Where do we go after the hashtag mentions fade out?

More than a fortnight since it first broke, the #MeToo wave, spurred by a news report about sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, continues to roll. More and more women have come out on social media with stories of sexual abuse and harassment, exposing more and more men in positions of power as long-standing offenders – the latest being actors Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey. At home, the uproar over the name-and-shame campaign sparked by a crowd-sourced list of professors, in several A-list Indian colleges and universities, who've allegedly sexually harassed or abused students or colleagues continues to generate an angry debate.

It's, of course, the nature of such viral campaigns on social media — coming, as if, from nowhere to suddenly grab everyone's attention, even that of mainstream media — newspapers and television channels. Consider that it took just 24 hours for Alyssa Milano's October 15 tweet — "If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet" — to be shared a million times. According to Twitter statistics, #MeToo generated over 2.3 million tweets between October 15 and 31. In India, alone, it remained a top trend for several days, and got 73,000 mentions on Twitter.

'#MeToo' is not the only one in this regard. Think of #tripletalaq a few months ago, which got 3,90,000 tweets in just two weeks from August 19 to September 2, 2017; and #NotInMyName, following the beef lynchings, that got 3,60,000 tweets from June 26 to July 15, 2017. And these are just statistics from Twitter. Facebook, the other popular social media platform, too saw mentions on these hashtags snowball. Clearly, such digital campaigns are getting a lot of traction and there's an ever growing set of Indians who are taking to social media to express their anger over issues — but is this getting us results?

Sometimes, yes. Priyanka Gupta, a Delhi-based single mother launched, and won, an important public campaign. She got the government to agree to change the rules so that passports can now carry the name of just the mother. It was earlier mandatory for the father's name to be mentioned. She did this by starting a campaign on the online petitions platform Change.org, which in three short months, managed to get her petition more than 100,000 signatures. They managed to catch the attention of Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, who took it upon herself to liaise with the Ministry of External Affairs to bring about the change in rules. "I am an introvert; simply not the kind to hit the streets and shout slogans. For me it was easy to put up a petition online," says the soft-spoken 46-year-old. What really touched her, she adds, "was how many single mothers like me came forward to support me."

Similarly, in the #MeToo campaign, emotional empathy seems to have caused the outpouring of support. "For me, it was about standing up for another woman. I may not be a victim, but I have worked long enough, seen enough cases to know how these situations work out against the woman," says Sudipta Dasgupta on Facebook. "It's very difficult to prove sexual harassment. I know — I faced an ugly situation in my earlier job, with my boss. I then did not have the stomach for a fight and decided not to go to the sexual harassment committee," says T Shanthi, who works in an IT firm in Bengaluru.

"Social media helps civil society to connect over a cause. It works as an amplifier, helping reach a much larger audience than would have been possible through just word of mouth. It is an important tool in that regard," says Shalini Narayanan, a former professor at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication who has written on new media and socio-political movements. "But there has to be something on-ground for a campaign to succeed," she adds, citing the example of Anna Hazare's India Against Corruption movement and the anti-rape protests following the December 2012 gangrape in Delhi, both of which used social media — both Facebook and Twitter — extensively.

Saba Dewan, the Delhi-based filmmaker whose Facebook post set off the "Not In My Name" campaign, agrees. "The digital medium helps you to get across to the largest number of people in the shortest period of time. But for something more sustained, more concrete there is no substitute for ground work. Social media helped spread the word with the first lot of 'Not In My Name' protests in June-July; but to make a real difference, to counter the politics of hatred, we had to reach out to local communities. With this in mind, we had a series of 100 low-key events all across Delhi on September 10, in markets, outside metro stations, etc. Hastags can only go so far."

At a glance

'Hashtag activism' — wherein everyone relates to the 'victim' and adds to his/her testimony on an online platform as a way to show solidarity with the protest — is gradually becoming a routine, daily affair on social media. The convenience with which one can add to the protest is what makes this sort of activism spread quickly, far and wide. The reach can be gauged from the trending hashtags on Twitter alone — but this is by no means a complete or exhaustive list:

73,000 Twitter mentions is India's contribution to global #MeToo number of over 2.3 million from October 15 - 31, 2017

6,20,000 tweets mentioned #MumbaiRains in the period from August 26 - September 26, 2017. Many including @MumbaiPolice tweeted to alert citizens this monsoon

1,10,000 tweets flooded social media with #MyPrivacyMyRight / #RightToPrivacy in 10 days from August 21 - 31, 2017
3,60,000 is the number #NotInMyName garnered within a month from June 26 - July 15, 2017

3,90,000 tweets supported the ban of #TripleTalaq in two weeks from August 19 - September 2, 2017