WHEN 200 people gathered briefly last June to see a nondescript rug in Macy鈥檚 New York City department store, 鈥渇lashmobbing鈥� entered the lexicon. The surreal idea behind it is to bring a large number of people together at a given place and time, for no particular purpose except to confuse those not in the know. The power of the internet has never been so pointlessly, and entertainingly, demonstrated.
Flashmobbing is the by-product of a much more powerful phenomenon: the culture of grass-roots activism that uses websites, emailing lists and chat rooms to rally support and organise protests. Take the StopEsso/StopExxonMobil movement. On the back of a well-organised distribution of information on the web, it has become a global environmental campaign against the policies of the oil giant ExxonMobil. The huge anti-globalisation demonstrations at meetings of the World Trade Organization are also organised largely through the internet.
Now larger, mainstream organisations are giving online activism a new twist. Last month, the BBC unveiled an experimental project designed to give people with no experience of political organising the same capabilities as the anti-globalisation protesters and environmental activists. The idea is to allow people to campaign on issues that affect them without needing the expertise to set up a website or news group. The corporation鈥檚 site, called iCan, is a virtual meeting place, soapbox and noticeboard for anyone who wants to use it (). With iCan, internet activism could be much more than a fringe activity.
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The concept is simple. The site provides information on issues of the day such as e-voting, identity cards and ID theft. It provides forums in which people can set up campaigns, and noticeboards on which they can publicise events and organise petitions. Most important of all, it provides an environment in which people can search for others in their area with similar concerns, from pollution and crime to nuisance neighbours.
That a state-funded media organisation like the BBC should seek such a direct role in British politics might seem inappropriate. But the corporation points out that it operates under a charter to inform and educate as well as entertain. It carried out a survey shortly after the 2001 general election to find out why only 60 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote. 鈥淭hey weren鈥檛 apathetic. They just felt alienated from the established political process,鈥� says Martin Vogel, part of the team responsible for developing iCan. 鈥淲e were handed a challenge to come up with something in new media to respond to this.鈥�
The BBC is well placed to make something so ambitious succeed, according to Stefan Magdalinski, a co-founder of the FaxYourMP.com website, which allows people to send a formal message to their MP. 鈥淭he key thing is reach,鈥� he says. 鈥淥nly a site with the size of user base that the BBC has will have enough 鈥榣ocalness鈥� to sustain itself.鈥� The corporation says the bbc.co.uk site is now visited by over 40 per cent of people with internet access in the UK.
But there are some potential pitfalls, of which iCan鈥檚 developers are well aware. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got to be confident we can do this in the long term without the BBC鈥檚 impartiality being compromised,鈥� Vogel says. The BBC must somehow maintain its distance from the political material posted by users. It has developed house rules intended to stop users posting racist, libellous or otherwise undesirable content, and a design that distinguishes BBC material from users鈥� postings.
This throws up another difficulty. Finding the right balance between quality control and freedom of use may not be easy. 鈥淚f the centre tries to exercise too much control, it kills participation,鈥� says Lawrence Lessig, founder of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University in California. The scheme already has its detractors: a spoof site called 鈥渋Can鈥檛鈥� satirises the official site鈥檚 homepage.
Projects like iCan are just a part of the picture. Vogel believes we are about to see long-term changes to the political landscape as the internet becomes a more powerful force for change: 鈥淭here is little doubt that people organising themselves on the internet is going to become part of the mix of civic life.鈥� Lessig agrees: 鈥淚 think it has a very significant potential.鈥�
Resistance is not futile
If there was one moment when grass-roots internet campaigning hit the mainstream, it came in January 2003 during the Super Bowl. This annual American football game is the largest yearly sporting event in the US, and advertising slots during the TV coverage are expensive. Which was why fans were surprised to find themselves watching an advertisement opposing the war in Iraq, paid for by MoveOn.org, a grass-roots, liberal campaign organisation.
The non-profit MoveOn.org was founded in 1998 as a website by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to campaign against the impeachment of President Clinton. The site coordinated a petition of more than 250,000 phone calls and a million emails to Congress.
Since then the site has grown into a multi-purpose lobbying force that campaigns on such issues as environmental and energy policy, gun safety, campaign financing and nuclear disarmament. MoveOn.org allows its supporters to nominate and vote on policies and strategies via online forums and polls. That鈥檚 how it turned its attention quickly to the war in Iraq this year. 鈥淓ven we were shocked by the power of this,鈥� says co-founder Wes Boyd. He claims MoveOn.org has the support of more than 2 million activists worldwide, from whom it has raised $6.5 million.
