardest
hit counties, from the start-happened to see appeals for help being left on the
Plurk account of the county executive, Su Huan-jhih. It was thanks to the
emergency notifications sent by these local staff that the county
government was able to rescue more than 10 disaster victims who were
without any outside aid.

Having had this initial success with monitoring the disaster situation, these
cyber-experts won the trust of government officials at all levels, and were
invited to post staff members in Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Pingtung counties, and
even in the Central Disaster Response Center, with the ADCT being directly
responsible for broadcasting real-time information on what disaster assistance
was being tendered by various government agencies, how disaster relief was
progressing, and on how and where emergency supplies were being
distributed. They also established a non-governmental version of the disaster
response center, collating reports from netizens all over, and serving as a
platform for the exchange and comparison of information from government and
non-governmental sources during the disaster period.

Lou Cheng-yi, vice CEO of the ADCT, points out that the greatest result of
the involvement of netizens on this occasion was "to create a new way of
thinking about providing those implementing policy with new information."

Such data sharing naturally also benefits the public. Lou recalls that
information like which bridges were out, which roads were cut, where rescue
helicopters were operating, and where food and water were being distributed
were tucked into some hard-to-find corner of a complicated ministry webpage
packed with scads of unrelated information, or even was considered "internal"
and not released at all! "But this was the information that disaster victims and
their friends and family, who were so worried about the situation on the
ground, really thirsted for. So our volunteers lobbied government officials

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directly for such data and used web search tools to comb out useful
information, organize it, and get it out there in a timely fashion."

A poor substitute for reality?

From spreading slogans of social movements and linking appeals of different

groups to participating in government action and filling in the spaces missed by
government and the mainstream media, the Internet has become an important
means by which young people can participate in public affairs. However, water
can not only float a boat, it can also sink one. Some scholars are concerned
that the "virtual reality" provided by the web may actually be trimming off the
practical impact of social movements in real reality.

Kuan Chung-hsiang, an assistant professor in the Department of

Communication and Graduate Institute of Telecommunications at National
Chung Cheng University, offers the following example: The speed and
convenience of the Internet, although helpful in getting more people in touch
with public affairs, may also mislead a netizen into thinking that by simply
entering into a "package for the lazy" (links to background information and
media reports about controversial topics or social movements organized for
easy perusal), clicking "enter" to sign some online petition, or by tuning into a
real-time broadcast from some protest scene, he or she is "already doing my
part in the movement."

Kuan notes that the genuine impact of social movements comes from their
real presence on the streets, because that is the only way to effectively
challenge the status quo. But the "surrogate participation" provided by the
Internet may cause people who might otherwise go to the site of a protest in
person to stay home and be mere onlookers, thereby in fact weakening the
action's possibilities for striking a blow against the system. "For example,
during the Wild Strawberries student movement, many people chose to do
their 'sit-in' protesting at home in front of the computer. This kind of 'moral
support' can be of only limited help to the real keys to the success or failure of
any social movement-mass participation and vocal demands."

Furthermore, notes Kuan, in order to have real impact, any social movement
has to have a social base and face-to-face trust developed in the course of
interpersonal interactions.

The Youth Alliance for Lo Sheng is one example of a social movement that
was able to carry its struggle on for a long period of time. The main reason was
not simply that they agreed with the general idea of saving Lo Sheng, but that
they identified with a real-life organization, built up strong interpersonal

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sympathy with the old people still living in the sanatorium, did countless
on-the-spot surveys and investigations, and put their own bodies on the line in
the protests. "This kind of commitment, developed through participating on the
scene and sharing hardship with comrades, is far beyond what can be attained
by those who just sit in front of their computers 'putting in their two cents' or
'blowing off steam.'"

People Post reporter Chiang Yi-hau, who was once nominated for a prize for
outstanding journalism as a result of his series of reports on "The Story of Man
and the Land" on Coolloud.org, believes that you could say that cyber-activism
"cannot scratch where it really itches," and in fact its impact in terms of
securing the rights of the wronged has been limited.

Take for example the way he began to participate in issues related to

indigenous people after seeing coverage about resistance by Sanying Village
residents to their forced relocation. "If I had just sent along reports over the
Internet and then patted myself on the back and walked away, even if I had
gotten a prize anyway it would have been like the effect of a boat passing over
water-a brief wake and then total disappearance of any sign of its having been
there-and would have changed nothing." Chiang says that the reason he
decided to set up in the locality, and even shave his head alongside the
residents of the indigenous community to show their determination to defend
and rebuild their community, was because only by personal involvement was
there any hope of helping these Aborigines, who had lost all they had, change
their destiny.

While providing new platforms for the distribution of information and the
mobilization of people, cyber-activism's ability to have a practical impact is
not yet clear, and those involved are still just groping their way into new
territory. But no matter what, as new technologies and tools constantly
become available, the "activism at a keystroke" model is sure to become
important to social movements in the 21st century. Young activists of today
now have to figure out how to get past the negative impact of this "substitute
reality" and bring fully into play the potential of the "Internet army."

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