Friends, it is once again time to use social media to get a message across to the world. A flotilla of boats carrying human rights activists is right now on its way to Gaza via international waters in order to break the Israeli siege and deliver aid to the people. Will they succeed in their mission? Will they make history? What can we do to support them?

Let’s trend #flotilla on twitter all day tomorrow, Sunday, May 30, by tweeting news, thoughts, and links about the Freedom Flotilla’s trajectory to Gaza. Once we trend it, millions of people will see the term and click on it to find out what it means and why it’s trending. We will also be providing moral support and sailing (twailing?) in solidarity with the brave activists risking their lives on board the flotilla. Here’s what you can do:

1. Be online on Sunday, May 30 starting 12pm Cairo time (5am New York time) and throughout the day. We want to get #flotilla trending by the early afternoon and keep it trending through the night.
2. Let us know you have joined us. Sign up here or tweet to @nmoawad or @justicentric.
3. Recruit fellow tweeps to join us.
4. Use Facebook to get the message across.
5. Get more information here: http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/cms/en/flotilla.aspx and here.
6. Follow all the tweets on the #flotilla here.

Group trending is a lot of fun & will connect you to so many wonderful new tweeps. So get on board; we need every tweet. When tweeting, take note to:

1. Hash #Flotilla only once (or else it doesn’t count).
2. Don’t use the automatic retweet button (or else your tweet doesn’t count).
3. Tweet often but not more than once or twice a minute (or else your account will get blocked).
4. Tweet useful information about the #flotilla and #Gaza. Our mission is to raise awareness, not simple to trend.

It’s very short notice but we can do it!

Labor Day is coming up, 3eed Al 3ommal, on May 1st, and we are recognizing on this day the illegal, outrageous, and unethical working conditions of migrant work in Lebanon – and across the Arab world. The campaign initiated by @simby is called Twenty-Four-Seven and it highlights the fact that domestic migrant workers in Lebanon work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Yes, they do. Can you imagine working with your boss 24/7? It is called slavery.

So this week, I, along with many friends, will be blogging and tweeting to raise awareness about migrant work. I thought I would start with an honest attempt to deconstruct my own racism and think about how I, Nadine, really view race. Often, activists are quick to adopt causes just because someone they admire said so, or because the theory of it sounds logical and in line with their politics. But we cannot deal with issues in others, my friends, until we have deconstructed them in ourselves. And so, I, while claiming to be active on the rights of domestic workers in Lebanon, still have a long way to go to undo all the racism (blatant and invisible) embedded in my head. I will start this process of deconstruction by writing out things I have done that I consider racist. Here is the first story:

The nawateer (concierges) of the building where my parents live are a couple from Sri Lanka. I have bumped into the woman hundreds of times over the past few years, and when I do, I smile and say hello and she does the same. Earlier this month, I was passing through the building and saw her a little far away and wanted to call her to ask her something about the electricity. That’s when it occurred to me that I don’t know what her name is. I tired to search my memory as I was sure I must know her name, having known her for many years, but there it was: no name. I didn’t bother, all these years, to even ask or learn what her name was. I felt so ashamed of myself. Is it even possible to look at or treat someone as an equal human being if you never learn their name? If they have no name to you? No. Think of how offended people get when you can’t remember their name. It is insulting.

But it is a widespread practice in Lebanon. We call migrant women by their nationality “Sri Lankiyyi!” or by their country “Sri Lanka!” or by a nickname “Saki” instead of “Sakthipriyah,” for example. One common practice is to call migrant women by a different name all together, such as “Mary,” because their real names are difficult to pronounce for Arabs. Well, we can exert just a tiny bit of effort to learn to pronounce Sinhala or Tagalog or Nepalese names instead of ripping people of their individual identities and lumping them all into the same person: the migrant woman. Otherwise, we are perpetuating racism.

But I am not one to talk before I go to my parents’ house and find the woman who takes care of the building and apologize to her for not knowing her name and ask her what it is and tell her it is a beautiful name and write in on my hand until I learn to pronounce it properly and then use it when I say hello to her.

Maybe that is a first step in deconstructing my own racism towards migrants. I will write more about it this week as we campaign around #24seven. I urge you all to do the same. Let us talk about our own racism, even those of us who think we are progressive activists.

Some of the banners from the 2009 Women's Day Protest for Migrant Rights. The purple one reads: "My name is Lata, not 'Sri Lankan'"

I thought “Tweet and Blog” was too long, so I made it Twog Ok, so Simba Russeau and her fellow activists on migrant rights are organizing some events in Lebanon to raise awareness in the lead up to Labor Day. Migrants from South Asia, South-East Asia, and Africa come to Lebanon to work and often find themselves toiling under inhuman conditions without the possibility of an exit. It is, without a doubt, modern day slavery. And although there is more and more talk around it in the region, we have done little on the ground to fight the oppressive system.

And so, this Labor Day 2010, as we celebrate our right to a day off from being such hard workers, let us work to raise awareness about migrant rights in our Arab countries by blogging and tweeting. Here’s what you can do:

1. Tweet thoughts, ideas, links to articles, and information about migrant rights intensively the week of April 24 – May 1st. Use the #migrantrights hashtag. We are not trying to trend, but we are trying to raise lots of awareness and get conversations going.
2. Write up a blog post during the week and publicize the link on your Facebook and social networks. Send a link to simbarusseau@gmail.com who will be aggregating all blogs for the week.
3. Recruit your friends to do the same.
4. Think of more creative ideas like a Facebook action, shared profile pic, twibbon, etc.. and post them here in the comments or send to Simba directly.
5. Anyone who’d like to design a badge for this campaign is very welcome.

Also, here are some ideas I had for blog posts, so that we make sure that they are not all the same:

• Interview a migrant worker. Ask him/her about their journey here and their work here.
• Interview a migrant worker on camera. Post his/her interview on YouTube.
• Analyze the problem with migrant labor from a political or social perspective. Focus on either the gender aspect, the class struggle, or our inherent racism, to cite a few examples.
• Talk about the situation in your country in particular.. what is it like for Sudanese workers in Egypt? Egyptian workers in Lebanon? Sri Lankan women in Dubai? Nepalese women in Jordan?
• Propose solutions. Write up brainstorming posts where you think of campaigns, projects, events, programs, organizations that can work on ending the injustice.
• Elaborate on the feminist analysis of migrant worker rights: household work as unpaid work, gender dynamics in the household, violence from women against other women, domestic violence & violence against domestic workers, sexual assault on migrant women, trafficking of migrant women, violence against women within the migrant communities, and other examples.
• Celebrate the culture of a non-Arab country from which many migrate to Arab states. I can think of Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the Philippines (but that might be just from a Lebanese experience). Post a tribute  by raising your friends and followers’ awareness about the richness of these cultures, histories, languages, and music.

If you’re interested in helping to organize, get in touch and I will add you to a google ground we’ve just created for Twog organizers.

I received this letter from a friend today:

Last week the UC Berkeley Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) Student Senate voted overwhelmingly, 16-4, to pass a divestment bill that targets two US companies, General Electric and United Technologies, which supply military equipment to the Israeli army that were used in operations in the Gaza Strip that have been investigated and classified as possible war crimes by the UN Human Rights Commission Goldstone Report, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International among others.

This historic development at UCB in the international struggle for Palestinian human rights is in danger of being reversed after the ASUC student president recently received a barrage of emails urging him to veto the bill before the one week deadline, Wednesday at 7pm (Pacific time). Please take the time to write a short message of support to the ASUC president for the democratic process that the ASUC senate engaged in, and urge him NOT TO VETO THIS BILL. Including group affiliations or any other information you think would be relevant is encouraged. Below is also a template email if you would prefer to use that. It doesn’t matter if you are affiliated with UC Berkeley or not. Thank you for your support!!

Send to president@asuc.org and also cc senate@asuc.org

Subject: DO NOT veto the divestment resolution

Dear President Smelko,

I am writing to urge you to NOT VETO the divestment resolution, which calls for divestment from two companies which directly support the Israeli occupation and war crimes in Palestine. These bills call for the end of University funding to Israel’s military arsenal and the weapons that it uses in committing the war crimes recognized by international law and the United Nations. This divestment action builds on the legacy at UC Berkeley to fight systems of oppression and apartheid. In 1984, UC students held the banner of the divestment movement from South African apartheid. UC has also divested from tobacco companies, and carefully scrutinized products potentially coming from sweatshop labor.

This bill will further the efforts to keep the university accountable and responsible for the investments it makes. In a time of economic crisis, and underfunding of our education with budget cuts, it is crucial we show that we as students do not support our tuition funding military occupation. I sincerely hope that you can see the truth in this struggle and help further it.

The Shorty Awards finale is here! We’ve got until 7pm (Beirut time) on Friday, February 5 to vote for Ali Abunimah al molakkab bi @avinunu on twitter. I don’t need to go into the details of why this is important, but to recap: it raises awareness, it fights back the slander (and since last week Ali has been getting TONS of online slander by zionist propagandists), it brings activists for Palestine together, it gives us hope that small actions on our part can fight the seemingly all-powerful zionist machine. And all it takes is really a couple of minutes.

Ali is leading now by a small margin of votes but his opponent (who has 55,000 followers!) is always making comebacks. So even if we’re leading, keep on voting! Here are some of the basics:

1. To vote, tweet this: “I vote for @avinunu for a Shorty Award in #politics because…” and put a reason after “because..” or else it won’t count. Also, your reason must be unique & real. Don’t put anything hateful towards the opponent or anything silly. Lost for a reason? Google Ali. You can also do this at the voting page.
2. If you voted during the nomination phase, you don’t need to vote again – you will still only count once. You can, however, re-vote to updated your reason if you feel your reason wasn’t that good. They take the last votes.
3. Now is the time to RECRUIT actively to get others to vote too. Shorty Awards are monitored by real people, so they will check the accounts voting. If an account was just created, it is disqualified or if it never tweets, it is disqualified too. So take a few minutes please to recruit friends and supporters of Palestine to vote for Ali (and to recruit others in turn). You can do this by tweeting something like “Please encourage your friends to vote for @avinunu in Shorty Awards. We need 100s more people to win!” or DM-ing them (don’t spam). Or you can go back to traditional methods and call them, email them, or tell to vote when you bump into them in a cafe.
4. Use other channels like Facebook and blogs to tell people about this campaign.
5. Monitor the results live! It’s really exciting

This is going to be a quick post because I need to get dressed & go to work, but I wanted to give a summary of our spur-of-the-moment campaign yesterday:

I saw a tweet by @RedPlebiscite mentioning how pissed off he was that a zionist was leading the Shorty Awards list in politics. Of course I had heard of the Shorty Awards but didn’t really care much for them. But then when I saw the zionist nomination page accusing the #Gaza activists of being murderers and terrorists (again), I figured we shouldn’t shut up about anything – especially the allegations made online – not even the littlest thing! This is what we are fighting: “#justice will occur when Israel flattens #Gaza, dear” (click on image below)

And so we came together again and I suggested nominating Ali Abunimah @avinunu because he really is one of our best and most active voices on Palestine and human rights today. Google him. The decision was unanimous! It was like an awesome reunion of all the #Gaza tweeters – all of us spreading the word from 2am (Beirut time) till now – which is 8am. The trick this time, however, is that every one of our voices counts as just one. We need to recruit more people. And indeed, at the time of writing this post, we had gotten up to 179 votes for @avinunu. This is our standing now[8am GMT+2]:

@avinunu is in third place lagging less than 120 votes behind the zionist propagandist although he only has 1,500 followers whereas the other dude has 55,000! AND, we only started campaigning for Ali tonight, whereas the other dude had been campaigning for weeks now. The voting closes January 30th at 10am (Beirut/Cairo time) – so please get everyone you know to vote here: http://shortyawards.com/avinunu and bear in mind that only votes from active accounts are counted. Here are some of the tips:

1. It is preferable to vote using the box on the page: http://shortyawards.com/avinunu
2. Make sure you put a reason after “because…” or else it doesn’t count.
3. Your vote is only counted once even if you tweet a nomination a million times.
4. There is some formula for counting ranks. You can read about it on their “How It Works” page. That’s how Ali’s ahead of RayBeckerman too although the latter has more votes. But I’m not sure how it works. Anyone?
5. Follow the competition in the #Politics category here.
6. I am not sure what happens afterwards; the rules say the Top5 become finalists (?) if anyone knows more, please share the info in the comment box.
7. Vote! And when you’ve voted, recruit fellow supporters of Palestine to vote! The zionists have already smeared Ali online nominating him for antisemite and terrorist awards. Shuf! And they will continue to do so. So let’s all take a stand for the truth about Palestine

Updates as the day progresses…

It’s 3am [+2 GMT] now and Ali has been winning all day! He is now at 433 votes; almost 100 ahead of his competitor. We did it. We are the people. Let us wait and see what the committee of the Shorty Awards has to say about that.

خرجت النسويّة يوماً إلى الغابة العملاقة التي هي المجتمع العربي وإذا بها تلتقي بذئب الإعلام العربي اللئيم.

سأل الذئب بإبتسامة عريضة الأنياب: “إلى أين تذهبين يا نسويّة؟”

جاوبت النسويّة: “أذهب إلى جدتي! أحمل لها سلةً مليئةً بأفكارٍ جديدة رائعة، أفكار ثورة وعدالة ومساواة حقيقية لنساء غابتنا. زرعتها وسقيتها بقراءاتٍ و نقاشات ورأيتها تزهر فقطفتها وصنعت منها المربى والدبس والحلوى. آخذها إلى جدتي لترى ماذا صنعت بحديقتها الصغيرة التي وصّتني بها!”

قال ذئب الإعلام العربي اللئيم: “أعطني السلة، عزيزتي نسوية! آخذها وأحسّنها وأجمّلها وأوصِلها إلى الشعب العربي!”

جاوبت النسويّة: “كلا، السلة كاملةٌ مثلما هي، لا أريد بيعها لأحد. هل توصلها إلى الشعب العربي كما هي، بدون تشويه؟”

“غرررررر! كم أنت عنيدة!” صرخ الذئب وركض بسرعةٍ ليسبق النسويّة إلى بيت جدتها.

فكرت النسويّة: ما أحمق هذا الذئب! وأكملت طريقها إلى جدتها، فرحة بأفكارها وسياساتها الجديدة. سوف أغيّر العالم! سوف أذهب بمبادئي النسويّة إلى جميع نساء الغابة. سوف أنادي بالحرية والمساواة لكل النساء!

***

وصلت إلى منزل جدتها تصرخ: “جدّتي! جدّتي! لقد أتت نسويّتك الصغيرة، معها آمالاً وأحلاماً جميلة!”

لكنها عندما رأت جدتها استغربت من شكلها، فكان الذئب قد لبس ثياب الجدة التي كانت قد خرجت لصبحيّة مع جاراتها في الغابة.

“أهلاً أهلاً عزيزتي النسويّة!” قال الذئب “أخبريني عن أفكارك الجديدة! هل فيها نساء مساكين مضروبة ومورّمة تبكي وتنوح؟”

إستغربت النسويّة وقالت: “كلا، أبداً، أفكاري عن نساء قويّات تقاوم العنف والإستغلال وتساعد غيرها لترفض كل أنواع العنف الجسدي والمعنوي في عائلتها وبيتها ومجتمعها.”

فكّر الذئب: همم.. لا شيء لذيذ في هذا الموضوع.. فسأل: “ماذا عن النساء التي تتحارب مع نساء من طوائف وأحزاب وجنسيّات أخرى؟ أو مع جارتها التي أجمل منها أو التي اشترت سيارة أجدّ منها؟؟”

جاوبت النسويّة: “ما هذا السؤال يا جدتي؟ طبعاً لا. النساء في سلتي النسويّة لا تأبهن بالطوائف والأحزاب والجنسيّات.. النساء العربيّات في سلتي متّحدة مع بعضها البعض، تدعم بعضها من دون أن تكترث لإختلافات الأخرى ولا لونها ولا خلفيّتها ولا شكلها ولا مذهبها. لقد حسّنت حديقتنا، جدتي، لقد زرعتها بأفكارٍ تتحدى العنصرية والطبقية والتمييز.”

This story was posted as part of the Kolena Laila campaign

فكر الذئب: كم هذا ممل.. وسأل: “هل لديك نساء عوانس بشعةٌ جداً تكره الرجال لأنها لم تجد من يتزوّجها؟؟”

“كلا كلا يا جدتي.. ما هذا الكلام الفارغ؟ النسويّة لا تكره الرجال. ننادي بالمحبة والمساواة والسلام، فكيف نكره أحداً؟ نسويتي تقف بوجه الذكورية والتمييز بحقوق نصف المجتمع على أساس الجندر. تشجّع الإستقلال الذاتي للمرأة في مجتمعاتها. ألا تعرفين أن محاربة الذكورية تعني الحرية للمرأة والرجل معاً؟”

فكر الذئب: أفففف.. لا أفهم شيئاً، أريد مادّة لذيذة دسمة لبرامجي.. هل تستهبلني هذه النسويّة؟ لحظة! وجدتها! وسأل: “هل لديك نساء رخيصة، جاهلة تدمّر مجتمعنا بتصرفات ضد تقاليدنا وشرفنا؟”

“معقول هذا الكلام يا جدتي؟ كيف يعقل للحريّة أن تدمّر مجتمعاً؟ ألم تدمّر كل سنوات الحرب والكراهية مجتمعنا أصلاً؟ ألم تُقمع أجساد النساء عبر القرون بإسم الشرف والتقاليد؟ ألم نكتفي ذلّاً وإهانةً وسجناً؟ علينا أن نقف بوجه الهيمنة على أجسادنا وأفكارنا وأنفسنا. نقف ضد كل الأصوات التي تقول لنا:

لست جميلة، إستعملي مستحضرات التجميل.
لست نحيفة، إستعملي أدوية الحمية.
لست مُحترمة، إلزمي منزل والدك حتى يأتي العريس فيهديك إحتراماً وشرفاً وهدفاً لحياتك.

علينا أن نثور، جدّتي، علينا أن نصرخ حتى تعلو أصواتنا فوق كل صوت يقول لنا: لست جميلة كفايةً، لست ذكية كفايةً، لست جديرة كفايةً!”

غضب الذئب وصرخ: “ما هذا الهراء! تعبت من هذه التفاهات! وكشف عن وجهه المغتاظ. ظننت أن لديك أفكاراً مشوّقة صنعت منها حلوى لذيذة، لكن أفكارك فارغة، سوف تقع على آذانٍ أصمّ! من يأبه بالنسويّة؟ لا الرجال ولا النساء. ماذا ستغيّرين أيتها النسويّة البلهاء؟ ما هذه الحريّة السخيفة التي تنادين بها؟ ولّت أيام الثورة والراديكالية.. إرحلي من هذه الغابة! إرحلي بعيداً أو إخرسي واقبلي ما كُتب لكِ ولأمثالك!”

وقفت النسوية مصدومة ومذعورة من صوت الذئب الجبّار. فهجم عليها وإنتزع سلّتها ومزّق محتوياتها النسويّة وصرخ: “لا أحد يأبه بك يا نسوية! الكل في هذه الغابة يستمع لي. يأكلون ما أطعمهم. يرقصون على النغمات التي أعزفها لهم. يصدّقون الحكايات والآراء التي أرويها لهم كل يوم. لن تقدرين على محاربة سلطتي ونفوذي وسرعتي!”

ترك الذئب النسويّة في منزل جدّتها، تلملم أفكار سلّتها والدموع تنهمر على وجهها.. وإذ تصل الجدة عائدة من صبحية جاراتها، فصرخت لها النسويّة تحت دموعها: “جدّتي!”

***

هرعت إليها الجدة: “ماذا حصل يا نسويّتي الصغيرة؟!” فأخبرتها النسوية قصتها مع الذئب وبكت قائلةً: “لقد دمّر سلتي، جدتي! دمّر كل أفكاري النسويّة!”

فجاوبت الجدة: “كيف يدمّر أحد نسويّتك يا حبيبتي؟! انها مزروعةٌ في فكرك وقلبك وقناعاتك!”

“لكنه أقوى مني بكثير يا جدتي.. يصل بسرعة إلى الغابة كلها.. يستمع إليه الجميع.. لن يسمح لي بإيصال أفكاري إلى أحد!”

جاوبت الجدة: “طبعاً لن يقبل بأفكارك يا نسويّة، يريد الذئب أن يبيع صورة مرأة عربية بلاستيكية تعنى بالأمور الصغيرة، لا رأي سياسي لها إلا إذا كان رأيها يصبّ في مصلحة السياسة المعتادة. يريد نساءً تتكلم عن مأساتها بدراما وبكاء، أو ترقص وتغنّي على مسرح برامج التسلية. وهل توقّعت أن يتصرف الذئب المسيّس الرأسمالي غير ذلك؟”

“لكنه يستطيع أن يصل إلى سكان الغابة بأكملها في غضون دقائق جدتي، كيف سأصل اليهم وحدي؟”

فكرت الجدة وقالت: “عليك أن تصبحي ذئباً.”

“كيف؟” سألت النسويّة بحيرة.

“عليك أن تخترعين إعلاماً جديداً، إعلامك الخاص النسويّ!”

“وإن حاولت يا جدتي؟ لن استطيع أن أتبارى مع الذئب!”

“إذاً تحاولين أكثر! تعملين بجهد أكبر! تصرخين وتنادين حتى يصل صوتك إلى الناس!”

فكرت النسوية وهي تمسح دموعها وقالت: “وعندما تسمعني النساء تضمّ صوتها إليّ ويعلو صوتنا النسوي.. فصوتنا مجموعات سيعلو فوق صوت الذئب!”

صرخت الجدة: “أجل! كم من فتاة وإمرأة تنتظر صوتك النسوي منذ سنوات؟ كم منهن تنتظر أن تقول: ها قد أتت النسويّة تنادي بالحرية التي أريدها!”

قفزت النسوية وغمرت جدتها وركضت إلى الغابة تقول لنفسها بفرح وبهجة: “سوف نركض أسرع من الذئب.. سوف يعلو صوتنا فوق صوته.. سوف نصل إلى كل النساء التي بانتظارنا.. سوف نثور.. وسوف نخترع وسائل اعلامنا الخاص النسوي!”

فلما وصلت النسوية إلى حديقتها الصغيرة، زرعت بذور إعلام عربي جديد.

I made some edits (in red) on December 28.

We did it! We trended #Gaza on twitter on the day that commemorated the start of the brutal 22-day Israeli war and siege on Gaza. It was an incredible day. #Gaza trended into the Top 10 for a good 9 hours at least (at the time of writing this post). Wow. So a quick recap of how it went:

• By Sunday morning, we had 74 people signed up to tweet for Gaza between 5pm and 9pm.
• I got online around noon and saw that Gaza had already risen to 0.4% Many tweeps were already online tweeting heavily for Gaza. @gyonis suggested that we try and get half-way up the trending chart by the start of the campaign. @justicentric and @smileandsubvert were tweeting insanely. Spirits were high and more people were getting online and tweeting for Gaza. Some had prepared tweets beforehand, which was very smart. And then, around 1.30 pm, #Gaza appeared on the Top 10 Trending Topics of Twitter! Of course, @justicentric was the first to notice it, cos he was monitoring all the stats like a hawk. A bit before 2pm, it was at #9:

#Gaza coming into 9th place on Twitter Trending Topics

• We went insane! We ran around (metaphorically, on twitter) not knowing what to do. We had broken into the Trending 10 already, so we couldn’t stop. We had to keep on going. Everyone was nailed to their computers or phones, tweeting, re-tweeting, linking, sharing. And @Palaestina who had AMAZING tweets lined up, including the names of every child who was killed in Gaza, got blocked. Barely after s/he warned us about it, other active members, included myself, also got blocked. We opened new accounts immediately and tweeted from there until they unblocked our accounts (which was an average of 45 minutes later). @uruknet and other tweeps reported getting blocked for up to 3.5 hours. The blocking was fishy and didn’t make a lot of sense, so you can see some ideas being bounced in the comments about why this happened. I definitely think we were being reported by people who didn’t want #Gaza to trend.
• Very quickly, #Gaza fluctuated between #7 and #8 on twitter. Hopes were very high! We couldn’t believe we had made it so early on. Over 300 tweeps had signed on to the #Gaza twibbon.

#Gaza at #7 at 2:14pm (+2GMT time)

• Everything was going great.. It was close to 4pm and we were at #5! We were figuring out the techniques of trending something on twitter. Multiple hashes don’t count. The new RT function doesn’t count. Too many RTs get you blocked or helps your rivals report you as spam. Zionist assholes started showing up and promoting us all as anti-Semites. People were waking up and asking what #Gaza meant. It was awesome! This screenshot is me tweeting from my other account (cos twitter blocked me, remember?) That’s why it’s in blue:

#Gaza at number 5!

• People were logging in and feeling so energized to see Gaza trending already, so they boosted with great tweets. I was so sure we were going to hit number one any second. And then came Hayley.

And then came Haley. Screenshot courtesy of @zalface - thanks!

• Who Hayley is I don’t know and I don’t care to google. It was her birthday today, so suddenly (and very illogically), HappyBdayHayley shot to number 1. It didn’t make any sense! Look at the difference between #Gaza and #HappyBdayHaley on trendistic in the screenshot below. That’s us in red. How could #HappyBdayHayley shoot to number one? What made it even weirder is that @zalface discovered many spam bots like this one: @carolmeatsix that were spamming twitter with #HappyBdayHayley for hours at very high rates. How come they didn’t get blocked? This adds to our suspicion that we were being reported by people.

#Gaza vs. #HappyBdayHayley on Dec.27, 2009

• The only sense we could make was that twitter didn’t want #Gaza to trend. And after HappyBdayHayley came HappyBdayHayleyBR – the Brazilian version – also trending! Ridiculous! But still, the tweeters kept signing on, news, links, videos, feelings, thoughts, cartoons, blog posts, stories, all sorts of expressions kept flowing onto twitter, all for Gaza, the Gaza Freedom March, and Viva Palestina. Eventually, we made it to #3. Yep. We hit Trending Topic Number 3 on twitter at 7:39 (+2GMT). Here’s the screenshot!

• We tried really hard after that, but couldn’t get it past #3. I believe we were stopped there on purpose. Further proof is that twitter never allowed #Gaza to appear on its main page for before you sign in. I watched it for more than 10 hours. Even when we hit and stayed on the top 5, #Gaza never showed on the main twitter.com. I was actually corrected about this by @Stand4Liberty who sent me a screenshot (below) of #Gaza appearing on the sign-in page briefly when we were top-trending. Did twitter block #Gaza from getting to #1 on purpose? Maybe, maybe not. I really don’t know. I do, however, think it is pointless to waste our time wondering if it did. We still trended for > 10 hours!
  

• We kept on tweeting through the night. By 11pm, #Gaza had dropped off the Top Ten Trending completely, but is still going pretty well. All in all, the feeling of being part of this campaign was amazing! We trended by the time the tweeters in North American (twitter’s largest demographic) woke up. Lots of people said they learned a lot about Gaza and Palestine today. We outnumbered the Zionist tweeters by far. By the time of posting, people who supported the #Gaza twibbon were 460 and their total followers were 379,307. @justicentric says he got over 10,000 clicks on the links he put out today, not including the links from re-tweets. @Razaniyyat and @uruknet‘s tweets were loaded with informative links and resources. @MXML wasn’t online but s/he scheduled beautifully thought-provoking tweets about Palestine and Gaza. @GhadeerM tweeted for Gaza from all her heart – although only last week she didn’t know what twitter was. There was something beautiful in all of us, strangers, coming together, from all over the world, talking collectively about a cause that matters to us, achieving a goal together. Solidarity. Using a new, creative, youthful strategy. Away from the usual rhetoric, the usual groups, politicians, and religions that hijack the Palestinian cause.
• What comes next, I’m not sure. But we’ve found each other and we’ve accomplished something together with the help of very little: a couple of blog posts, a few tweets, and a google document. Let’s all watch and tweet for the Gaza Freedom March for the next week, and all ideas of what activism we can come up with using this new network we’ve created are welcome. Make sure you join the Palestine Action Network on Facebook so we can contact you later for other campaign ideas! Thank you everybody!

I end with a beautiful tweet from @ajit8uk that just came up:

“We got to 3. We are the people. No one owns this earth. NO ONE. #GAZA”

…

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Only 2 days to go before our attempt at trending #GAZA on twitter to raise global awareness on commemorating one year since the massive Israeli assault and siege. You can read the initial post here. Here are some updates and instructions I thought would be useful for all of us involved in the campaign:

How does a topic trend on twitter and why is that important?

At every given time, twitter lists a number of “trending,” i.e. popular topics being discussed frequently by a large number of people. These topics get a lot of needed attention – especially if we know they are otherwise going to be ignored by mainstream mass media. With all the odds against the Gaza Freedom March and Viva Palestina, we need to make sure that we are reporting the news of what’s happening with their campaigns, as well as reminding the world of the one-year commemoration. Topics trend on twitter when a large number of people mention it frequently over a substantial period of time. It also depends on the percentage of tweets, the hour, how active the twit-o-sphere is, etc. Based on a little research I did today, here’s how we can get it done:

• We have all been tweeting #GAZA news frequently the past week at an average of 0.02% (i.e. out of 1 million tweets, 200 are about Gaza). We need to raise that number to at least 1% AND we need to sustain that for at least 4 hours. Some research says the average hour has 200,000 unique tweets. So we’re looking at a goal of 2000 unique #GAZA tweets per hour. Follow #GAZA on Trendistic to see how it’s doing at any time. You can also compare it to other topics; here’s a comparison between #GAZA and #09memories that quickly trended to 4% in a day.

• In order to do that, we must focus our energies on 4 hours: 3pm – 7pm (GMT). Find out what time that is in your city here. According to the following graph, that raises our chances of trending because that’s when the tweets are at that lowest. It’s Sunday morning for the North Americans (twitter’s largest demographic), so we should aim to trend #GAZA by the time they get online:

• To guarantee a large reach, we initially called for at least 100 campaigners. These are tweeps who are dedicated to tweet non-stop about #GAZA for the full 4 hours of the campaign. They are the ones who will make the difference in peaking the topic. Here is a list of everyone who has signed up. You can choose to follow all (or some) of them to retweet the news yourself. I am updating the list on an hourly basis. If you’d like to sign up, please drop me a message on @nmoawad or leave a comment here. We need many more people to sign up! Even if you’ve never used twitter before, you can still register for an account, follow the #GAZA list and start tweeting with us.

• Please blog about the commemoration to add news and resources we can link to. We expect that some great news articles, blogs, and videos will come up on Sunday for us to tweet. We will also be receiving and reporting live news from GFM and Viva Palestina marchers.
  

  Change your profile pic on Facebook to the GFM logo to show your support for the march.

That’s the plan for now. We’re crossing our fingers it works! The challenge will be to get enough people on board and enough tweets out there. We’re hoping no sudden global event happens to steal attention away from Gaza. It’s not going to be easy at all because we’re in the middle of holiday season and goodbye 2009 tweets. But imagine how beautiful it will be when we (and the world) see #GAZA up there. If you have any expertise, please do make comments on my stats above – they are at best my estimated guesses, so any help is greatly appreciated.

So yalla! Take action:

1. Spread the word. Send emails, share links on Facebook, make calls, recruit your friends, etc. Ask people to sign up on twitter. Since we don’t have much time to coordinate efforts, please feel free to run different ideas to support our goal.
2. Add a #GAZA Twibbon to your Twitter Picture.
3. Join the Facebook event ACT, Don’t Mourn and invite all your friends.
4. Follow #Gaza search on twitter on Sunday to see where we at.
5. Chang your Facebook profile pic to the image on the right.
6. Follow me on twitter for updates.
7. You can use Tweet-U-Later to schedule tweets to come out at different times. Do so in moderation though so that twitter doesn’t see you as spamming.

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We’ve been bouncing ideas on the twitosphere to raise awareness and show support for Gaza on December 27, as we remember one year since the brutal Israeli assault and siege. The Gaza Freedom March is also building up momentum for their fantastic endeavor. It is important to highlight the cause online in order to promote our call for justice and remembrance.

The idea is simple. At every moment, there is a topic “trending” on twitter. It always results in drawing the attention of the world and the media. To trend a topic, thousands of people must hash it, i.e. tweet about it using the # before it. For example, the most trending topic over the next week is bound to be #xmas because everyone’s tweeting about Christmas. So what we want to do is push #GAZA to the top of twitter’s discussed topics on December 27. Get it?

Here’s what you can do:

1. Open a twitter account if you haven’t yet. Get your friends to give you a crash course on how to use it – it’s very simple.
2. On December 27, get online and tweet about #Gaza by citing news sources or re-tweeting links from others.
3. Join the Palestine Action Network group to get updates via Facebook.
4. Join the event: ACT – don’t mourn on Facebook.
5. Take online action aroung the Gaza Freedom March.
6. Recruit your friends and groups to do the same.
7. If you’re an experienced tweep, please join the core team to brainstorm more ideas on how to succeed with our online campaign. It’s not going to be easy because we’re in the middle of a holiday season, so we need all the help we can get. Hit me up via twitter on @nmoawad.

If you’ve got any questions I can help with, contact me.