Hashtag Activism

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Hashtag Activism Mean?

Hashtag activism is the act of fighting for or supporting a cause that people are advocating through social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other networking websites. This is the kind of activism that does not require any action from the person other than sharing or "liking" a post or "retweeting" tweets on Twitter. The term gets its name from the liberal use of hashtags (#) that are often used to spread the word about a cause over Twitter.

Advertisements

Hashtag activism is also known as social activism.

Techopedia Explains Hashtag Activism

Although hasthag activism often comes from a real desire to contribute to a good cause, the practice has its critics. Those who decry hashtag activism believe that this movement is a way of allowing people who participate to feel good about themselves even if they haven’t put in any real effort. However, activist campaigns started over social media have been known to spread into real movements that created real change. So, while hashtag activism might come and go, the awareness that it creates around an issue in the real world is better than nothing and may even help in the long run.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.