Dissent via technology: How texting helps fuel global protests

Chennai

After that march ended, she pulled up details on Instagram for a car caravan demonstration just a few blocks away. “It was extremely powerful, not only Facebook but Instagram,” Burris said. “It was very easy to mobilise.”

Protesters are using a variety of technology tools to organize rallies, record police violence and communicate during the marches sweeping the US and other countries following the death of George Floyd. Some of that involves secure messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, which can encrypt messages to thwart spies. Those apps, along with others for listening to police scanners and recording video, are enjoying an uptick in popularity.

But experts say convenience and reach are key. “Reaching as many people as possible is the number one criterion for which platform someone is going to use,” said Steve Jones, a University of Illinois at Chicago media researcher who studies communication technology. That means Twitter, Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram remain the easiest ways for people to organise and document the mass protests. Facebook’s tools remain popular despite a barrage of criticism over the platform’s inaction after President Donald Trump posted a message that suggested protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.

“I don’t want to support or be a part of something that is possibly supporting Trump and his racist, hate filed spew,” said Sarah Wildman, who’s been to three protests in Atlanta and has used Instagram exclusively to locate and to document the demonstrations she attended. But she said she feels that, at this point, “the benefits of Instagram outweigh not using it.”

Half a century ago during the civil rights protests, Jones said, it was almost impossible to know what was going on during a protest. “There was a lot of rumour, a lot of hearsay,” he said. “Now you can reach everyone almost instantaneously.”

Wildman said she uses Instagram’s “live” function to find out what is happening during protests, especially when protesters in the back might not know what’s happening at the front. At one, she said, people started yelling that police were using tear gas — but it wasn’t true, which she learned by checking Instagram. Organisers are also using Telegram, an app that allows private messages to be sent to thousands of people at once, creating channels for specific cities to give updates on protest times and locations, as well as updates on where police are making arrests or staging. One NYC Telegram channel for the protests grew from just under 300 subscribers on Monday to nearly 2,500 by Friday.

During a peaceful rally in Providence, Rhode Island, on Friday, Anjel Newmann, 32, said that while she’s mostly using Instagram and Facebook to organise, younger people are using Snapchat. The main problem: It’s hard to tell which online flyers are legitimate. “That’s one of the things we haven’t figured out yet,” she said. “There was a flyer going around saying this was cancelled today.” The simplicity of shooting and sharing video has also made possible recordings of violence that can spread to millions within moments. A smartphone video of Floyd’s death helped spark the broad outrage that led to the protests. Apps like Signal are seeing an uptick in downloads according to Apptopia, which tracks such data. Signal was downloaded 37,000 times over the weekend in the US, it said, more than at any other point since it launched in 2014. Other private messaging apps, such as Telegram and Wickr, have not seen a similar uptick. Meanwhile, apps like Police Scanner and 5-0 Police Scanner, which allow anyone to listen to live police dispatch chatter — and may be illegal in some states — racked up 213,000 downloads over the weekend, Apptopia said. That is 125% more than the weekend before and a record for the category.

Associated Press