Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to influence public policy, laws and budgets by using facts, their relationships, the media, and messaging to educate government officials and the public. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes, including media campaigns, public speaking, commissioning and publishing research. Lobbying is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on a specific issue or specific piece of legislation. Research has started to address how advocacy groups in the United States and Canada are using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action.
Internet activism involves the use of electronic-communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular information to large and specific audiences, as well as coordination. Internet technologies are used by activists for cause-related fundraising, community building, lobbying, and organizing. A digital-activism campaign is "an organized public effort, making collective claims on a target authority, in which civic initiators or supporters use digital media." Research has started to address specifically how activist/advocacy groups in the U.S. and in Canada use social media to achieve digital-activism objectives.
LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform that works through websites and mobile apps. It was launched on May 5, 2003. Since December 2016, it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows jobseekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. From 2015 most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals. LinkedIn has more than 1 billion registered members from over 200 countries and territories.
The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social interactions form the basis of much online activity including online shopping, education, gaming and social networking services. The social aspect of Web 2.0 communication has been to facilitate interaction between people with similar tastes. These tastes vary depending on who the target audience is, and what they are looking for. For individuals working in the public relation department, the job is consistently changing and the impact is coming from the social web. The influence held by the social network is large and ever changing.
A social networking service or SNS is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
An online petition is a form of petition which is signed online, usually through a form on a website. Visitors to the online petition sign the petition by adding their details such as name and email address. Typically, after there are enough signatories, the resulting letter may be delivered to the subject of the petition, usually via e-mail. The online petition may also deliver an email to the target of the petition each time the petition is signed.
BlackPlanet is an African-American social networking service for matchmaking and job postings; it also has forums for discussion on political and social issues.
Romeo is a social network for gay, bisexual, queer and transgender people. The site was started as a hobby and was called GayRomeo in October 2002 by Planetromeo GmbH in Berlin, Germany. Initially only available in German the site and later its mobile app have evolved into an international platform.
Essembly was a non-partisan political social networking website that allowed its users to connect with one another based on political opinions, participate in unmoderated discussion, and organize for political action. It was founded in 2005 by Joe Green, a Harvard graduate and college roommate of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of the collegiate social-networking site Facebook. Essembly differentiates itself from other social-networking sites by actively promoting intelligent discussion and debate while remaining "fiercely non-partisan." A July 2006 Newsweek article put the number of registered users at over 17,000
The Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) is the state bar association of the U.S. state of Washington. It operates under the delegated authority of the Washington Supreme Court to license the state's nearly 41,000 active and inactive lawyers and other legal professionals. In furtherance of its obligation to protect and serve the public, the WSBA regulates lawyers and other legal professionals and serves its members as a professional association. The WSBA's mission is to serve the public and the members of the Bar, to ensure the integrity of the legal profession, and to champion justice.
Beacon formed part of Facebook's advertisement system that sent data from external websites to Facebook, for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends. Beacon reported to Facebook on Facebook's members' activities on third-party sites that also participated with Beacon. These activities were published in users' News Feed. This occurred even when users were not connected to Facebook, and happened without the knowledge of the Facebook user. The service was controversial and became the target of a class-action lawsuit, resulting in it shutting down in September 2009. One of the main concerns was that Beacon did not give the user the option to block the information from being sent to Facebook. Beacon was launched on November 6, 2007, with 44 partner websites. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, characterized Beacon on the Facebook Blog in November 2011 as a "mistake." Although Beacon was unsuccessful, it did pave the way for Facebook Connect, which has become widely popular.
On the Issues or OnTheIssues is an American non-partisan, non-profit organization providing information to American voters on American candidates, primarily via their website. The organization was started in 1996, went non-profit in 2000, and is currently run primarily by volunteers.
Wiser.org, formerly WiserEarth.org, was a user-generated online community space for the social and environmental movement. As one of the social networks for environmental sustainability and social change, Wiser.org was the primary initiative of the non-profit organization WiserEarth, which tracks the work of non-profits around the world. The site mapped and connected non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses, governments, groups, and individuals addressing global issues such as climate change, poverty, the environment, peace, water, hunger, social justice, conservation, human rights, and more.
The Assyrian Medical Society is an organization that offers medical care to Assyrians around the world. Its mission is "Serving our Assyrian Brothers and Sisters"; particularly those stricken by the war and famine in Iraq since 2003. The Assyrian Medical Society was founded by Dr. Samir Johna who is the director of the organization. The Assyrian Medical Society works with local and international organizations to develop the most cost effective solutions to help Assyrian patients in the Assyrian diaspora and specifically those suffering from the war in Iraq. The vast majority of the members are volunteers. This medical society fosters health education among Assyrians and promotes the use of the Assyrian language in education.
A sustainability organization is (1) an organized group of people that aims to advance sustainability and/or (2) those actions of organizing something sustainably. Unlike many business organizations, sustainability organizations are not limited to implementing sustainability strategies which provide them with economic and cultural benefits attained through environmental responsibility. For sustainability organizations, sustainability can also be an end in itself without further justifications.
Change.org is a website which allows users to create and sign petitions to advance various social causes by raising awareness and influencing decision-makers. The site is a US-based for-profit company and claims to have nearly 500 million users as of December 2022. Petitions often focus on causes such general justice, economic justice, criminal justice, human rights, education, environmental protection, animal rights, health, and sustainable food.
Since the proliferation of the internet, social media has increasingly played a direct role in modern political issues like civil rights. An example of this is the use of social media during the 2011 Wisconsin protests over public unions that occurred between February and March 2011. Both sides of Wisconsin labor debate used social media networks to galvanize support, though social media use was particularly prevalent amongst the pro-labor side. Many organizations around the country also joined this debate by using social media to voice their own opinions about labor issues in Wisconsin. Through the use of social media, Wisconsin's labor protests escalated from a local state issue into one of national and even international significance.
Since the arrival of early social networking sites in the early 2000s, online social networking platforms have expanded exponentially, with the biggest names in social media in the mid-2010s being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. The massive influx of personal information that has become available online and stored in the cloud has put user privacy at the forefront of discussion regarding the database's ability to safely store such personal information. The extent to which users and social media platform administrators can access user profiles has become a new topic of ethical consideration, and the legality, awareness, and boundaries of subsequent privacy violations are critical concerns in advance of the technological age.
Barack Obama won the 2008 United States presidential election on November 4, 2008. During his campaign, he became the first presidential candidate of a major party to utilize social networking sites, as podcasting, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, and YouTube, to expand and engage his audience of supporters and donors.
