Slactivism

All I had to do was add my name to the petition at the bottom of the email and forward it to 10 friends. When the list got long enough, it could be emailed DIRECTLY to the police. The email then implored: "Please don't be complacent, do something for the kids of South Africa. You can make a difference!"

As someone who is sick of chain emails/ spam, but who nevertheless agreed that it would be wonderful to be able to stop the abuses that our country's children face every day, I decided to look into this further before adding my name.

The good news is that the SAPS has no plans to shut down the child proteaction unit. This email is in fact a hoax, and details of the real story can be found on the SAPS website: Click here.

So while many people may have grudges against the SAPS, this is one that we can't hold against them.

But the email and my investigations into it highlighted another problem to me: slacktivism!(= activism's "slack" reltive)

Slacktivism concerns all these "add your name to this petition" emails in general. Often they ARE highlighting real causes (eg. I have seen email petitions addressed to our President asking him to take a tougher stance on crime in SA; I've seen others asking multinational companies to stop testing products on animals). How many of us happily sign these and forward them to 10 friends, and then sit back feeling happy that we have contributed to making this world a better place?

In truth we have achieved very little if anything. These emails are more often than not ineffective, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, petitions in general, whether pen-and-paper or email, are not often taken very seriously by those whom they are trying to influence. They don't count as official votes on an issue, and are at most regarded as a vague indicator of public opinion. So if you're trying to get a memorial to the mayor set up in your small town, you might just stand a chance. But if you're trying to stop crime, chances are that the recipient already knows that people feel strongly about this, and your one line contribution isn't going to make much difference.

But even apart from all that, a big problem with email petitions is that they are very easy to forge. I can spend a little bit of time writing 200 names one below each other (either making them up or spending a few minutes copying-and-pasting them from some other online directory of names) and then send it off. As it would takes hours for the necessary official to verify every name, they are far more likely to just hit the delete button.

So what can you do about this? Firstly, stop forwarding these e-petition emails. Secondly, if you do feel strongly about an issue, take a bit of effort and write a real hand-written letter to the individual or group involved. If they can see that you have put some effort in, they are far more likely to act on it, or at least read it!

For more details on this, visit the Snopes website: Click here. (Snopes is a great website for checking if any of those forwarded mass emails are hoaxes or truth)

-NH