The cute cat theory of digital activism is a

theory A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...

concerning

Internet activism Internet activism is the use of electronic communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular inf ...

, Web censorship, and "cute cats" (a term used for any low-value, but popular online activity) developed by

Ethan Zuckerman Ethan Zuckerman (born 1973) is an American media scholar, blogger, and Internet activist. He was the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, and Associate Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT until May 2020, and the a ...

in 2008. It posits that most people are not interested in activism; instead, they want to use the web for mundane activities, including surfing for pornography and lolcats ("cute cats"). The tools that they develop for that (such as

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and profession ...

Blogger A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, and similar platforms) are very useful to social movement activists because they may lack resources to develop dedicated tools themselves. This, in turn, makes the

activists Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

more immune to reprisals by governments than if they were using a dedicated activism platform, because shutting down a popular public platform provokes a larger public outcry than shutting down an obscure one.

The Internet and censorship

Zuckerman states that " Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...

was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats." Zuckerman says that if a tool passes "cute cat" purposes, and is widely used for low-value purposes, it can be and likely is used for online activism, too. If the government chooses to shut down such generic tools, it will hurt people's ability to "look at cute cats online", spreading dissent and encouraging the activists' cause.

Chinese model

According to Zuckerman,

internet censorship in the People's Republic of China Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China (PRC) affects both publishing and viewing online material. Many controversial events are censored from news coverage, preventing many Chinese citizens from knowing about the actions of th ...

, which relies on its own, self-censored, Web 2.0 sites, is able to circumvent the cute-cat problem because

the government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

is able to provide people with access to cute-cat content on domestic, self-censored sites while blocking access to Western sites, which are less popular in China than in many other places worldwide. "Sufficiently usable read/write platforms will attract porn and activists. If there's no porn, the tool doesn't work. If there are no activists, it doesn't work well," Zuckerman has stated.

References

External links

*, *{{cite news , last=Cohen, first=Noam , newspaper=

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

, url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22link.html , title=As Blogs Are Censored, It's Kittens to the Rescue , date=2009-06-21 , accessdate=2012-04-12 Internet-based activism Technology in society Internet humor Cats in popular culture

The Internet and censorship

Chinese model

See also

References

External links