The power of social media to organise protest rapidly and informally is very powerful. As well as obvious examples close to home, we only have to look at what is happening across North Africa and the Middle East.
But it can also spread disinformation and untruths very quickly. Many no doubt start and are passed on innocently and in good faith, but perhaps not with all of them.
So here are some of the urban myths about the March for the Alternative:
We are working hard to make the March for the Alternative as accessible as is practical. The sheer size of the event does present real challenges, not least that large areas of central London are likely to be closed to vehicles or completely congested for most of the day, but we are doing what we can to meet these.
Social media is already playing a big role in mobilising for the March for the Alternative on 26 March. As unions reach out to their members through newsletters, emails and local meetings, supporters are also sharing news of the march with their own friends, families and colleagues online.
Many recent protests have been built using social media contacts, with a new wave of invitations going out every time someone signs up to come and tells their own friends.People might be cautious about coming along to an unfamilar event (and we’re hoping the march will attract many first time demonstrators) but if they see someone they know is going, it’ll give them much more confidence to come along themselves.
If everyone coming on the march were to tell their own social network contacts, we could make this huge. So please take a moment today to invite your own contacts, and help this thing to snowball.
Here’s a new video from PCS, the trade union that represents workers in HM Revenue and Customs. Despite each HMRC Tax Compliance Officer recovering £658,000 of taxes every year, they’re not being spared the deep cuts advocated by the coalition government, with another 13,000 HMRC job losses expected by 2015.
Join PCS and many other tax justice protestors marching with us on 26 March to demand that fairer taxes play a more important part in reducing the deficit.
Since we’ve been running our “Pledge to March for the Alernative” action on the site, we’ve had many hundreds of great message sent in, telling us why you’re coming on the march.
You can see them in dozens of places around the web, thanks to the sites that have taken copies of our pledge widget (get yours here), but we thought we’d share just a few of our recent favourites with you here too:
Follow Us!