Digital Protest

Some of country's biggest ever rallies sweep major cities as bus fare rise is last straw in spiral of high costs and poor services

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Reflecting the importance of social networks in spreading the message about the protests, some in São Paulo – where numbers were estimated at between 30,000 and 100,000 – carried banners declaring "We come from Facebook".

Most protesters were young and for many it was their first experience of such a giant rally. "My generation has never experienced this," said Thiago Firbida, a student. "Since the dictatorship Brazilians never bothered to take over the streets. They did not believe they had a reason to. But now Brazil is once again in crisis, with a constant rise in prices, so people are finally reacting."

Exactly the right approach: use the public side of Facebook and Twitter for what they’re good at (public communications) and turn to invite-only channels for the real work of getting people out on the streets. That way, when the police come after your Twitter activists, others can keep working behind the scenes.

Demonstrators in Turkey are taking on the media - and the work of the media - over the protests surrounding Gezi Park.

Widespread use of social media and political humour have given the recent demonstrations a viral effect.

Icelandic legislator and Icelandic Modern Media Initiative co-founder Birgitta Jonsdottir When WikiLeaks burst onto the international stage in 2010, the small Nordic nation of Iceland offered it a safe haven.

Edward Snowden has stepped into public view as the source of disclosures about the nation’s surveillance programs.

"As a whistle-blower who has come to his own defense, Mr. Snowden has engaged the public as a player in the debate. Social media, most notably Twitter, is alive with commentary about who he is and what he did. What is normally a vacuum — in which the government characterizes the leaker and those who enabled him — is now a dialogue. The debate over secrets has gone viral and as a result, is itself much less secret. In the past, few leakers would have been able to broadcast their messages to the world even before the government and the public had time to absorb the implications of what they did."

The time has come for Turkish President Abdullah Gul to show statesmanship and speak out clearly and forcefully against the abuse of power.

After Egypt, Turkey, and other parts of the world, it is now time for Brazilians to appear on the front page of international newspapers – here and here. Yesterday, a quarter of a million people participated in political demonstrations across the country. But while I am also in Brazil, my experience is as though I was living on a different planet. Protests are happening 70 kilometres from here, at the state capital, but it might as well be across the ocean somewhere else. The Brazilians at my field site are simply not showing much interest in these events, especially not on Facebook.

It is an interesting inversion, noteworthy because Facebook and Twitter are, again, at the core of these “emergent” political rallies. What made the initial demonstrations (against the raise of bus fares in São Paulo) spread online was that the established news outlets such as radio stations and newspapers tried to ignore them. The feeling of impotence against the powerful – including the ones controlling the news – fueled people to self-organize and share information through social networking sites about the next rallies.

Free/Open Source software has been developed and used to distribute information in the case of emergencies and requests for aid. The source code of these programs has also been distributed in social media. In case of potential blockage of social media tools, open DNS and VPN information have been communicated: technical solutions to technical barricades. Despite the severity of the situation, social media has been used to amplify the the carnivalesque tone of the public actions. People who were exposed to excessive violence, who were injured, who were taken into custody, those who lost their relatives turned the Internet and social media into a machine to expose the irony at the core of the events. The protestors comical accounts of their acts of resistance, their injuries and their successes created minor myths in which irony and humor came to overturn the government symbolically. There are many examples of this, including calling Gezi Park the BeatingPark, a dog with a sign saying "If there are no parks, I will shit in a shopping mall," "If there is so much gas, the shit will be dumped soon," "Hilmi from Toma," (replacing Roma (Rome) with Toma the water canon), and sound recordings of police-radio conversations with ultras after the latter hijacked Tomas, and the list goes on.

Pelas redes sociais, jovens organizam protestos que levam milhares às ruas

Once again, it’s kicking off everywhere: from Turkey to Bosnia, Bulgaria and Brazil, the endless struggle for real democracy resonates around the globe.

Giles Fraser: Loose canon: Religious images have caused conflict for centuries. Turkey is now struggling with a religion too confident in its representations

Riot police stormed a squat in central London as protesters played cat and mouse with police down some of the city's busiest streets ahead of next week's G8 summit.

Movements.org is declaring June Dictator Appreciation Month.

Why? Because we like sarcasm. And right now, activists around the world are using comedy and satire better than ever to tell the truth about dictators who violate human rights & to fight back against PR companies who are paid big money to "white-wash" their image...

Join these "laughtivists" by checking out our featured gallery of dictators and great laughtivism from each country. Then get started producing your own hilarious dictator content with a poignant message. Use the Submit button to send us your memes/GIFs/cartoons/jokes and we'll feature all the best stuff you create here, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

Occupy Wall Street websites love adding Google Facebook and Twitter buttonswhich could give law enforcement a handy back door to track users...

“I'm quite certain with the right set of database queries, Google engineers could identify specific account holders (through Google Maps) who were present at Zuccotti Park, for example. Likewise, it would be fairly trivial to compile a list of people who spent more than six hours at a time at any given Occupy encampment by looking at mobile phone records. That would give you a fairly good list of all Occupiers worldwide, who you could then place on any manner of watch lists.”

Exclusive: Laura Poitras tells Salon about getting contacted by Edward Snowden, and reveals more footage is coming

Mayo Fuster