Street protest is a potent form of direct action, used across history and geography as a tool for progress and social justice. Because of its radical nature, it is always at odds with power, and is constantly threatened by repression. It is even more vulnerable in the current state of affairs, as it has been rendered impractical by the COVID-19 pandemic and the global quarantine experienced all over the world. But there are countless causes that still call for protesting, including the treatment of undocumented people, the struggle of women and victims of domestic violence, the labor rights of essential workers, and the protection of ordinary citizens against government surveillance. How do we enable people’s voices to be heard, despite their inability to assemble? In reaction to this crisis, can we take social movements online? What would it mean to occupy virtual space?
I suggest developing a decentralized, ethical platform that enables activists to assemble and occupy the web.
I hope to lower the barrier of entry to political mobilization, and channel housebound people’s energy to connect with their local and online communities. To achieve this, I find inspiration in the work of hacktivist groups like Anonymous, who leveraged distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack tools as a way to protest various causes.
While those tools historically allowed few users to generate a lot of fake traffic in order to disrupt targeted websites, I suggest doing the opposite: creating a tool that helps many people to assemble and engage in meaningful ways, while generating organic — yet disruptive — traffic. Below, I describe what a version of this tool could be.
When starting the app, users would be required to fill two pieces of information: the domain name they would like to target, and an emoji that would represent them and their cause as an avatar. Upon submitting this information, the app would load the URL provided by the user, who would then be introduced to the protest space. Being part of a protest would look like browsing a website, where the page would be augmented to become a virtual reality chat room populated with many (thousands?) of free-floating emojis representing other participants. Every participant could move around, chat with their neighbors, write slogans and amplify those written by others. All of this activity would generate traffic against the targeted website. But beyond mere disruption, I aim to create a space where deliberation and a sense of communion is possible.
Challenges for this project come in many forms: ethical, legal, and technical.
First, it can seem totally irresponsible to pour gasoline on the fire given the current context of crisis: a tool that encourages network disruption exposes endangered populations to harmful mob behaviors. Thankfully, the core distinction between this project and existing DDoS interfaces — the reliance on many users to generate some amount of traffic — makes it relatively ineffective as a weapon. Nonetheless, it will be critical to assess risks, provide regulation mechanisms, and ensure accountability.
Second, as this project is rooted in civil disobedience, considering its legal implications will be key. In the US for instance, denial of service attacks fall under CFAA laws, which are to be taken seriously. We will need to be attentive to the risks users might face, so we can provide them with clear, actionable information. Just like in their real life counterparts, participation in online protests carries risks and requires well-informed decisions from all parties involved.
Third, there are inherent challenges attached to the implementation of decentralized technologies. As protests catch fire, we will need to rely on peer-to-peer protocols in order to facilitate communications without flooding our own infrastructure. We will also need to investigate whether we can provide privacy guarantees, in the form of encryption and onion routing.
Please reach out if you would like to team up 🙏 As you can see there are plenty of fun problems to tackle.
2 replies on “Project Proposal: Walkout, a space for online protest”
Would like to chat about your idea more.
Ian, I love the observation that with physical space closing, we need spaces for protest. That seems absolutely right to me and very much worth exploring. I think Mols Sauter has done some of the best work on DDoS and ethics in “The Coming Swarm” and I highly recommend reading it. What you’re proposing technically sounds a lot like Third Voice, a browser plugin from 1999 – there’s rich thinking around whether someone has the right to annotate your website, to react to it, and to be copresent in the space you’ve created. I am excited to see where you go with this, but would urge you to be sure you engage not just with the morality of DDoS, but with questions like artist’s rights – does anyone have the right to speak alongside or over your speech?