Posting to Instagram is not “mobilizing” or “organizing,” no.

Protests have an important place in global history, from Gandhi’s Salt March to The March on Washington and MLK’s famed speech. Selma — “The Bridge” — is essentially a protest, and that drove American history forward too (and provided a connection point between Obama and those who came before him). The broader point? Protests are important. They are influential and valuable, and as Aziz Ansari noted in his Saturday Night Live monologue this weekend, most change doesn’t come from one man (i.e. a President or leader). Change comes from groups of people getting aggravated or annoyed about things, which often happens in the form of protests.

We’ve now ideally established that protests are meaningful and relevant. But the contextual nature of them is changing with technology and human nature, and I think that needs to be considered a little bit. Let’s do that now.

Protests and algorithms

We live in an age of algorithms right now. That’s hard to deny. Much of what you get shown about people you know is the result of algorithms. I don’t know if I can make this any clearer, but let’s try a story.

I personally don’t like Facebook that much and often find it depressing, but I realize a lot of people are on there — and very often. Recently, I use it more as a…