The Committed Activist

The fortunes of big pressure groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International have been transformed by the internet and by social media, enabling them to recruit supporters and mobilize opinion on a scale and with a precision never previously possible. Once largely restricted to physical protests and email campaigns, they can now make life extremely awkward for organizations in their sights by drawing on an infinitely expanded toolbox of online hoaxes, spoofs, petitions, video, and hijacks. With companies under increasing pressure to associate themselves with public issues and most using digital channels to market their wares, the weak spots in the corporate armory have expanded enormously.