Social media spreads and splinters Brazil protests

[FarCenter]

Facebook pages set up for logistical coordination and Twitter hash tags have cropped up for protests in hundreds of cities across Brazil. Rival groups appear to be vying for control of one of the most-viewed organizing pages on Facebook and an associated Twitter feed.

"Any movement risks attracting unaffiliated groups and individuals," said Angela Alonso, a sociologist at the University of Sao Paulo. "It's a price of growth. In this case there is no centralized leadership, administration is more difficult and it is even becoming uncontrollable."

The Free Fare movement, a group of 40 activists who marched for - and got - lower transportation rates, said on Friday it was suspending any further marches for now because of mounting tension and violence.
...

While that opens the door to all sorts of fringe groups, the people at the core of the protests generally share a commitment to better public services. Their rallying cries, found on Twitter and Facebook and on traditional signs at the protests, range from ending political corruption to lambasting more than $12 billion being poured into soccer stadiums and other preparations for the 2014 World Cup.

The demonstrators, mostly educated, middle class and under age 30, want nothing to do with established groups that were behind the causes of their parents' generation.
...

"The recent protests are not partisan, and they do not have centralized leadership," said Alonso, the sociologist. "This has to do with new technologies that allow for organization without centralization, and also with the fact that the activists are from a new generation that is no longer guided by ideals like socialism, and doesn't want state power."

http://news.yahoo.com/social-media-spreads-splinters-brazil-protests-225642317.html

[delrem]

1. Those people are on the street, showing their faces and numbers.

I would beware of orchestrated push-back that focuses on "social media". Professional social engineers will always claim that they can control popular political movements by controlling "the social media". That's what they dream of. They will always try to define any real movement, narrow it down and try to control it. But in fact you don't get a million people of all ages and circumstance on the street just because of some "social media" push. Or because, as this OP says, "The demonstrators, mostly educated, middle class and under age 30, want nothing to do with established groups that were behind the causes of their parents' generation." Who, exactly, determined the truth of that grand speculation? The kind of real involvement as seen in Brazil (and Turkey, etc) is anchored in real grievances and anything said in "social media" can only be an adjunct.