How Slacktivism Will Change the World

Slacktivism is the pithy combination of the words slacker and activism. It's generally used to belittle the actions people take online to support a cause – things like signing petitions or raising awareness via Twitter and Facebook.

At the core of this dismissiveness is the belief that real social change requires time-intensive tactics like sit-ins or marches on Washington.

But the goal of public mobilization isn’t for it to be difficult – it’s for it to be effective in achieving social change. And by this measure, slacktivism has had some remarkable recent success.

In this solo presentation, I’ll give a few examples of slackivism in action and explain how traditionally "slacktivist" actions – including signing petitions on Change.org, the social action platform I founded in 2007 – can build large-scale, long-term movements that will change the world.