I was recently thinking that most organization happens online nowadays. I see two problems with this.
First problem is that it’s fundamentally insecure as we know that governments collect massive amounts of information about online activity. Even in cases where you use e2e secure communication, there is a lot of metadata being leaked regarding whom you’re communicating with, and how often. Devices are also highly insecure. For example, if you’re using an Android phone it’s very difficult for an average user to secure it properly.
The second problem is that in case of any civil unrest or riots the government can simply turn off the internet completely cutting people off from each other.
I think it’s important for people to start organizing the old fashioned way offline. Starting local meetups and even using pen paper. We’ve become very reliant on the internet, but we don’t own it. I see that as a huge risk for any serious movements such as the one developing in US.
Another thing that’s worth mentioning is that people doing protesting should have mesh network apps installed providing a fallback in case the internet or mobile services are shut down. In fact, if enough people can be organized to install these apps, it’s better to keep cell functionality off on the phones when protesting to begin with.
Well in the height of a pandemic we do not really have a choice but to limit our irl organising. I don’t know where you are, but in my organisation all organising is done irl apart from some propaganda on social media.
Yeah, right now is not be the best time obviously I’m in Canada, and we do have offline organization here, but just wanted to throw that out.
Couldn’t agree more. It goes without saying, but expansion of IRL organisation also necessitates the adoption of measures that protect radical organising activities from entryists and state spies. Screening organisations and compartmentalised networks of individuals that work under the same umbrella but are kept at arm’s length of each other is critical. Recruitment grounds need to be identified and very careful attention should be paid in selecting “graduates” that can be included in more hard line political activism.
Police spies have seen fit to infiltrate organisations as benign and liberal as green peace. They will absolutely try to worm their way into any genuine socialist movement and so opsec is essential for any offline organisation. I imagine there are probably already spies that lurk on spaces like this as is, watching for precisely things like this when real comrades try to step up and form a real organisation so they can strangle it in it’s crib. Beware of agitators.
This is why strict vetting is so important, and why big-tent orgs with little to no barriers to entry end up becoming infested with cops.
@yogthos@lemmygrad.ml of course nothing can replace local organization, and joining an org in your city is the only thing that counts as “real organization” IMO. But once those real orgs are set up, we can at least use secure platforms like matrix, and more in the future, you’re 100% correct that every revolutionary grouping is gonna need some radioheads / mesh networking people to set up secure comms, because the internet will be unavailable in a revolutionary situation.
Very much agree, a strict vetting process is incredibly important. And yeah, I think it’s fine to use secure platforms as long as people are aware of the risks and have a fallback plan. One of the biggest risks I see is that in cases where the users of the platform can be traced back to actual people that basically gives up the whole network to anybody surveilling the platform.
