In 2011, I was unlucky enough to get caught up in a digital
activism nightmare.
You see, I work for an out-of-home media company called
Adshel. If you’ve never heard of it before, we are the company responsible for
the advertisements on bus and tram stops across Australia.
At the time, we were running a campaign for the Queensland Association for Healthy
Communities called Rip & Roll, a safe sex advertisement for gay men
that featured on Brisbane bus stops.
During the first week the campaign was
active, we received over 30 complaints from the general public.
Unbeknownst to Adshel at the time, these complaints were
strategically orchestrated by the Australian Christian Lobby, who coordinated
to have the campaign removed.
As part of Adshel’s Commercial agreements with the councils
in Brisbane, upon receiving such a large quantity of complaints a campaign must
be pulled down from the street. While Adshel was following standard business
protocol, the news broke that we had caved as a company to the ‘homophobic
pressure’ of the Australian Christian Lobby.
Cue public outrage…
Almost instantly, the Facebook page ‘Homophobia – NOT HERE – Adshel Caves to
Homophobic Pressure’ was created. Overnight, they received 500 followers.
This proceeded to grow to over 40,000 followers by 5.30pm the following day.
The campaign continued to spread like wild fire, with the Facebook page
receiving over 90,000 followers to date.
As a result, Adshel came under intense pressure from the
public. The phones rang off the hook with a barrage of abuse, criticism and
public outrage. Over 750 email complaints were received in just a few days. And
the creator of the Facebook successfully organised a group of demonstrators to
rally outside our Brisbane office.
As a loyal member of the Adshel team, it was awful to
witness my friends (and even a couple of ignorant family members) follow the
group. I knew the company I worked for was most certainly not homophobic. The
actions had been taken as a result of our internal protocol. Yet all we could
do was sit back, watch the drama unfold, and wait for the storm to pass.
As soon as the Australian Christian Lobby’s Queensland
Directory Wendy Francis took responsibility for the original complaints against
the Rip & Roll campaign, and the fact that more people wanted the campaign
up than the people who wanted it pulled down, Adshel
immediately reinstated the ads.
The decision Adshel made to re-instate the campaign was a
glowing example of the power of the people – and more importantly, the power of
digital activism.
