Hackers turned Hacktivists

While hackers have been hired to hurt social action groups and destabilize the Internet as a life source to activists, hackers have also been simultaneously working against the grain in the name of activism, creating a movement known as Hacktivism.

The idea of hacking has been around since the early developments of the Internet. Ever since the first notable hackers like Stallman and Wozniak gained notoriety in the early 80's for their progressive technical know- how, the mainstream media have been eager to paint all hackers as criminals and "Internet terrorists", keeping in mind the idea of labeling certain groups with connotative labels like terrorist to reinforcing power structures by instilling public fear. (read more here...)

Yes, there is no doubt that there have been an enormous number of interfering hackers that have even worked against the social action movement either as independents or with corporations and other governing institutions. (click here) But, what we must acknowledge is the fact that all hackers are not evil and the movement known as Hacktivism has been emerging to fight on the side of social justice. For example, in China, groups of Hacktivists have been working to help promote freedom on the Internet against Chinese government content censorship a right that all people should have.

Hackers to Hacktivists
1980's: Birth of the Hackers/ Crackers
late 1970's: The development of Open Source technology as a movement for free information
1990's: Hacking with a political agenda- the 'Hacktivist'

Hacktivism has developed into an empowering movement that supports social justice and has been able to support the social movement with a resource to fight fire with fire against their perpetrators- governments and unjust corporations. Sites like HackBloc and The Hacktivist provide people with a hacktivist focused forum to share ideas and information as a means for connecting an international community. Not only do these sites provide independent coverage of current events taking place within the Hacktivism community but they give people a place to start by providing them with the necessary information to become educated in their cause.

Not only has Hacktivism been a key movement in the fight for social justice but it has enabled the citizens to take the power into their own hands, proving that justice will prevail!

Internet isn’t all fun and games for Activists

While there is no doubt that the Internet has been the powerhouse behind activism in recent years, helping fringe organizations coordinate mass movements while increasing their influence. With that being said, Internet and activism haven't been a total match made in heaven as there have been several areas of weakness.

The open nature of the Internet has provided space for surveillance and infiltration by governing entities. As activists have developed a dependency on the Internet as their main communicative resource and tool for organization there has been the birth of “spoofs” which are organizations involved in surveillance: police organizations, local and foreign human intelligence organizations, local and foreign signal intelligence organizations and global corporations. These organizations have used special intelligence to collect information through email and other messages sent between social action groups while also hired to surveillance movement through websites, such forces have victimized groups like Greenpeace and Wellington Animal Rights Network (WARN)

Along with special intelligence, there have been a number of “Hacker Attacks” against social action groups. A good example was the Save Darfur Coalition that had been planning an action for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. A number of their accounts had been attacked and traced from China.

As Internet has become the new breeding ground for activist activity, it has become clear that corporate spies and government surveillance are not prepared to let active graze freely on the World Wide Web.

Activism Case Study: War on Iraq

The political environment surrounding the War in Iraq was unlike any other war environment to have ever existed as it has been regarded as the first “War in Cyberspace”* as 75% of Americans turned to the Internet for information about the war. Not only Americans, but also people around the world were using the Internet to educate themselves, discuss and organize anti- war rallies.

With the Internet being used by citizens to gain more information regarding the War in Iraq, mass media forces were pushed into a losing battle that they continue to lose today against what we now consider citizen media. Prior to the War in Iraq, the mass media were the gatekeepers to political news coverage. Ideally, we have always expected news coverage to remain unbiased an un-opinionated, rather to inform us through factual commentary. Unfortunately, this is starkly oppositional to the reality of mass mediated news.
“The remoteness of the global conflicts disposes people to “accept official interpretations of the events,” which then become a “major source of legitimation” for the regime in power.”*


Therefore, during the early days of the war in Iraq, mass- media coverage was a binary composition of either left or right- wing ideologies polluting the commentary of actual events taking place. While this had been the social construct of media pre- Internet, the War in Iraq prompted a neutrality of information regarding the war as people were given the freedom to formulate their own views by navigating the different sources of information available to them through the internet, for example, independent media source Alternet, which provided and has continued to provide independent coverage of the war and it’s political landscape. Not only did users break their dependency on the mass- media but also they were able to communicate and share ideas with people around the world, like never before.

The result: February 15, 2003 (The largest Anti- War rally in history)

This day is perhaps the most significant day as it was as it was the physical representation of an activism revolution, a reflection of the power of activism in the day of the Internet. Never before in history have people to this magnitude been able to organize themselves for a single cause around the world, so succinctly and so impeccably coerced.

The Internet provided forums dedicated to activism for people around the world to engage within, an inclusive forum dedicated to the resistance towards the War in Iraq. Thanks to email lists, networking sites and the ability for social movement organizations around the world to connect, the movement of all movements successfully and peacefully enveloped the world.

Thanks to citizen media and sites like www.youtube.com and www.infoshop.com , people were able to continue taking action against the War in Iraq. Therefore, the activism did not end on February 15th, 2008, rather, people continued showing their support by posting videos and holding forums easily accessible by anyone over the Web.

* Robbin, Alice, and Wayne Buente. "Internet Information and Communication Behavior During a Political Moment: The Iraq War, March 2003." JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 59 (2008): 2210-231

How Anti- Globalization Activism prevailed during the “Seattle Riots”

November 30, 1999 a coalition of anti- Globalization protesters gathered in Seattle to rally against the 5 day World Trade Organization Summit (Click here to read their criticisms) of world leaders in accordance to Direct Action Network's plan. This protest was depicted in most of the mass- media as a violent hypocritical assault against the city of Seattle and a failed attack on capitalism by "causists and all-purpose agitators."

The mainstream media painted the protesters in a light of destruction and disobedience, disregarding the majority of peaceful protesters and failing to recognize the true message of the movement. Most of the mainstream news was tactful in reinforcing public stereotypes of the activist, as destructive, socialist hypocrites without a clear understanding of the issues at hand.

The reality of the 5- day event was quite the contrary as the majority of protesters were comprised of national/ international NGOs, student groups, religious groups and a number of labour unions. ‘News accounts “reinforce established power structures and value hierarchies” in the process of constructing a social reality.’

The protesters were a legitimate threat to corporate America and therefore most news outlets were prompted to breakdown their public representation as to not promote support for their cause, anti- capitalism is perhaps the most feared in rhetoric in Western society.

With this being said, thanks to independent media sources like Democracy Now, activists from the riot were prompted to compile actual footage and documentation of their own accounts in regards to the riots which ultimately told a very different story than, that which was promoted by mass media outlets.

The most famous documentation turned out to be a documentary entitled “This is What Democracy Looks Like” which was posted as a free documentary online through a number of sites including YouTube. Thanks to new forms of citizen media, the activists were able to fight back and disseminate ruling- class ideology that was inherent in the mainstream coverage of the protest. Sites like YouTube and a number of Blogs covering the protest provided activists with a voice to tell their side of the story directly from the action very progressive in comparison to the Vietnam Protests.

Activism pre- Internet: Opposing the Vietnam War

The early 60's saw the development of the famous Vietnam War Protests. The most relevant difference separating pre and post Internet activism has been the ability for activists to take onus for their actions, rather than having the politically elite control their message through the news. Protests during the Vietnam War were rarely portrayed in a clear light as mass- media journalists were more intent on finding stories that with their

During the Vietnam protests, mainstream media was prompted to impose their ideological framework through their coverage of the protests as a means for depicting them in an over-simplified and non- representational manner. Protesters who were approached by the media were often characterized very specifically in accordance to the mainstream media agenda.

1. official (protester) sources which were political sources
2. academic sources which comprised of active leaders within the movement and the more astute protesters,
3. authoritative sources which were protesters partaking in violent or what was considered to be more entertaining behaviour (wearing costumes)
4. unknown sources who were protesters without rank.

Stories were then depicted in one of three frames, “Episodic,” “Thematic,” or “Mixed”. Episodic being the entertaining spectacular elements of the protests (celebrities, violence, excitement, etc…), thematic frame was an educated approach to the story (background information, debates, political rhetoric, etc. )

With this evidence alone, we can begin to understand the mediated ideologies of the mass media in the pre- Internet context. Their mandate for providing information was framed in accordance to very specific boundaries set by mass-media elites, rather than reporting stories and events as they occurred, journalists searched for specific stereotyped representatives that fit into the chosen context of their employing media institutions making it impossible for any type of dialogue between citizens and media outlets.

Not only has the Internet provided people with a voice but it has opened the doors to more people. During the 60's and 70's, movements were organized through restrictive communicative tools (flyers, telephone lines and letters); therefore prompting more elite dissent. The majority of protests were organized on campus grounds, creating a class barrier between citizens. Communication was thus restricted to those who could afford it which ended up being not only Westernized populations but certain classes within these societies. Today the Internet is available to over one billion people around the world and has provided a more inclusive environment for communication; rich, poor, educated and uneducated.

My Intentions

Social Activism can be defined as " a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue". While activism has been a reality for billions of people around the world, my specific intention with this Blog is to engage with several key movements that have been shaped by the media-scape of their time. My timeline will clearly depict the progression of activism as it has been influenced by media, especially that of citizen media through the Internet in more recent years.

The Vietnam Protests was forced to rely on corporatized avenues of media, while today activists are able to govern their own means of communication and publicity through their access to the Internet. I will be exploring how this reorganization of the Internet has reshaped, empowered and disempowered activism simultaneously. I would like this Blog to track the changing qualities of the activist; plotting their succinct growth with that of technology.