When you enter any social media platform today, you will see the hashtags #IranProtests and #MahsaAmini. Masha Amini, a 22-year-old young woman in Iran, was detained and subjected to violence by the ‘morality police’ for showing her hair on the street ‘inconsistently with the dress code’.
These hashtags, which were on the agenda after Masha Amini was in a coma for days and then passed away, suddenly made us hear the same name and story everywhere on the internet. Moreover, besides hearing this name and story, the same hashtags brought together thousands of people in Iran and started a social movement, and these hashtags were used to raise the issue in different parts of the world.
So how did this happen? How did the hashtag come to the head of a word and manage to make it the world’s biggest agenda?
It was a big fire that made the hashtag hashtag
Probably many of us have hashtags in our lives from the moment we start using social media. The hashtag, which is one of the numerous symbols that emerged in the internet world and is widely used, has managed to stand out from all other symbols by changing both humanity and internet history over the years.
The fact that this symbol is a representation of a communication and communication culture was realized by several events in 2007. Chris Messina, a name in the internet culture and industry, who works at companies such as Google and Uber, published a blog in August 2007 and proposes to use hashtags to easily reach related topics on Twitter. He says that the reason is that irrelevant topics come up very often on Twitter and they talk a lot in the friend environment (comprising software and computer engineers, developers).
The reason why Messina chose the # symbol, which we now call hashtag, to solve this problem, is the instant messaging system called IRC (Internet Relay Chat). In this system, which was developed in 1988 and used for ‘chat’ over the internet for many years, ‘#’ is used to separate the subject headings. Realizing that this icon, which is popular in the software language, makes things much easier, Messina thinks that a similar use should be on Twitter and publishes the blog post.
After sharing this idea in his blog post, Messina also presents it to Biz Stone, one of the founders of Twitter. Stone, on the other hand, explains in that speech that he did not think of this use as a feature to be included in the system and told Messina, ‘what are you waiting for, use it now’…
Then Messina and her friends start using hashtags on Twitter to talk about different topics. The name of the hashtag comes from the naming of the # sign as a hash in the software world. Thus, the hashtag expression is formed.
The first use of hashtags for a widespread event, which began to spread on Twitter over the course of several months, took place in October 2007. In a big fire in San Diego that resulted in the evacuation of more than 300,000 people, users on Twitter are starting to communicate with the hashtag #SanDiegoFire. Thus, for the first time, hashtags are used for communication and information sharing in a social event.
Hashtags, which have been used by an ever-expanding audience for two years, are officially included in Twitter’s system in 2009. The Twitter team develops a special search tool for hashtags, making it easy to use, and then, over time, hashtags become an agenda setting tool on Twitter.
2010 was the year the whole world saw how effective hashtags can be in social movements
After all these developments, the beginning of the social movements known as the ‘Arab Spring’ and ignited in the social media in 2010 on the one hand, and the strengthening of the ‘anti-austerity policy’ riots in the social media after the economic crisis in Europe, on the other hand, and how hashtags appeared in social events. proved to be just as effective.
The Arab Spring and the anti-austerity movement in Europe continued over the next few years, with social media playing a major role in both movements. Because the society embraced social media as an uncensored and fast communication and communication tool. In the ‘Gezi Events’ that took place in our country in the following years, Twitter and hashtags were the most important player on the agenda and the biggest discussion item.
All these movements paved the way for hashtags to be used as a ‘justice-seeking or voice-over tool’, from events that affected the whole world to more narrow social events over the years.
Over the years, countless hashtags, many of which you will still remember, have taken over the world agenda and made a great impact.
#BlackLivesMatter
In 2012, a 17-year-old black teenager named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed on a street for no apparent reason, despite being unarmed. George Zimmerman, who killed him, was released after several hours of questioning. This event resulted in the emergence of #BlackLivesMatter, one of social media’s biggest activism hashtags. The hashtag has spread all over the world and has now become an icon in defense of the rights of black people to live. The same hashtag started to rise after the murder of a black American, George Floyd, by a police officer in 2020, and turned into a big movement all over the world. In many countries in America and Europe, #BlackLivesMatter protests were held. Keeping the issue on the agenda with hashtags and the protests were effective in the process of punishing the murderer police.
#ALSIceBucketChallenge
Hashtags aren’t just used for events that the community reacts to or wants to voice. One of the biggest and first examples of this is the #ALSIceBucketChallenge that almost everyone will remember. With this hashtag, users on social media emptied their heads with ice buckets of water. The hashtag and the reason for the current were to raise awareness and raise donations for ALS disease. This campaign has been so successful that the ALS Association hashtag campaign has garnered more than 700,000 donors during its active time, raising more than $48 million in about a month.
#HeForShe, #MeToo, #IstanbulSözleYaşatır
One of the issues where hashtags are most frequently encountered as social awareness and as a mass movement is women’s rights. Many movements have been started on this issue both in our country and in the world, and each of them has been very effective.
The #HeForShe movement, which is a movement that invites men to women’s struggle for equality and started by Emma Watson, has been talked about for a long time and created a strong awareness. #MeToo, which started a revolutionary movement by drawing attention to the harassment and violence experienced by women in the business world, created great debates by drawing attention to women’s problems, especially in giant sectors such as Hollywood.
In our country, the black-and-white photo sharing and #IstanbulSözletmeYaşatır hashtag, which was initiated after the termination of the Istanbul Convention, had an impact on the issue and was influential in the ongoing litigation processes.
#PrayforJapan, #YouAintNoMuslim, #StopFundingHate
Hashtags also brought together societies that were deemed ‘different’, segregated and distanced from each other by borders around the world. After the great earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan, the whole world showed their support to Japan with the hashtag #PrayforJapan.
Hashtags such as #YouAintNoMuslim, which are used to prevent the “terrorist attacks”, which are shown as the source of Islamophobia increasing especially in Europe and America, from being associated with all Muslims and to show the bad side of Islamophobia to the world, had a great impact on this issue. By associating Islam with terrorism and violence, it was ensured that the prejudice against Muslim societies was prevented. Today, the perception on this subject has changed greatly with the effect of such hashtags. Muslim visibility increased.
The #StopFundingHate movement, which was initiated against the anti-immigrant discourses, which is a major problem that concerns the whole world and results in acts that turn into hate crimes, stood against prejudice and hatred towards immigrants, and even paved the way for the editorial policies of major European media organs to change.
#AnimalRightsLawNow
Social media has been used very effectively to raise awareness about animal rights in our country. Bringing the demanded law for the protection of animal rights to the agenda with the hashtag #Animal RightsYasasıImmediate and keeping it on the agenda for a long time created visibility on this issue, and with the important steps taken afterwards, important goals were achieved, if not the final goal.
Is there nothing wrong with hashtags?
This question is actually a question asked by those who oppose hashtags that create social movements and try to reflect them as ‘edited games’. But we all need to ask.
Of course, this situation, which has a name in the literature as hashtag activism, also has negative aspects. While addressing this subject, which still continues to be discussed in terms of both sociological and psychological effects, it is necessary to mention its negative effects.
The first issue is that hashtag activism often pushes people into a ‘shared, done’ type of inaction, making many issues a rapidly flashing agenda. The proven power of social media has taken such a good place in our psychology that most of the time, when there is an injustice or a situation contrary to our ideas, sharing about it is enough to ease our conscience and believe that we are doing our part. This brings with it social problems that have been discussed but not resolved.
The second and most important point is the effect of hashtags, which have the power to spread the news quickly, in the spread of fake information. The vast majority of internet users have the urge to share information they see without confirming its accuracy. This means that a fake agenda or news can spread instantly with a single hashtag. Although awareness raising efforts continue today, the fact that the situation is a big problem does not change.
Finally, depending on both items, we often refer to it as the ‘troll army’; The fake agendas and target hashtags created by bot accounts that are not even connected to a real person, unfortunately, are an unresolved problem despite many steps taken in this regard.
Despite everything, hashtags are still a great power for those who want to have their voices heard.
Just like the hashtags #IranProtests and #MahsaAmini, which have been and will continue to be talked about on social media for days. This is how the name and painful story of a young woman is heard. The persecution is visible.
The support from the rest of the world, to all the women and men fighting for their ‘right to life’ in Iran, also shows us how when the moment is right we can break all other borders and speak out together.
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