Crowdfunding Protests: Turkish Protesters Raise Over $100,000 To Buy NY Times Ad

from the what-a-world dept

Fri, Jun 7th 2013 12:40pm — Mike Masnick

There's been plenty of talk about how social media -- and specifically tools like Twitter and Facebook -- have been useful in organizing various protests around the world, but it's interesting to see how other popular tools are being used as well. For example, with the huge protests in Turkey, some of the protesters are using IndieGogo to finance a full-page ad in the NY Times to tell their story to the world. And it worked. Within a day, they'd raised the amount and it's continued to rise since then (and there are still weeks left). The NY Times has already accepted the ad as well. This strikes me as fascinating on a number of levels, because crowdfunding is just a different kind of platform -- and while most people just focus on its uses for buying products -- one of the key features is how it actually builds a community around the project in question. And, as such, you can see how it can also be such a powerful tool for building further community and support around a political campaign of sorts.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: advertisement, crowdfunding, protests, turkey

11 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2013 @ 12:53pm

it's nice to see
how 'internet' companies, when they really want an impact turn to the (according to masnic) DEAD print media to get the word out !!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lurk-a-lot (profile), 7 Jun 2013 @ 1:03pm

Re: it's nice to see
So you're saying that the Turkish Protesters are an internet company...

You don't even pretend to read the articles, do you!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Abara, 7 Jun 2013 @ 1:07pm

Weeks to go ?
I agree that this is very interesting but why do you say there is weeks left ? Are they going to have to wait until the "delay" has ended to have their story/ad printed in the newspaper`?
And what is to become of the leftover money ?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2013 @ 1:10pm

as what normally happens when there is 'unrest' somewhere in the world, the person in charge of the government in that country, tries to downplay the problems and the inevitable violence. the normal way is to blame anyone and everyone, everything and anything other than the true reason, which is usually the decisions made by the head of the government. that is usually accompanied by scenes of violence from the affected public but more than that are the pictures and videos of the way the members of the police and army behave, partly under orders, partly under their own initiative, towards their own countrymen! when this is happening in what is classed in the democratic countries as a 'dictatorship' such as Iran, N.Korea, China etc, the footage is welcomed. when it is showing the same sort of thing from one of those aforementioned 'democratic countries', then the shit hits fan. why? because it shows, in a lot of cases, there is very little difference between the countries. they all react the same, they all behave the same as does the law enforcement representatives and, they all try to stop the videos and the images from being released to the rest of the world. this includes when a government and it's law enforcement agencies are caught out having done something that is not only unthinkable in the 'democratic countries', it has been denied as being done. then the cover up starts, then the over the top denials, then the blaming. but basically it means there is little difference anywhere now. governments just keep on lying, keep on denying, keep on blaming but still keep on restricting! all to get and keep control and to try to stop the things they have done but shouldn't from being broadcast. all governments in all countries are just self-centered hypocrites, doing whatever they think necessary to make lives better for those that have it oh so easy already!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2013 @ 1:12pm

Re: it's nice to see
brushing off the fact that the internet had an impact in this project much?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

out_of_the_blue, 7 Jun 2013 @ 1:19pm

Bizarrely focused on money not message.
Seems to be part of Mike's ongoing mania for crowdfunding. Doesn't matter to him what the message is, I guess: money rolling in is the only important item. (NOTE: I looked at "Campaign Home": my point here is just that Medium Is The Message Mike seems to carefully avoid any mention of it.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
jupiterkansas (profile), 7 Jun 2013 @ 1:49pm

Re: it's nice to see
Nobody said it was a good idea.

I'll probably never see the ad, and I'll only know about it because I read it happened online. They can buy up the whole issue of the New York Times and pretty much nobody I know will see it.

So the only word they're really getting out is the internet talking about what they did, and not the ad itself.

Personally, I think it's a waste of money.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2013 @ 2:26pm

Re: Re: it's nice to see
Two thought on the story
1) Many who read the New York Times will not have been following the Turkish protest on the Net.
2) An advert in the New York time will probably make more of an impression on the Turkish Government stories on the Net.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Androgynous Cowherd, 7 Jun 2013 @ 2:31pm

What a world ...
We'll really know we're in a changed world not because there's a black President, not when there's a female President or a third-party President, but when there's a Kickstarted President. :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
McCrea (profile), 7 Jun 2013 @ 5:33pm

Re: Weeks to go ?
...what is to become of the leftover money ?

You put it in the fridge, and eat it at midnight after a couple days.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Pragmatic, 10 Jun 2013 @ 5:55am

Re: Re: it's nice to see
Not to mention the fact that the NYT can be read online...
[ link to this | view in thread ]