What the heck do hashtags have to do with this? The article didn't say anything about anything like that.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/nigeria-first-lady-orders-arrest-of-protest-leaders_n_5265872.htmlThere's more that caused all of this behind-the-scenes than what is stated in the article. Besides Blue Lion's link, read the article above. Or better yet, here's a few quotes
An organizer of a demonstration said Monday that Jonathan's wife, Patience, ordered the arrests of two protest leaders, accused them of belonging to Boko Haram and expressed doubts there was any kidnapping.
Ndirpaya said Patience Jonathan accused them of fabricating the abductions. "She told so many lies, that we just wanted the government of Nigeria to have a bad name, that we did not want to support her husband's rule," she said in a telephone interview with the AP.
Without hashtag activism/slacktivism/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, that would have been the end of it. Nigeria wouldn't have cared. The West wouldn't have cared. But you know what happened? Westerners got loud on Twitter, America got involved, and Nigeria decided to acknowledge it.
So yeah, the article doesn't mention hashtags, but it played a real part in all of this, and the world apparently knows.
