Will The AIDS Crisis Be Tweeted?

It’s World AIDS Day, so the ubiquitous (Red) is painting the twitterverse #red to remind people–for at least a day–that there is still an international AIDS crisis.  Sponsored by @joinred, anyone who uses the hashtags #red or #laceupsaveslives will turn their posts red. Twitter’s front page has also gone red, in honor of the efforts by Bono and Bobby Shriver.

Not to be outdone, Facebookers who tend to wear their politics on their profiles  have also joined the effort. (Red) created images for Facebookers to replace their profile pics, and the crowds are seeing red ribbons–the original AIDS commemorative symbol–on profile pics. And Google has added an information page on AIDS issues.

The guys at gay news and gossip blog Queerty have noted the irony of Facebook activism:

Remember when Facebook users changed their middle names to “Hussein” to show support for Obama? Or to “Equality” to show support for California and Maine’s marriage fights? Well the new cool thing is adding a red AIDS “twibbon” to your Twitter icon to show you really support World AIDS Day. Because nothing says grassroots activist like meaningless Internet gestures!

There’s no doubt that a single day of seeing (red) on Twitter and Facebook raises awareness, especially when the focus on the international scope of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But as Evgeny Morozov, Yahoo fellow at Georgetown, said about “slacktivism” in Foreign Policy, “it’s their unrealistic assumption that, given enough awareness, all problems are solvable; or, in the language of computer geeks, given enough eyeballs are bugs are shallow.”

Which is probably why gay activist/radio host Michelangelo Signorile’s tweets have a note of frustration today.

@msignorile: World AIDS “Day” gives media/govts the idea that they don’t have 2 do anything on other 364 days.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.