What the viral Facebook check-in at Standing Rock says about activist surveillance

On Facebook, more than a million people checked in to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota on Oct 31, but that didn’t mean that many people were actually at the site. The action was an act of solidarity with indigenous water protectors and activists fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline, inspired by a viral Facebook post that began circulating from an unidentified source.

Social media has become a double-edged sword for activism. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook have become crucial ways for people to participate in and organize contemporary social justice movements. Even though “hashtag activism” has been used to demoralize a new generation of activists, social media tools like hashtags have allowed people to organize and amplify their messages beyond their local physical community and network faster than ever. Social media has also democratized who bears witness to these events and how. Yet while law enforcement have used social media to target criminals, activists have also been monitored on these platforms for their organizing efforts.