Web Protests - No Nukes! No War! No Spam!
Fri February 7, 2003 10:14 AM ET
By Bernhard Warner
LONDON (Reuters) - For the past month, an e-mail has circled the globe urging those who oppose military action in Iraq to type in their names and hometowns before forwarding the petition to like-minded friends and associates.
Each time 600 "signatures" are collected, organizers of the petition, titled "International Petition for Peace," say they will forward the antiwar message to the United Nations Information Center (UNIC) in Washington.
With the threat of war now looming large, such e-mail petitions are prime examples of how the Web has emerged as a tool for peace advocates aiming to marshal the voices and opinions of sympathetic souls.
But using the Web to get the word out has its drawbacks. Electronic messages are often ignored by their intended recipients. They can expose participants to computer viruses and a deluge of unwanted advertisements and solicitations.
The petition addressed to the United Nations is not likely to have much of an impact because the UNIC, in this case, routinely deletes the incoming messages without a moment's thought, a spokesman said.
FALLING ON DEAF EARS
Nonetheless, the ease of collecting tens of thousands of e-mails at the click of a button is an advocate's dream.
Cyber advocates say they've had tremendous success using an arsenal of Web sites, e-mail and Web-based discussion group lists to quickly mobilize people for rallies.
International Answer, a coalition of anti-war groups (http://www.internationalanswer.org/), credits Internet communications for the big turnout on Jan. 18, when demonstrations were held in 30 countries, including Egypt, Russia, Germany and the United States.
Answer (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) is gearing up for a week of demonstrations beginning Feb. 13 and collecting e-mails to keep supporters informed of upcoming events.
Yet politicians pay less heed to e-mail than to letters and phone calls, studies show. And, if the campaign is a global one, as they so often are online, there's the added challenge of finding sympathetic elected officials who will respond.
"I think the main problem with our petition is that, international in its address and signatories, it has not been focused at particular representatives of any one country," Sarah Nicholson, an Australian member of the U.S.-based Mothers for Peace, told Reuters via e-mail. Her group calls on "international heads of government" to stop Britain and the United States from waging war in Afghanistan because "no military action has ever ended terrorism."
The United Nations Information Center suggests antiwar critics target their protests to appropriate representatives.
"The U.N. is NOT involved in soliciting or collecting petitions. We would suggest that since it is member governments of the UN who will decide on whatever action occurs in various situations, citizens should contact their own government," according to a statement on the organization's Web site (http://www.unicwash.org).
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
If executed poorly, e-mail petitions also can knock out the computers on which a Web site runs, and through which e-mail flows, all but ensuring that the intended recipient never gets the message.
"It's a new way of communicating. The etiquette still needs working on," said Richard Sanders, coordinator of Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT), an Ottawa-based nonprofit organization begun in 1988 to protest Canada's arms business.
Sanders, who runs the protest site at ncf.carleton.ca, advises: "Don't do the mass-mail petition. They're no good. They're like a virus. It's well-meaning, but it's problematic."
One of the most ineffectual e-mail petitions dates back to 1995, a period when the Internet universe comprised primarily of academics, computer engineers and ardent tech buffs.
Stirred by a congressional threat to cut funding for the public-supported radio and television network, two University of Northern Colorado students devised an e-mail petition hoping to garner support to stop the plan in its tracks.
They asked that after every 50th recorded respondent added their name, the petition be sent back to their school e-mail address, a decision that clogged university computer e-mail servers intermittently. The funding threat dissipated but the notorious National Public Radio petition circulated for years.
PEACE SPAMMERS NO MORE
Petitions or lists that collect names and e-mail addresses can leave the well-meaning activist vulnerable to viruses or "spam," a flood of unwanted e-mail, some of which could be harmful to the computer.
The "Mothers for Peace" petition hosted on public advocacy site PetitionOnline (http://www.petitiononline.com/peacema/petition.html), carries an ominous warning about Sircam, a tenacious computer worm that deletes victims' computer files.
"I get a lot of viruses sent to me. Whenever people in my e-mail list get a virus, they get me," Sanders said, adding spammers also patrol petitions and protest sites looking for e-mails to collect.
Perhaps most frustrating to the wired peace advocate is the Web protest that falls flat, unable to rise above the cacophony.
Peace.protest.net (http://pax.protest.net) is one of many sites that illustrate the popularity of using the Web to publicize meetings. The site lists scores of events from a peace walk in Berkeley, California, to a concert in Belfast with a few locally known bands.
With so many rallies, walks and protests from which to choose on the Internet, peace proponents are advised to keep the invitations straightforward.
As Sanders said, the best method is a direct e-mail invitation to individuals that have expressed interest beforehand. But never resort to mass mailing, he warned.
"You don't want to bother people with e-mails all the time. I'm not a peace spammer. At least I try not to be," Sanders said. |
