Blackout

The week before last, Wikipedia went dark, along with a great many other sites to protest against SOPA, and the threats to internet freedom. During various events of the Arab Spring (I wondered who coined that term), various states turned off the internet, and / or mobile networks. In China internet censorship is routine via the Great Firewall, and undoubtedly things will get worse. The internet will soon be anything but free.

Internally there is a strong rationale for using Facebook as the building block of our activist network. It is the tool people use, where people are at, better funded than our open source equivalence, and yet we hesitate to trust them. Meetup is a more palatable choice, and a more powerful organising tool, but it’s not where people at are – so it’s problematic.

We don’t want to trust our organising structure to a private company with differing interests to ours. The Guardian by-line ‘if you're not paying for an online service, you're not the customer; you're the product’, didn’t help and relying on any tool you don’t control to effect change, makes you vulnerable to the forces that can control that tool – or turn it off.

So in the debate between online and offline activism, if offline activism more robust against such interferences. Traditional freedoms, which may again change, protect the right to assembly, to meet others, to campaign etc. Public opinion is generally against bugging such meetings, police infiltration, and the paranoia of the security state, and instinctively these activities are more protected than my right to say setup a Facebook group to denounce Volkswagens lobbying against climate change laws.

However the near impossible challenges we face, preclude the safe options of robust organising offline, and dictate the risks involved in using commercial social media structures to reach more people, to mobilise more people to bring down the institutions that are herding civilisation to destruction. Risks I’m bound to deliver on, but unhappy about.

Twelve sons of Odin

Ragnarok is approaching, and to fend off the giants, we wish to marshal 250,000 UK citizens to hold fast against the darkness. Or at least twelve is a good number, and there must be twelve good examples of successful online campaigns (or at least 12 seriously large mobilisations), that together can mobilise that many people. This list may evolve as I think of some more.

1. Argentinian forest law – bloody minded persistent, lots of TV coverage, celebrity endorsements, complete organisational buy in, strong digital aspects in a country not used to such things, persistent repetitive emailing, friend gets friend asks and arm twisting, and some relentless offline campaigning to get 1.5 million signatures
2. Airplot – the big wow factor, based on a cool idea, that’s instantly communicable. Oh and funny. I remember the meeting where we talked about the ‘fuck you’ moment which we kind of failed to capitalize on, but still we managed near 100,000 Beneficial Owners, of which 40-50,000 were UK citizens.
3. Protect the Human – a powerful idea that resonates, promoted everywhere from badges to comedy gigs. Cool graphics, friendly faces, persistent consistent comms over several years, and somewhere near 230,000 sign ups (maybe internationally)
4. Make Poverty History white bands – for a while they were everywhere, a clean distinct image, and something worth belong to. A fashion necessity, huge amounts of celebrity endorsements, TV advertising and 43.7 million apparently took action on world poverty day.
5. The Big Ask – relentless climate change campaigning, with an impossible, then an achievable end game, celebrity endorsements, cross party support and lots and lots of hard core offline campaigning, to get 130,000+ sign ups to something we won.
6. Stop the War march - the moment was right, the coalition including everyone – esp. faith groups, transport was well sorted, the police tried to stop it, 250+ cities contributed bodies, not to mention it becoming the cause celeb of many of the good and the great. Probably 1 ½ million (police estimate 750,000, organisers 2 million) - ok not very online here, but seriously big numbers
7. Nestle viral videos – a neat concept, a cool video, and an enormous social media gaff, compounded by the video they tried to ban. Total views 1.5 million, and a couple of hundred thousand emails, which would have been more impressive if they’d been time.
8. Fuel taxes and road pricing - 590,000 sign a house of commons petition, protestors threatening to shut every refinery in the UK, part orchastrated by big buisness, part by campaigners, and in the main about as grassroots as you can get.
9. Volkswagen Jedi game – a last minute idea, a growing light sabre, rewards for spreading and signing people up (friend get friend again), and some neat online prizes leading to a real life prize – again this could have, or perhaps could be so much more, 490,000 Jedi and counting.
10. Save our Forests - 38 degrees getting big numbers on an e-petition, 540,000 ish, capturing the moment, but hard to quantify the impact. Opotunistic democracy can work but there's more going on here

To be continued – I need 4 more ideas, and to distill the very essence out of these.