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Can social media be used to bring about justice or significant change to right wrongs? 

This is a heavy question that requires a lot of lifting in numerous areas of the social media sphere. 

“Social media can and should be harnessed to support the public health response,” writes Muhammad Saud in his academic paper Usage of social media during the pandemic: Seeking support and awareness about COVID-19 through social media platforms.

I’d like to take liberties with this quote and add that in addition to a public health response, social media can and should be used for social justice, political activism, and movement organization.

Alex Burns, Tim Highfield, and Jean Burgess write in their article, The Arab Spring and Social Media Audiences: English and Arabic Twitter Users and Their Networks, published in American Behavioral Science, “Although popular media narratives about the role of social media in driving the events of the 2011 “Arab Spring” are likely to overstate the impact of Facebook and Twitter on these uprisings, it is nonetheless true that protests and unrest in countries from Tunisia to Syria generated a substantial amount of social media activity. On Twitter alone, several millions of tweets containing the hashtags #libya or #egypt were generated during 2011, both by directly affected citizens of these countries and by onlookers from further afield.”

Regardless of the cause studies have shown that these of social media can further the reach of a message. From Ferguson to Arab Spring to MeToo, to BLM to COVID-19, information and movements can take hold with proper social media usage.

Hashtags allow easy tracking on platform and for following for updates and new activity. 

Saud writes,  “The information circulated through the social media is quite useful to get awareness and information regarding the global scenario of the outbreak.”

People are increasingly turning to social media for news and information. This is the reason why I believe meaningful change can be used for meaningful change and to help right the Wongs in our society. By no means do I think it’s easy, but it is a tool to use to spread a message.