Slacktivism in Autism Rights Movement

The reading for this week was centered around the idea of slacktivism. Madison and Klang argue that "slacktivism" is a pejorative phrase frequently used in reference to all forms of online activism. They claim that because it offers advantages like engagement, education, exposure, and transformation, online activism isn't inherently worse than conventional, in-person activism. The authors also contend that online activism has value and that a lot of the problems it may raise are not unique to the media but that they also exist in more conventional forms of activism that we see in the real world. This article was incredibly eye opening and thought provoking for me. I had always had a negative view of digital activism, especially with some of the types of it discussed in the reading, but I had not so much considered the overall benefits and even similarity in pitfalls that occur both in the digital space and the physical world.

When considering the autism rights movement and especially the wave of self-advocacy that I'm more focused on, a huge portion of the activity within this movement takes place online. The entire notion of #ActuallyAutistic is a great example of just how impactful digital activism can be in promoting discourse, spreading education and awareness, and many other facets. I don't at all believe that the hashtag and ones like it perpetuate the version of slacktivism that is defined by a lazy, half-assed approach to allow others to perceive somebody as an activist. However, some may be reluctant to see its effectiveness and thus be inclined to denote it as such with a derogatory tone.

I suppose an example of a group in the autism rights movement that really puts the slack in slacktivism is "autism moms" because they do absolutely nothing beneficial toward autistic people and instead promote hate and intolerance that ends up being harmful as it reinforces the stigmatization of autistic people. This TikTok first shows the fake activism performed by the mother and then features a creator who goes on to discuss why content like this is problematic: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRx8je82/