香港抗議者
Hong Kong Protesters
The movement to preserve Hong Kong’s freedoms is leaderless by design. But while there’s no single organizer at the center of the demonstrations sparked by the controversial extradition bill, there is still a center to much of their organization: online platforms put to effective use by protesters who want to stay both active and anonymous. Users on Internet forum LIHKG and encrypted messaging app Telegram have been tied to everything from a march past foreign consulates to a siege of police headquarters. In an exchange with TIME over the app, an administrator of a Telegram channel linked to the protests described the process as “more of a direct democracy.” Users upvote threads on LIHKG to indicate support for a suggested course of action, which helps push the topic to trend and draw more attention. Telegram’s polling function and the ability to broadcast messages in channels and discuss plans in chat groups allow protesters to promptly mobilize or change strategies. Other aspects of the demonstrations are also coordinated online, including relaying reminders of upcoming protests, sharing legal aid resources and, more recently, offering counseling services and emotional support. Arrests have been made and some escalation tactics, such as the storming of the legislature, have drawn backlash, but the protesters, empowered by their crowd-sourced approach, vow to keep up the fight. “We believe in the power of people because when we are a collection of minds, we must be able to make better decisions than maybe just a group of students or leaders,” pro-democracy activist Ventus Lau told TIME. —Aria Hangyu Chen
The 25 Most Influential People on the Internet
BY TIME STAFF
For our fifth annual roundup of the most influential people on the Internet, TIME evaluated contenders by looking at their global impact on social media and their overall ability to drive news. Here’s who made this year’s unranked list.
Lil Nas X
For proof that viral fame can lead to bona-fide stardom, look no further than Atlanta rapperLil Nas X. Born Montero Lamar Hill, the rapper developed his online fanbase (and his fluency in the quick, satiric language of the internet) by curating memes on Twitter. Then came “Old Town Road.” The track, made to a $30 beat and released in late 2018, first gained steam as the soundtrack to the “#yeehaw” challenge on video-sharing app TikTok, then for getting removed from Billboard’s Hot Country chart, kickstarting a conversation about Nashville’s exclusion of black artists. Shortly after, Lil Nas X recruited Billy Ray Cyrus for a remix, which has nowtopped the Billboard Hot 100 for 15 weeks and logged 9 of the 11 biggest streaming weeks of all time. More recently, Lil Nas X made headlines for publicly coming out as gay, telling BBC Breakfast that his decision to share his truth was “opening doors for more people.” —Raisa Bruner
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be a junior member of the House of Representatives, but when it comes to social media prowess, her seniority is virtually unparalleled. Ocasio-Cortez, who even offline is often referred to by her Twitter handle “AOC,” has nearly 4.8 million followers on the platform, more than most members of Congress. In January, just weeks after she was sworn in as the youngest Congresswoman in U.S. history, Ocasio-Cortez co-hosted a session for her peers about social media best practices, explaining the importance of being “authentic.” And though she’s made some online missteps during her tenure on Capitol Hill — like identifying her Democratic colleague Rep. John Yarmuth as a Republican while slamming older male legislators — Ocasio-Cortez has also expertly harnessed viral tropes to draw attention to subcommittee hearings and granular policy debates that have typically been relegated to the confines of C-Span: an Instagram video of questions she asked at a hearing about cannabis in February has amassed over three million views. —Alana Abramson
President Donald Trump
President Donald Trump has ramped up his digital presence over the past year. On March 17, he sent out 29 tweets in a single day, including a tweet pondering whether federal agencies should investigate Saturday Night Live for criticizing him and a retweet of Jack Posobiec, a conservative news host who promoted the Pizzagate and Seth Rich conspiracy theories. But that still paled in comparison to his output on May 1, when he posted a whopping 84 times.(There may be a downside to the increased frequency: a CrowdTangle report cited by Axios indicates that the president’s overall interaction rate has fallen.) Regardless, Trump’s tweets initiate a feedback loop of cable news segments, Google search results and online news stories, giving his short missives longer legs and allowing his online influence to dwarf that of his political rivals. This year in particular, Trump used his massive online megaphone to criticize Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigationinto his campaign’s connections to Russia and increased his attacks on social media companies, arguing that conservative voices are being unfairly targeted for censorshiponline; the claim has not been proven. —Brian Bennett
Read more:
https://time.com/5626827/the-25-most-influential-people-on-the-internet/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-listicle&utm_content=20190716
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