We are in a digital and technology age. In a time when algorithms decide for us and social media sites dictate our experience, activism has changed. What had previously taken printed flyers, clandestine meetings, and days on end of marches through the scorching heat now begins with hashtags, Instagram stories, TikTok clips, and Twitter threads. I have watched how a piece of writing, well composed with emotive words or with a carefully positioned photograph, can be viral in a matter of hours, activating people across the globe for a cause. It is thrilling, yes, and empowering for many. But as I have come to observe more clearly, it is not always so forceful. Indeed, often it is dangerously hollow.
In Africa, this has been particularly drastic. Our continent, which has been blessed by its youth demography, also has some of the most engaged users of social media platforms. Youth across Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya have employed Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to mobilize for justice, accountability, and political change. The #EndSARS protests in Nigeria remain one of the best examples of digital mobilization being manifested as physical action. What began as a virtual protest of police brutality escalated into weeks of nationwide protest, forcing the Nigerian government to disband the controversial SARS police force. It was a silver lining, a sign that young Africans are not apathetic, that they too will rise up when injustice is the norm.

But we watched too how that momentum was truncated. The killing at the Lekk Toll Gate, the silencing of voices, and the violent dispersal of protests inflicted an injury. Even though the world saw it in real-time on Instagram Live and Twitter Spaces, many of those online activists returned to the shadows when it was time to demand institutional change. The revolution that had started so forcefully began to evaporate. Justice for the lives lost is still elusive. Online, the hashtags continue to go around, but offline, the state is more or less the same. And in this lies the paradox that greatly troubles me: online activism’s capacity to ignite, yet its incapacity to endure.
I have witnessed this performative activism—some call it virtue signaling—too many times. It is posting about a cause not out of concern, but out of a desire to appear woke, relevant, or morally superior. An Instagram black square for the Black Lives Matter protests. A story share about Gaza. A retweet about Congo. And then nothing. No action. No organizing. No peer pressure. No real-world conversations. I remember when the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls fueled the global #BringBackOurGirls, even led by world leaders. But beyond the online megaphone, the girls continued to be kidnapped for years. The ground reality did not change just because the internet screamed.

Why is that dangerous? Because it is the illusion of influence. It leads us to think we have done enough by talking alone. It allows governments, corporations, and systems of power to absorb the form of outrage but not the substance. When youth are satisfied with performance online, the rigor of activism is compromised. The grind—lobbying, policy drafting, litigation, grassroots organizing—is shortchanged. For instance, in Uganda, activists who are mobilizing against the restrictive Computer Misuse Act or the silencing of press freedom often find that online support is immediate but that court hearing attendance or physical mobilization is extremely poor. The hashtag lives on, but the movement collapses.

I don’t discount the power of the digital. Let it be recorded that online media has democratized voices. It has given voice to the silenced. It has unearthed police brutality, corruption, gender violence, and ecological degradation in ways that mainstream media censored or ignored. In Kenya, social media anger against femicide and gender-based violence has led to naming and shaming perpetrators, and sometimes justice. In Sudan, in the 2019 revolution, social media was instrumental in giving real-time reports and globalizing the struggle against Omar al-Bashir’s regime. Here, the digital was a survival and resistance strategy. It connected protesters to the world. It mattered.
But even in Sudan, there is a warning. After revolution fervor, the country slid back into political instability. The triumph of the internet did not translate into a sustainable model of governance. And so I wonder—do we measure success by how big a hashtag is, or by the structural change it creates?
Part of the blame, I think, is due to the way online communities reward performance over persistence. Algorithms reward outrage, appearance, and shareability over depth, nuance, and planning. A post analyzing structural economic inequality will barely receive the interaction a going-viral meme about corruption gets. Young people wanting to make a difference in a fast-paced online world might opt for the latter. I am guilty of it as well. Sharing a viral topic, tweeting a hot take, getting a thrill off likes and retweets—but not always acting on it. We need to be honest about this phenomenon.

There is also the fatigue. Constant exposure to crises—wars, protests, climate catastrophes—on our feeds can numb us. We are passive witnesses, scrolling over pain with numb thumbs. Online activism is a show of solidarity, not a pledge to justice. And in Africa, where state surveillance is increasing, where dissent is being criminalized, it is simpler—sometimes safer—to stay behind the screen than to hit the streets. But safety cannot be a blanket for inaction.
I think it is time for an accounting. Digital activism has to shift. It has to be a beginning, not an end. We have to ask ourselves: after the hashtag, then what? After the went-viral video, what do we construct? We cannot merely amplify movements but commit to them. We have to fund grassroots movements, go to local town halls, read policy briefs, vote, and make our leaders answerable for more than performative anger. We have to find the difference between signaling and serving.
And most importantly, perhaps, we must organize communities offline. We must create space where young people can engage not on shared hashtags but on shared purposes, shared agendas, and shared actions. We must invest in political literacy, civic education, and the kind of organizing that cannot be so easily shut down by an internet blackout.
The digital isn’t disappearing, and it will continue to be a necessary tool in our common fight. But let it be based in action and honesty. Let us not accept noise. Let us be relentless in our pursuit of justice, both on and offline. Otherwise, we will be the generation that tweeted its way through all the crises and did absolutely nothing at all.

What a shame that would be!