Neoco

The focus on Wall Street’s role in the global banking crisis has switched to London this week as protesters plan to occupy the London Stock Exchange from midday Saturday. A middle finger up to the global financial corporations after a year of economic discontent, the Occupy London Stock Exchange site has been set up to outline Saturday’s protests, using the power of social media to spread the word.

The group behind Monday’s protest that closed Westminster bridge, Occupy London Stock Exchange has been trending on Twitter via #OccupyLSX and the Facebook page ‘Occupy London’s Stock Exchange‘ has over 15,000 combined likes and followers, growing by the minute, with 5,000 confirmed as attending the protests on Saturday. Second to that is Occupy England’sFacebook page and Twitter.

Occupy London Stock Exchange is part of a day of over 800 peaceful protests planned to take place globally this Saturday. To show the full spread of the campaign this crowdmap entitled ‘United for #GlobalChange‘ highlights activity linked to the hashtag #event15oct.

In London protesters will walk from St Pauls to the London Stock Exchange in Paternoster Square, passing the UK headquarters of investment bank Goldman Sachs on the way. The aim of the campaign? To unite Londoners against anti-corporate institutions as result of increasing anger over the bail-out of the financial sector.

As the second event in the UK, after 30 people pitched tents to occupy Manchester’s Peace Garden square at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month, protests are planned for Saturday in every major UK city including Birmingham, Edinburgh, Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow, Nottingham and Norwich.

With occupations of Dublin’s Dame Street and planned rallies is Spain and Germany #OccupyTogether and #globaldemocracy tags have spread to draw together the reaction to democratic control over banks worldwide.

The movement is stretching across all social networks. On Tumblr members of the public have been detailing their reasons for supporting the cause via We Are the 99 Percent. On Instagram the #occupy tag pulls together images from the global occupations in Wall Street, The Hague, Sydney and Venice.

Malcolm Gladwell of The New Yorker wrote on 4th October, “Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice”. But with such enthusiasm and dedication to a cause held in such high regard by so many left in dire straights by the restrictions of financial austerity, the spread of social activism by Facebook and Twitter signals a new generation of people actually taking to the streets and making their virtual voices heard in the real world.

With live blogging and tweeting of events as they happen from the occupation, follow #OccupyLSX for updates from the front line of the protest.

Tags  occupy London Stock Exchange social social activism social media Social Media Influence Wall Street We Are the 99 Percent