#indymedia

Twitter was never politically neutral. Which is fine but, they should've never claimed or positioned themselves to be either.

People need to understand where Twitter came from originally.

It is born out of the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, and those radical left-wing activists on the ground there.

Indymedia was founded in '99 to cover WTO.

Indymedia writers/activists at WTO were coordinating via email and SMS. This creates a problem in that information is fractured across small groups. If police move into an area, or someone needs help, broadly propagating this knowledge becomes problematic. Information must be moved manually, using clunky mobile phones with terrible keypads.

When in a quickly evolving environment such as a massive demonstration in a city, where you're trying to inform a mass of people: it does not scale at all.

A better solution is needed...

Enter TXTMob.

Learning from difficulties of WTO, hackers like Rabble (Evan Henshaw-Plath) at Indymedia create new tools such as TXTMob to push and pull info from the ground.

TXTMob is basically an email listserve for mobile SMS. Every SMS sent to the number, is then forwarded on to every other user signed up to receive the SMS. It's like group chat with several hundred people. You could subscribe to individual groups, or take in the whole feed.

One may view SMS as primitive. In the 90s and early 2000s, where internet capable phones were a luxury, and data could cost you $10 a megabyte(!!), group SMS with hundreds of people was cutting edge, high-tech stuff back then; deployed in a cost effective method, to a broad range of users.

TXTMob floats around inside the Indymedia crowd until it goes live during the DNC and RNC protests in 2004...

Meanwhile, Rabble (Indymedia Founder and creator of TXTMob) is Employee #1 over at Odeo hacking on that codebase in 2004 and '05...

Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams are at Odeo too... They brainstorm taking TXTMob mainstream... twttr (Twitter) is born in 2006...

The rest is history.

The Twitter you know today is a glossy and polished version of a group SMS tool originally created for radical left-wing groups to organise, coordinate protest movements, and alert activists of police activity.

If people wonder why Twitter is so left-wing and hostile to other causes: That's probably because it's their platform, and always has been.

That's fine, but, they should be open about it.

Anarchist Wallpaper #3 October 2017: Sabotage the Surveillance State! Let’s All be Perpetrators! (Netherlands)

17.10.17: Here is the third edition of the Anarchist Wallpaper! This time on surveillance, the dragnet law and the necessity of sabotage. Download the wallpaper, print and circulate it! Download the wallpaper: here

Sabotage the surveillance state! Let’s all be perpetrators.

On surveillance, the dragnet law and the necessity of sabotage.

You are being watched; on the street, at the train station, on social media, through your phone calls and e-mail correspondence. The state and its collaborators desire total control, whether you’ve ‘done something’ or not, everyone is a suspect. As per the 1st of January 2018 the intelligence agencies will be granted new powers. They are permitted to expand their information collecting beyond specific suspects and so implement mass surveillance. In the eyes of the state everyone is a suspect. So let us all be perpetrators and accomplices!

Last June the First Chamber approved the so called ‘dragnet law’. This law gives intelligence agencies more powers than they already had. They will be able to monitor and store digital data on a massive scale. They will also be able to hack all automated devices such as phones, laptops and tablets without a person being a ‘suspect’. A secret DNA database can be created to store anyone’s DNA, again without being ‘suspected’ of having done something. All stored data can be shared with foreign intelligence agencies without prior analysis by the domestic intelligence agencies.

The dragnet law is a big step for the state towards total control and fits in the recent trend of repression such as forced identification, camera surveillance and preventive stop and searches by the police. The new law, like others in recent years, is enforced with the excuse of security risks and the growing need to protect citizens from terrorism. The actual implementation of this law can be found in poorer neighbourhoods, and will be used against people who do not conform to the white status quo. In poor neighbourhoods like the Schilderswijk in The Hague camera surveillance, stop and searches by the police and intimidation are rampant. The information collected by new state methods will be used against people who resist this harassment. A growingly repressive state does not ensure less terror attacks, quite the opposite. A repressive state ensures exclusion and protects only those who claim to have financial interests; government institutions, big companies and powerful institutions. The rest of us are considered a constant threat and to be constant suspects while we are chased, controlled and humiliated. The mechanisms of state control seem to be untouchable, but nothing is further from the truth. Every system has its weaknesses and every system is susceptible to sabotage.

A control mechanism developed and created to protect a system that only protects the interests of capitalist institutions is a direct attack on us. And an attack on us cannot remain unanswered. Let’s take down the cameras on street corners that form the eyes of the state. Let’s burn the cables and power supplies of the servers and computers that monitor and store our information. Let’s attack the companies who make their profits through this control mania. Let’s sabotage the state so we can live. If we are all suspects, let’s all be perpetrators!

Freedom for Peike!

During the G20-protest last July in Hamburg thousands of people took to the street to protest the meeting of the leaders of the 20 most industrialised nations. The protests encountered heavy police repression that started a riot. The German state seized this opportunity to attack and criminalise autonomous structures.

The German news website Indymedia Linksunten has been banned. More than 100 people were arrested under whom Peike from Amsterdam. Peike was the first to go on trial and was sentenced to 2 years and 7 months imprisonment for allegedly throwing two beer bottles at police officers. The prosecution demanded 1 year and 7 months, the judge made it 2 years and 7 months. Peike is momentarily imprisoned in Hamburg. Freedom for Peike and all the prisoners! For more information see: http://www.freepeike.noblogs.org

»Das Bundesinnenministerium hat am 25. August linksunten.indymedia.org verboten. Im Zuge dessen wurden in Freiburg mehrere Wohnungen und das autonome Zentrum KTS durchsucht. Speichermedien, Geld, Schriftstücke und vermeintliche Waffen wurden von den Bullen beschlagnahmt. Es gab zwar keine Festnahmen, trotzdem versucht der Staat, Linke einzuschüchtern und eine wichtige Medienplattform zu zerstören. Wir haben die Schnauze voll von Repression und Hetze und verurteilen den autoritären Trend in der BRD im Zuge des Wahlkampfes. Nach den Razzien von gestern nehmen wir uns die Straße – für selbstbestimmte Medien und autonome Politik United we stand – gemeinsam gegen Repression und Hetze – unabhängige Medien verteidigen!« https://de.indymedia.org/node/13533

Nach den Razzien in Freiburg wird es am 9. September 2017 eine internationale Demonstration geben. Die Demo startet um 19 Uhr am Bertoldsbrunnen, kommt alle. United we stand!