As organizers, we have seen technology evolve over the course of our work. Some of these changes have been groundbreaking, making activism more accessible and creating opportunities for collaboration and public exposure of the work, which had been extremely difficult or impossible under previous constraints. These innovations have also brought about less welcome developments for organizers, such as enhanced surveillance. We have also noticed that the popularization of digital methods of mobilization has led to a reliance on social media event pages and online announcements to spark mobilization. Activists who experience success using online tools sometimes undervalue or neglect the kind of on-the-ground work organizers practiced before social media, and which many still practice today. But online mobilization born out of interest in event pages or the hot political topic of the moment can be fleeting, and organizers who rely on their ability to summon large numbers of people for protests and actions via social media, without developing any fabric of community between participants, often find themselves adrift as high-intensity political moments ebb. The bonded energy of protesters in the streets can help sustain the momentum of a protest, but it does not, in and of itself, create a sustained capacity for organized political action.
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