The Point Blog

A little over four years ago, Tad Hirsch, now a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote the code for TXTmob. The service was widely used by demonstrators (as well as reporters and police officers according to the New York Times) during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Hirsch, now completing his dissertation, was subpoenaed by the New York City Law Department in February. The subpoena instructed Hirsch to produce, among a wide-range of materials, text messages sent via TXTmob, information on the senders, when the messages were sent and where they were sent to. Explaining that he has a “moral responsibility” to protect the privacy of TXTmob users, Hirsch has not complied. Here, he discusses the protest in a time of connectivity, his “when, not if” mentality regarding getting subpoenaed, and the dangers of trusting so much information so so few telecommunications service providers.

Make Something Happen: With what has happened with your case, and most recently with this 15-year-old getting summoned to court in the UK for his involvement with Anonymous, it seems that Internet action and organizing can be something of a gamble.

Tad Hirsch: How do you mean?

MSH: I mean that there seems to be no clear precedent for some of these cases and as a result, organizers end up getting in legal trouble accordingly.

Hirsch: I would disagree. These kinds of cases have been handled for a couple of decades, but without the same technology involved. The bigger problem is that there is some reasonable legislation on the books — of course it could be better — but the telecoms don’t challenge any government requests when they come in. When there is a subpoena, it’s like they’re given a date, time to comply, and they just give in. There are some laws that protect 3rd party providers like myself, but there aren’t a lot of examples of companies stepping up and defending the rights of their customers. That is a real challenge for activists.

In my case, I knew that there was the potential of getting subpoenaed; I very much anticipated this. The reason that we chose to make TXTmob was because we had recognized the track record of commercial providers. There was clearly the potential for the government to look into the records of users, so rather than having people use UPOC, we encouraged them to use us to be safe.

MSH: Is there a specific incident that comes to mind which made you wary of corporate communication providers?

Hirsch: The people involved with TXTmob each have long activist histories, myself included. Over the years, we have seen this sort of thing happen regularly. Indymedia servers have been seized all over the world. This behavior is not new. Depending on the kind of potential action that you’re involved with, you have to take precautions. Radical activists talk a great deal about security culture. If you’re planning for a large mobilization and you’re at a meeting, you’ll find that most people don’t use their full names, or even their first names. Activists aren’t naive and within this culture, there is a sometimes-jaded, realistic, hard-nosed understanding.

MSH: So here you are, four years after the convention, and the police come to you. You anticipated this, as you said, but did you expect for it to take so long to come back to you? And does dealing with this sort of thing throw a kink into your dissertation work?

Hirsch: The great irony of it all is that I was sitting in the MIT library and writing my dissertation. I had been writing specifically about TXTmob and about the notion that cops could conceivably come looking for records at some point later. While writing that sentence, my phone rings and my wife tells me that there are cops at the door looking for me. If nothing else, it had taken this theoretical construction and given it a real empirical foundation [laughs]. It hasn’t been a huge impediment. Things like this take a long time to work out. I have a couple of lawyers who are really good and doing what lawyers do. We’ll have to wait and see.

MSH: What fascinates you now about the way that people are presently using the web to organize?

Hirsch: The central tension now, it seems, results from the fact that all of the web 2.0 tools out there are so easily accessible. If you think about texting, there are now a number of organizations using Twitter as their tool of choice. There is good reason to do that, as it is cheap and it is a big, robust tool. It raises some questions, though. The user is putting sensitive data into the hands of people and forces they may not know. Some people are working on coming up with alternatives, such as taking TXTmob and redeveloping it as a Drupal module, which is one alternative. Because of the way that messaging works, there is a limit on what you can really do with the model. One should ask, though, what is really at stake when we give over all of our communication infrastructure to a small number of companies?

(Photo Credit: Duncan Davidson)

-Filed in People

On this day, June 6th, 2008, the news brings to our attention libel as a terror tactic, Scientology versus the Internet, the never-ending praise for social networks in the student rally scene, and much, much more.

• Net issues are are hot in the ‘08 elections.
• Scientology v. The Internet (and the “terrorists” who lurk there).
• Speaking of terrorists, have you ever thought of libel as a terror tactic?
• Praise for Internet, Social Networking in student rallies.
• Is the Homegrown Terror Prevention Act a threat to the First Amendment?
• Mention of a flash mob in a reenactment of earth history (what?)
• And finally, Craig Newmark weighs in on pretty much everything.

-Filed in News

Trolls: An Overview

As an activist, organizer, or someone who frequents the Internet with a specific, constructive purpose, you have very likely experienced a troll in one of the web-communities that you visit. There are some people who go online with the specific purpose of stirring the pot, causing anger and ruckus, and spreading their flavor for disobedience. They can be the bane of any web-organizers’ existence and there are seemingly endless amounts of pages that have how-to info on how to deter them from your web-community. If you have not experienced one, Wikipedia describes a troll as:

Someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.

From the Experts: Encyclopedia Dramatica on Trolling

Though for a more authentic definition of the term, it is best to head to the authorities of trolling themselves: the community of Encyclopedia Dramatica. ED is a Bizarro-wiki—the early-Australia of collaborative web-references. It is a penal colony of Wiki-communities, specifically Wikipedia (in addition to the following list, they define trolls as Anyone who disagrees with a Wikipedia administrator and thus, People who edit Encyclopedia Dramatica), edited in the style of an exceedingly politically incorrect The Devil’s Dictionary, and existing as a playground for all wiki-trolls to frolic in accordingly. In their own definition of the term, they offer a list which includes:

• A person who brings life to a tired, dull internet message board by purposeful attempts to start flame wars or Internet drama by posting comments that are patently Fucktarded, yet still inflammatory enough to enrage the stupid, irrational and humorless. The moment someone points out that the troll in question was just gunning for a reaction usually results in a fire drill.
• A person that throws around the troll insult to: anyone who defeats them in an argument, anyone who points out facts the real troll doesn’t want people to know, or someone the real troll picks at random to stick falsely with a troll label for sheer lulz. This second type of troll is 98.9999999% of all trolls now and is often called an Anti-troll.

Meet Our Troll

As previously mentioned, there are a number of websites that explore trolling as a social phenomenon. Some offer psychological explanations for the behavior, tips for managing trolling on feminist forums, and one looks at trolling as a social movement. Others offer a series of how-to-troll tactical suggestions. Many try to offer explanations for the behavior. Out of perverse curiosity, I am more interested in talking with, not reading about trolls to discover their motivations. Thus, I realized that was in luck when I found out that a friend, a 24-year-old administrative worker at a law firm in the Midwest, is a closet troll.

Here, we try to get to the bottom of some of his behavior.

“THIS IS WHAT YOU LIBBERAL MORANS GET 4 ALL YOURE GAY RIGHTS MARCHES”

Troll: I troll everything. If politics is being discussed, I will post as DON ALBERTSON, this crazy conservative, and I will say stuff like THIS IS WHAT YOU LIBBERAL MORANS GET 4 ALL YOURE GAY RIGHTS MARCHES AND ABORTION RALLYS AND ISREAL HATING………SERVES U RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I even hit this wrestling forum I frequent out of my own personal interest. The people there know it’s me, though, so it’s a little different. There, I use this one character called HUGEJOCKBENCHPRESS. He’s is my favorite, though. He is pretty much every dude on the BODYBUILDING.COM forum.

Make Something Happen: Why is he your favorite?

Troll: He is sort of a latent homosexual. His name refers to his strength and size and prowess. Like you’d assume that this guy could bench press more than 200 pounds, but he talks matter-of-factly about only benching 100. He’s clueless. My friend on the site goes as this character Remington T. Prescot (of the London Prescotts). This other guy is ‘the CHICK magnet.’ HJBP sort of idolizes him.

Trolling Etiquette, Humor

MSH: What is your response to this, from Encyclopedia Dramatica’s post on trolling: Most trolls believe, honestly, that they are in fact funny, anyone who does not agree with them is obviously either overly sensitive, has no life, no sense of humour, or is a combination of two or all of these.

Troll: Yes. That’s true. Also, my girlfriend doesn’t think it is funny at all.

MSH: What about forums where people don’t know you? How do you decide what to troll?

Troll: It is usually contingent on how seriously everyone is taking themselves.

Today there was this article about abortion in the local college paper. There was some mention of an abortion rally. All these whack-job right-wing guys got on the boards and they were trying to give non-religious reasons for being against abortion. So basically, I got on there and I backed up all of the conservatives as DON ALBERTSON. I picture this guy [left] as a younger version of Don. Then I added that people shouldnt “commit abortion” because it’s murdering babies and everyone will go to hell for it. I did it to blow their cover.

Stephen Colbert, Socrates: IRL Trolls

MSH: Do you always troll using a conservative persona?

Troll: Mostly. I find it easier to do. Stephen Colbert is sort of the ultimate IRL (in real life) troll.

MSH: Do you have any other heroes in trolling?

Troll: ED has a really great entry on Socrates and about how he was the original troll:

Socrates (pronounced “So-krates”) was a famous IRL troll who lived at least 10 million years ago in ancient Greece. He invented the “Socratic Method” trolling technique, which consists of asking your opponent stupid questions until they leave or go batshit insane, either outcome providing much lulz. That’s what Socrates did. it was a very indirect way of arguing. You sort of just mark points and let people connect the dots themselves.

MSH: How do you decide where you troll?

Troll: Again, It’s based entirely on finding forums in which the participants are taking themselves too seriously.

MSH: Like that part in the ED trolling entry which reads: Novice trolls often experience troll’s remorse. Such feelings tend to pass once they realize that people who take the Internets seriously enough to get upset by trolling really ought to get over themselves.

Troll: Exactly. But I’ve never experienced troll’s remorse. That usually happens to people who troll message boards on memorial sites set up for people who have died or support groups for fat people. It happens when trolls get called out and then feel bad. I don’t do that. I just go to places where people are taking themselves too seriously. Suicide is serious. I can’t mess with that.

More Moral Than the Others

MSH: So that leads to the question, is some sort of moral strata of trolls? Are you more or less moral than other trolls you’ve encountered

Troll: Well, I don’t do the memorial/fat trolling thing so I guess so. I am sort of a nihilist, but I don’t drag other people online into it.

MSH: Finally, a lot of people have these sites about controlling trolling where they offer wisdom and psychological observations about trolls. Do you think there is any point in trying to control trolling? Do you provide any sort of service?

Troll: I mean, trolling is supposed to be subversive so it makes sense that the people in charge of these sorts of websites and discussions don’t want to be subverted. But these people put too much faith in honest, objective discussion, which, in a lot of these forums, anyway, most people aren’t interested in; they’re more interested in spreading their own dogma.

-Filed in People

On this day, June 5th, 2008, the news brings to our attention the offering of a manifesto to political guerrilla warriors, the triumph of activism over sexism in Sen. Obama’s win, a look at this year’s National Conference for Media reform, the syndication of computer hackers, Twitter tools, and more.

• Bibi van der Zee explains how to campaign effectively.
• A look at the fourth annual National Conference for Media Reform.
• Computer Hackers syndicate!
• Egyptian jail Twitter guy tries to Tweet his translator to freedom.
• A transcript of a talk with David Sirota on The Uprising, his book on eActivism.
• Open Left: Activism, not sexism elevated Sen. Obama.
• Gerry Nicholls offers a manifesto on how to wage political guerrilla warfare.
• Apparently green advocates are more likely to be tech savvy.
• Micah L. Sifry, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, discusses the upcoming conference.
• Having trouble putting Twitter to work for you (when it’s actually up and running)?
• Post-quake, China re-tightens media limits.
• Lincoln, Obama, and Rove: Organization matters
• And finally, LA Times readers respond to the Guerrilla Gardener.

-Filed in News

Bill McKibben, one of the first people to bring global climate change to the attention of the general public, is one of the most articulate and well-respected voices in the modern environmental movement. His books on localism, environmentalism, and sustainability have sold millions and he presently directs the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism at Middlebury College in Vermont.

McKibben’s Step It Up Campaign, which took him across the state of Vermont by foot, made his demand for Congress to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 was one of the largest global climate change awareness campaigns to date. In 2006, I had the pleasure of seeing McKibben arrive to the fanfare of thousands of Vermonters in Burlington, Vermont at the end of his statewide walk with Sen. Bernie Sanders—then in the middle of his Congressional campaign—by his side. A follow-up campaign in 2007 stepped up expectations, demanding that the Senate reduce emissions by 10% over the next three years.

Now with the creation of 350.org, McKibben has taken his awareness campaign online. The number makes reference to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (350 per million) that would conceivably cause irreversible damage to the earth (read McKibben’s oped in the Washington Post about the number here). With the help of Internet communication, he plans on using their website to help to spread this message throughout the world. McKibben took some time to answer the following questions about bringing off-line activism online, online activism off-line, how living in Vermont influences his engagement as an activist, and more.

Make Something Happen: What led you to make the transition from informant to organizer?

Bill McKibben: The sense that writing about global warming alone was not getting the job done.

MSH: So why are you bringing your activism to the Internet?

McKibben: [Doing so] allows us to organize cheaply and quickly, which is good since I don’t have much money and we don’t have much time.

MSH: What is 350.org’s game plan for bringing other activists and potentially concerned people on-board? How will you help transition “traditional” activists to participating in netroots activism?

McKibben: We are literally open to anyone—and we want them to be traditional activists. We just use the net to bring actions together; we want those actions taking place in the real world.

If [this campaign remained strictly online] it wouldn’t work. The net is just a tool to organize geographically dispersed real-world action—Step It Up, last year, was 2,000 demonstrations in all 50 states.

MSH: You are an active member of the Methodist Church. How has your involvement there affected your tendencies towards feeling compelled to do this sort of organizing? How has it influenced your community awareness?

McKibben: In the strong sense that the Gospels demand that, above all, we try to show some concern for our neighbors. And at the moment we’re showing none—not for the people around the world who are already drowning, dying of malaria, facing famine because of our unwillingness to moderate our use of fossil fuels. And we’re not showing much concern for all the people that will come after us either.

MSH: Does living in Vermont influence your feelings toward political/community/environmental awareness? Are you influenced to communicate differently with people from an organizational perspective?

McKibben: Vermont is on a scale that makes sense—there’s real possibility of knowing a great many of the people who live near you. That makes politics of all kinds easier. And it’s also easier for us to see our impact on the place we love—both negative and positive.

MSH: Next week marks the 26 year anniversary of the passing of legendary organizer Saul Alinsky, who we will celebrate on Make Something Happen. Were you at all influenced by him?

McKibben: We wrote a little organizing handbook last year, Fight Global Warming Now, that was a kind of take on Alinsky for the internet age. So many great lessons, many of which still apply

-Filed in People

On this day, June 4th, 2008, the news brings to our attention the flash mob’s cooler cousin, digital ninjas, “computer literate” terrorism, guerrilla campaigning in Idaho, the 10-year-old’s digital pedophile costume, and more.

• Forbes takes a look at Kiva and its founders, Matt and Jessica Flannery.
• Charlie Beckett of the Polis Journalism Society: Does the Internet make things more democratic?
• SleepWhenDeadNYC puts on a steroid-pumped flash-mob festival. Is this the flash mobs more mature cousin? What is this?
• Perhaps talk of Egypt and Facebook activism will fill the void in conversation choices left by the end of primary season.
• Adeline Flash Mob advertises upcoming (ninja) mob, video.
• Have you heard about the 10-year-old girl who masked herself as an Internet pedophile?
• A look at Guerrilla campaigning through the eyes of Smokefree Boise.
• And finally, there is no shortage of reportage on the rise of “computer literate” terrorism.

-Filed in News

A note to activists and organizers on the importance of not burning out.

-Filed in Uncategorized

Welcome to our first podcast. For it, we talked a bit with Tom Inhaler from Know More about the site’s role as a corporate watchdog search engine. Know More won second place at last week’s NetSquared Mashup Challenge, and they’re now trying to add to their new Firefox extension even more functionality for its users. We talk here with Inhaler about his efforts to inform ethical consumerism, how people are motivated to keep Know More up-to-date (all information there is user-generated) and Know More’s plans to move forward with community building and online coordination.

Oh! And a special thanks to Connecticut-based Waiting For Sully for the opening song.

Download MSHcast # 1 here: [display_podcast]

-Filed in People

On this day, June 3rd, 2008, the news brings to our attention a new place where social action and social blogging meet, David Brooks on collective action on The Hill, the maturation of the Internet as a political tool, and the very last bit we’ll post on this whole My Chemical Romance march thing (we swear! But isn’t it entertaining?)

• A look at new ways to bridge social blogging and social action.
• David Brooks explores collective action on The Hill (sort of oldish).
• The same-old, same-old on the political maturation of the 2.0 era.
• The Air Force, the Army, and the Internet “civil war.”
• Tania’s cleavage (for Internet Freedom!) strikes again!
• And finally, our last post on the ever-entertaining battle being waged by the My Chemical Romance-led Internet Masses

-Filed in News

On this day, June 2nd, 2008, the news brings to our attention flash mobs (everywhere), black bloggers fighting for a voice, YouTube as the great political organizer, David Sirota on his book The Uprising, and more.

• More on My Chemical Romance’s march — It sounds like it was a bust.
• Flash mob (Critical Mass) in Sofia!
• Flash mob on the Underground (and in jail)!
• YouTube: the great political equalizer.
• Black Bloggers are trying to put their voices out there, especially with regard to the DNC.
• And Finally, David Sirota talks about his book The Uprising on CNN:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=B5bROFU_y84[/youtube]

-Filed in News