Anarchogeek

The RNC Protests, Technology, and the infoline we setup

This week showed the social movements in the US adopting another level of technological sophistication. I've been really impressed with the organization that various groups put in to the New York RNC protests. Many groups put out special magazines, guide's to the protests with high quality maps and calendars, sophisticated websites, SMS (text messaging systems), web radios, dispatch desks, and the automated infoline. There was a plethora of good information and communications systems for the protests.

There has been an escalating struggle between protesters and police over communications and coordination during protests involving mass direct action. Our task is to help facilitate horizontal communication and information distribution to all the activists in the streets. The police want to keep the protests under control and stay a step ahead of the protesters.

So, all of this communications infrastructure helps on a tactical level. For example, when the thousand coffin march needs 60 more people, it's easy to get the message out and find those people. When there is a blockade or arrests, activists know where, to either go there or avoid arrest. All of this helps make the protest more effective.

But the other, and perhaps bigger part of what we are doing is we are constructing a spectacle. Something people can follow. A protest which isn't a march followed by ten boring speeches. The radio, breaking news, sms, and phone line updates all create a larger event which imparts the energy of the protest around the world. Maybe the whole world isn't actually watching, but somebody everywhere is. From Quito to Capetown, Seoul to SoHo, we've created a way for people to follow and identify with the protests. This is an essential aspect to the globalization of social movements and the 'anti-globalization movement.'

The project i was personally involved in this time was an automated information line. People could call 212-400-7458 to hear breaking news from indymedia, the day's events from counterconvention.org, get important contact numbers, and listen to radio from the anoise indymedia radio collective, and pacifica's wbai. It was a last minute project project which showed how using free software and about $10, we could create quality phone based information systems. The system is based on a software package called Asterisk which uses VOIP (Voice Over IP) internet telephony to read information from websites, convert the text to speech, and provide it to people over a phone line.

With little pre-publicity we've received over 2000 phone calls over the last 4 days. From a cell phone or a pay phone, it's an easy way for protesters to get an update. Before the indymedia radio and breaking news were mostly useful people at home. Now this kind of information is available for the protesters.

The project grew out of a VOIP sprint organized by Aspiration Tech in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. We were looking in to applications for non-profit's and activist organizations to use VOIP and internet telephony in relation to their work and the upcoming presidential elections. After getting the system setup, a casual conversation lead to the topic of "wouldn't it be cool to do something like this for the RNC protests next week."

Gaba and I spent the week coding away on the system along with Micah from riseup.net and Blaine from RadicalDesigns.org. We got DemocracyInAction.org to donate the use of a server and we were off. There were some bumpy points at the start where the server kept crashing, and we've had more dropped calls than we would like, but it's come together amazingly well.

Future applications of this technology will include looking at cheap and easy call blasts, low cost distributed call centers, conference calling, a phone based activist meeting reminder service, and easy to setup information lines like we one we setup for the RNC protests. Until now the telephone has been an organizing tool which was dominated by large well funded organizations and corporations. With the use of free software and VOIP, it will become a tool which grassroots groups can use like websites, email, and mailinglists.

Posted by rabble at September 2, 2004 07:21 PM | TrackBack