Political activism is not failing because people are too busy watching cat videos online, but because of a fundamental collapse of citizen leverage on institutions of power like governments and corporations.
Zeynep TufekciRead
Attention, to a terrorist group, is often what the well-meaning, outraged response is to your two-bit Internet troll: it is the food that feeds them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Terrorists thrive on attention, similar to how trolls feed off outrage; ignoring them may diminish their influence.
In this quote, Zeynep Tufekci highlights the destructive symbiosis between attention and extremist behavior. She asserts that just as Internet trolls are magnified by outrage and responses from well-meaning individuals, terrorist groups similarly gain power and visibility through the attention they receive. This suggests that sometimes, withholding attention can be a more effective response than engaging with or condemning harmful actions or ideologies.
Themes
AttentionTerrorismTrollOutrageResponse
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on media influence, one could use this quote to illustrate the dangers of giving notoriety to extremist groups.
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Remember, the Internet did not create freedom of speech; in theory, we always had freedom of speech - it's just that it often went along with the freedom to be ignored. People had no access to the infrastructure to be heard.
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Much of what ails our modern life is exactly because we reduce the value of a human being to a number, say salary or consumer power.
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You might be tempted to think that China has a Streisand-effect problem, in which trying to censor an event creates even more publicity. But that assumes the Chinese government doesn't understand the Streisand effect, and that can't be right, because if one government understands attention dynamics online, it's China's.
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A 'fair' fight between non-equals is not fair, and being blind to power is an implicit endorsement of the powerful.
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