A new Facebook app called Ultimatums lets users float an idea, set an arbitrary "tipping point" and track group members' commitment to their common goal. Once a critical mass of people has pledged support, a predetermined action -- like a boycott of Ford Motor Company or plans to only use nickels to purchase public transit fares -- is taken.
The app, launched Tuesday by Andrew Mason, founder of consumer activism site The Point, could help mobilize the group potential of Facebook's 66 million users.
"People think their efforts will be wasted, that their contribution doesn't make a difference," said Mason, who dropped out of graduate school to pursue his online, grass-roots push for social change. "But here, each campaign is a success in progress."
From rallying support for war-torn countries like Darfur to organizing student protests and flash-mob-style mass purchases of vegetables, Facebook groups have been used to instigate all kinds of social action. But unlike Facebook application Causes, which lets users donate money to a favorite nonprofit, Ultimatums goes beyond uniform models.
Instead of abstract ideas (like Facebook group Make Poverty History),
Ultimatums lets users set concrete goals. The end result is a straightforward app designed to transform a vibrant online community into a vehicle for specific social change. For example, one group calls for Wal-Mart to provide health care benefits for its employees. If a million users sign up, all million pledge to boycott the company if the demand isn't met.
Each ultimatum is an online petition created by users that requires a tipping point of participants to induce action. Participants are committed to act only when enough other individuals agree to the same, so support for each cause is bound by the group commitment. Mason says he hopes this will eliminate a common downside of collective action -- the feeling that one person can't effect change.
Since launching the Facebook component, Mason estimates 100 new ultimatums have been created, calling for everything from the humane treatment of animals by fast food corporations to DRM-free music and an end to late fees for video rentals.
The service is still in it's nascent stages; most of the petitions have yet to break 100. And most successes have been on a smaller scale:
raising money for small sports tournaments or a Nicaraguan farm collective. But Mason says he remains hopeful that with each ultimatum, the potential for large-scale change looms closer.
"If we can get just enough people involved, we can force change," he said.
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