Internet activism uses communication technologies like websites and email to organize people around issues like human rights and the environment in order to create social change. Hacktivism combines hacking and activism by using techniques like website defacements and denial of service attacks to disrupt services and draw attention to political or social causes in a nonviolent way. While activism and hacktivism can be effective in achieving goals, they also face criticisms like furthering divisions in society and potentially disrupting free speech.

1. Political Communication In CMC (Internet Activism & Hacktivism) Alexander Katzmaier

2. Internet activism Internet activism is the use of communication technologies such as e-mail, web sites, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster communications by citizen movements and deliver a message to a large audience

3. Cyberactivists Internet activists are also called Cyberactivists They use CMC to promote human rights, animal rights, environmental issues and the rights of marginalized communities Goals: organize people around these issues try to create social change

4. Key resource The Internet is a key resource for independent activists or e-activists Especially when a serious violation of human rights occurs, the Internet is essential in reporting this to the outside world Listservs like BurmaNet and China News Digest help distribute news that would otherwise be inaccessible in these countries

5. Usage of Internet Activism 1/3 Fundraising Groups like MoveOn and Care2 have successfully used the Internet to raise funds and push their causes E-petitions Internet activists also pass on e-petitions to be emailed to the government and organizations to protest against many issues from the arms trade to animal testing

6. Usage of Internet Activism 2/3 Lobbying Lobbying is also made easier via the internet, thanks to mass e-mail and the ability to broadcast a message widely at little cost Volunteering Activists themselves may not realize that they are “volunteering,” even though they are contacting voters for a candidate, or acting with encouragement from a campaign

7. Usage of Internet Activism 3/3 Community building Community building is the creation of a group of individuals within a regional area (such as a neighbourhood) or with a common interest Organizing To organize activities which take place solely online, solely offline but organized online or a combination of online and offline

8. Example of early activism Lotus MarketPlace: Households (April 10, 1990) Software which contains name, address, and spending habit information on 120 million individual US citizens Mass e-mail compaign was started Over 30 thousand people contacted Lotus Lotus issued a press release stating that it had cancelled MarketPlace

9. Hacktivism Hacktivism is the combination of the words hack and activism Definition: Hacktivism is "the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends.”

10. Techniques 1/2 Defacements An attack on a website that changes the visual appearance of the site Redirects To send in a new direction or course Denial-of-service attacks An attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Information theft

11. Techniques 2/2 Web site parodies A work created to mock, comment on or poke fun at an original work Virtual sit-ins Consists of continuous access to one specific website by many different users at the same time Virtual sabotage Software development

12. Hacker vs. Hacktivist Similarities A hacktivist uses the same tools and techniques as a hacker Differences A hacktivist disrupts services and bring attention to a political or social cause but he or she doesn’t want to destroy something

13. Examples of Hacktivism General One might leave a highly visible message on the home page of a Web site that gets a lot of traffic or which contains a point-of-view that is being opposed 2008 A computer hacker leaks the personal data of 6 million Chileans (including ID card numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and academic records) from government and military servers to the internet, to protest Chile's poor data protection

14. Criticism Internet activism Activism faces the same challenges as other aspects of the digital divide Especially relevant in developing countries, where many people still lack even the basic literacy needed to access written materials on the Internet „ Cyberbalkanization“: The same medium that lets people access a large number of news sources also lets them pinpoint the ones they agree with and ignore the rest

15. Criticism Hacktivism Hacktivists are defacing government websites as well as web sites of groups who oppose their ideology DoS: attack on free speech Depending on who is using the term, hacktivism can be a politically constructive form of anarchist civil disobedience or an undefined anti-systemical gesture

16. Bibliography Emerson, J. (2005). An Introduction to Activism on the Internet. http://www.backspace.com/action/ (accessed 09/02/2009) Arquilla, J. (2002). Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy. RAND Corporation. Chapter Eight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_activism (accessed 11/03/2009) Jordan, T. (2002). Activism!: direct action, hacktivism and the future of society. Reaktion Books

17. Bibliography McCaughey, M., Ayers, M. (2003). Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice. Routledge; 1 edition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism (accessed 11/03/2009) Delio, M. (2004) Hacktivism and How It Got Here. http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2004/07/64193?currentPage=1 (accessed 09/02/2009) Samuel, A. (2004). Hacktivism and the Future of Political Participation. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts