I’m currently in Europe doing some communications consulting for a public health NGO with a regional network. They want to do a campaign to increase regional access to a particular medication, so I suggested that they coordinate an international day of action – Google Spreadsheet workplan, e-petition signatures, locally-organized offline actions, Skype coordination calls. I suggested they aim to mobilize action in a minimum of 10 countries. “Wow, that’s so straightforward” said the staffer as I made my suggestion. “That’s totally doable.” And it is.
Change happens slowly, but in some moments I realize its cumulative effect and I have to be amazed.
“A copy of the letter Boris Yeltsin read from a tank turret in front of the Russian Parliament building was… entered into a computer, and forwarded across the network.” (image of anti-coup protesters: Wikipedia)
[UPDATED] In this age of pervasive social media, it’s easy to forget that digital activism precedes the world wide web. In 1991, activist geeks from the Soviet Union, the US, and Western Europe employedUsenetas an alternative form of mass mediato relay information about a coup attemptagainst Mikhail Gorbachev and protect the reform process.
Usenet, a forum-email hybrid, consisted of topical newsgroups of threaded comments. News of the coup was broadcast on the newsgrouptalk.politics.soviet, with information flowing through a Russian network called Relcom, theonly network to provide Russians a domestic andinternational internet connection.
Information was passed into, out of, and through Russia via Relcom’s Usenet service. This prevented the coup initiators – hardline Communists who opposed Gorbachev’s reforms – from creating an information black-out, which they attempted to create by censoring Russian TV broadcasts, taking radio stations off the air, blocking CNN, and even destroying the fax machines at publishing houses. Relcom was not shut down due to simple ignorance,said one newsgroup participant: “Thanks [sic.] Heaven, these cretins don’t consider usmass media!”
Though much Russian media was shut down, a media ecology was also at work during the 1991 coup. Supporters in the West transmitted CNN and BBC broadcasts into Russia via Usenet. According to Larry Press,a Californian academic who participated in the information exchange and subsequently published accounts of the events,”pay phones were working in Moscow,and people in the streets could phone news in” to Demos, the programmers collective that founded Relcom and posted most of the Russian news on talk.politics.soviet during the coup attempt.
The coup occurred when bothSoviet head of state Gorbachev and Russian President Boris Yeltsin were away from Moscow. In an odd twist, even after Yeltsin returned to Moscow, he had no access to mass media, and was forced to disseminate his declaration of opposition via paper flyers. The Usenet activists also helped to distribute his statements via talk.politics.soviet. According to Larry Press, “a copy of the letter Boris Yeltsin read from a tank turret in front of the Russian Parliament building was brought to Demos headquarters (a short trip), entered into a computer, and forwarded across the network.”
Founded only a year earlier, Relcom had surprising reach. At the time of the coup seventy Soviet cities “from Leningrad in theWest to Vladivostok in the East” had connections, according to Press. These connections were housed within a surprising variety of civil society organizations. Wrote Press later that year, “395 organizations were using it–universities, research institutes, stock and commodity exchanges,news services, high schools, politicians, and government agencies.” Relcom had a real capacity for national broadcast.
Despite attempts to keep the Russian people in the dark, information was able to spread enough that a group of unarmed Muscovites rallied around Yeltsin in the White House, which housed the legislature, and used trolley cars and street cleaning machines to block the tanks and military units descending on the building. Rather than launch a bloody attack in the middle of the capital, the coup leaders stepped down, Gorbachev retained his position, and the reforms continued. Less than six months later, the Soviet Union was dissolved.
Because of a recent study, we now know that Chinese censors aim at stopping collective action, regardless of content, rather than limiting political speech per se. What are the implications for Chinese activists?
One answer is to carry out dilemma collective actions: collective actions that also pose response dilemmas for the government. “Dilemma actions” have long been a part of the nonviolent repertoire. They benefit the activist whether or not they are brought to completion, usually by making the oppressor look ridiculous or unjust if they stop the action. (For anexample from Serbia, see the video below.)
Ai Weiwei has already adopted the strategy of dilemma collective action. In the new documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, hecarries out two of them. First, he uses Twitter to invite supporters in Chengdu to eat local pig trotter soup with him at a simple restaurant with sidewalk seating. The act of eating the broth, a local specialty, is normal. The act of eating at a sidewalk restaurant is normal. What makes it political is that is a collective action organized by Ai Weiwei (again, regardless of content). In the documentary the police politely ask him when he will be finished instead of dragging him away. To do so would have make them look like thugs. As it is, they merely look ridiculous.
a dilemma collective action organized by Ai Weiwei
In a similar dilemma action, when Weiwei hears his Shanghai studio will be torn down he decides to have a celebration instead of a protest and invites supporters to come dine on “river crab” in the studio courtyard before the demolition. While river crab has associations with anti-censorship activism, the event itself is a joyous and goofy picnic. Wei himself does not attend, but his supports take and share digital photos of the event. Again, if the government broke up a picnic, they would look repressive and ridiculous.
Social media enhances the impact of dilemma collective action by giving it a greater audience. The meal in Chengduwas recorded by Weiwei’s team as a self-released Chinese-language documentary calledLao MaTi Hua(the name of the soup), it was live-tweeted by Weiwei as it occurred, and it is also in the documentary made for anglophone audiences which I saw. While Weiwei did not attend the river crab banquet, his supporters created and shared their own images, which was encouraged. Because dilemma actions often involve humor, which decrease fear, and thus increase participation, they are also a sneaky way of creating more political activists.
By revealing through their online censorship practice that they seek tohaltcollective action, the Chinese government has also revealed avulnerabilityto the kinds of dilemma collective actions Weiwei is carrying out. If they intervene they look despotic. If not, they appear foolish and impotent. Either is a win for Chinese activists.
Dana Skallman: “creating networks of trust is at the core”
How did you first get involved in Occupy?
I got on the OWS Tech list to see what was going on and how I could help. I quickly realized they were so unorganized, so I thought maybe I can help organize tech in some way.
What role do you currently play in Occupy?
I am helping setup and coordinate technology infrastructure for the Occupy Movement using Free/Libre/Open technology. The bulk of the platforms can be seen atOccupy.net& we are coordinating the usage throughInterOccupy.net.
What are your challenges as an Occupy technologist?
Trying to bridge the needs of activist users and technologists. There are many tools available that provide alternatives to widely used proprietary or commercial tools, however they need to be setup and easy to use for anyone, much like the alternatives. The other aspect is being able to provide tools & ongoing support on a purely volunteer basis. We are searching for ways to make it sustainable. One way we are looking to do this is through cooperatives, which is a part of the conversation in the work we are doing on a daily basis.
How do these challenges relate to the greater challenges of the Occupy movement?
It’s hard to say from an activist on the ground, as I am more behind the scenes. However, much of the communication across the movement involves technology, so creating networks of trust is at the core. This involves more human interaction, through technology. So it’s more about how we connect person to person across the movement using technology, and not so much what technology is being used. That being said, the technology used is important in regards to data privacy and control, which is why using the tools onoccupy.netmakes a difference.
Occupy is currently out of the mass media spotlight. What are you all up to that the world should know about?
The next few months will focus on campaigns around theAnniversary on September 17thand the election. The best place to keep up-to-date would be through theInteroccupy Newswire. All campaigns and actions havecreated Hubsto help coordinate more effectively across the movement. TheInterOccupy Calendaralso provides a ton of information for ways for folks to get involved.
I was a panelist for Newsweek/Daily Beast’s recentDigital Power Index. Though the Revolutionaries group was more representative of nationality, ethnicity, and gender than the rest of the list, I’d like to share my original list of 10 nominees, and also take an opportunity to highlight some of the world’s best digital activists.
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6) Gilad Lotan
Gilad Lotanis passionate about big data visualization. He’s also extremely good at it. He leads the data science team at SocialFlow, a firm whose software creates beautiful visualizations from online data. Gilad loves data, but he also loves politics and social justice.
His data visualizations have helped digital activists understand their own work in a new and powerful way. From the 2009 Iranian protests to the Arab Spring to Kony2012 video to Occupy Wall Street, Gilad has created free public visualizations of how information flows online, particularly on Twitter. Gilad’s work demonstrates has geeks can use their skills to support and explain digital activism in a way that is not only empirical but also artful.
I was a panelist for Newsweek/Daily Beast’s recentDigital Power Index. Though the Revolutionaries group was more representative of nationality, ethnicity, and gender than the rest of the list, I’d like to share my original list of 10 nominees, and also take an opportunity to highlight some of the world’s best digital activists.
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7) Tim Pool
If the Occupy Movement had a Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow, it would be Tim Pool. Using a smartphone and external battery Tim has become the movement’s unofficial broadcaster, and is one of the world’s more effective and innovative citizen journalists. He self-broadcasts at TimcastTVand his coverage ofOccupy has been carried and syndicated by mainstream outlets such as NBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and TIME.
Tim’s method of journalism is not only successful, but also innovative. He employs a live-chat stream in his reporting, which allows the viewing public to ask questions, which he can respond to live.He also lets his viewers play producer, directing him on where and when to go and where to point his camera. He’s telling a 21st century story in a 21st century way: engaged, interactive, and innovative.
I was a panelist for Newsweek/Daily Beast’s recentDigital Power Index. Though the Revolutionaries group was more representative of nationality, ethnicity, and gender than the rest of the list, I’d like to share my original list of 10 nominees, and also take an opportunity to highlight some of the world’s best digital activists.
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8)Zainab Al-Khawaja
The Arab Spring came to Bahrain in 2011, but it didn’t stay for long. After a month of encampments and violent removals at Pearl Roundabout in Manama, troops cleared the traffic circle for the last time on March 16th and tore down the Pearl Roundabout monument two days later.
But the revolution is still quietly alive, and that is largely due to fearless activists like Zainab Al-Khawaja,better known by her Twitter handle, @AngryArabia. Active both online and offline, Zainab tweets and sit-insto challenge the Bahraini government.
Zainab’s current cause is demanding the release of her father, human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who has been jailed for life. Defying the term slacktivism, Zainab shows that digital activism is not for slackers or the weak-hearted.
Below is a short documentary film about the emergence of Yo Soy 132, the pro-democracy student movement now emerging in Mexico.
The movement was named by folksonomy. When the mainstream media challenged the legitimacy of the first spontaneous protest, calling the student participants trained thugs, 131 of the student protesters jointly posted videos challenging the mainstream media narrative. When others began to identify themselves as the 132nd participant as an act of solidarity,and that phrase became a meme, the movement gained a name, and additional momentum.
Leaderless, hybrid (online and offline), digitally savvy, self-broadcasting: this is the new face of activism.
I was a panelist for Newsweek/Daily Beast’s recentDigital Power Index. Though the Revolutionaries group was more representative of nationality, ethnicity, and gender than the rest of the list, I’d like to share my original list of 10 nominees, and also take an opportunity to highlight some of the world’s best digital activists.
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9)Ilya Klishin
Feb26.ru website showing people signed up for the White Circle action
Head of the online resource Epic Hero, Ilya was behind the creation of the first and most influential Facebook group that lead to the big protests as well as the biggest Russian political flashmob “White Circle” (about 20,000 participants, see image left). White Circle allowed people to sign up for the protest via the websitefeb26.rurather than relying on a traditional coordinating committee.
By letting a computer program do the dirty work a major anti-government action took place, yet there were no organizers to arrest. It’s innovators like Ilya that make Russian autocrats sweat.
I was a panelist for Newsweek/Daily Beast’s recentDigital Power Index. Though the Revolutionaries group was more representative of nationality, ethnicity, and gender than the rest of the list, I’d like to share my original list of 10 nominees, and also take an opportunity to highlight some of the world’s best digital activists.
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10)Ramy Raoof
Though former Google Executive Wael Ghonim got most of the digital activism attention in the wake of the Arab Spring, Ramy Raoof is still going strong.Ramy began his digital journey as a bloggerand during the Egyptian Revolution also livestreamed video on Bambuser, postedphotos on Flickr, and livetweeted (@RamyRaoof).He was a one-man broadcast channel for the revolution.
A respected activist online and offline, Ramy manages to bridge the gap between official institutions and street action. He is published widely in English and Arabic and works with large swathes of groups in Egypt and throughout the region.
His is currently at work developing mobile networks to protect demonstrators after they are detained and conducting digital security trainings across Egypt, ensuring there will be lots of digital activists to follow in his footsteps.
If the Occupy Movement had a Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow, it would be 
The Arab Spring came to Bahrain in 2011, but it didn’t stay for long. After a month of encampments and violent removals at Pearl Roundabout in Manama, troops cleared the traffic circle for the last time on March 16th and tore down the Pearl Roundabout monument two days later.
