"... by keeping peaceful demonstrators far out of sight, organizing an overwhelming police response that brings the threat of long prison sentences, and circulating images of the most disruptive outliers that makes the whole movement look bad. It works. And the organizers have failed to keep up. The digital platforms they rely on make it difficult to impose any discipline on the message being communicated. Crackpot agitators and off-the-wall causes attach themselves more easily than ever. Conflict erupts. Fueled by the drama-loving algorithms of social media platforms, the movements descend into ugly public bickering.... The internal tensions that social movements have always faced become especially paralyzing when they play out in public, amplified by the algorithms that favor conflict. Without a counterbalancing organizational structure, there’s no way to bridge those differences and build consensus...."
Writes Zeynep Tufekci, in
"How the Powerful Outmaneuvered the American Protest Movement" (NYT). Tukfekci is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University who studies "politics, civics, movements, privacy and surveillance, as well as data and algorithms."
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79 comments:
The CIA has a manual for disrupting organized groups. But the Trump movement is not organized. Cut off one head, and two more shall take its place. Hail Donald.
There's nothing crazy about the original protest, it's just bad things that algorithms do that make the left look bad.
assuming they aren't astro-turf from the start
I have, statistically counting, 7 more years of life on this planet. It's a certain blessing.
Without a counterbalancing organizational structure
I'm having trouble figuring out what she's saying here. That phrase seems to refer to the protesting group - it immediately follows comment on the internal tensions present in all protest movements or words to that effect. So, every protest movement needs an organizational structure in order to mediate or mitigate its own internal tensions?
To police its public image? Is that what she's saying? That's how I'm interpreting it - that "the revolution will be televised" is here to stay, so if protests are going to be effective (like MLK's version of civil rights protesting - resonating with ordinary people who aren't inclined to join a protest, and resulting in meaningful societal change rather than just impotent haranguing), they have to exercise message discipline. Is that it?
I don't have a real opinion about this at the moment. Maybe something about authenticity versus effectiveness or something.
I can find no flaw in the professor's analysis and yet the Dude abides.
It would help if the groups spoke out against the "Crackpot agitators and off-the-wall causes".
Black Lives Matter protests, so visible in Chicago in 2020, seemed almost completely absent during the Democratic convention.
All of this might help explain why, during the Republican convention in Milwaukee, there were no big protests at all, despite the provocations of Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Maybe the odds were stacked so high against protesters that they didn’t even bother.
I do not think the reason for either of these is "overwhelming police response" or threats of long prison sentences. (Have any protesters been sentenced to long prison terms?) She should stop believing that the stated purpose of a protest is the real purpose, then she might be able to think of a reason they didn't happen.
Tea Party?
Very true. Everyone saw how effective those tactics were at keeping BLM protestors from burning down their communities. Oh wait...
I'm listening, go on.
"Crackpot agitators and off-the-wall causes"
so, they're saying that most (well, SOME) pro Hamas protesters didn't REALLY Want to see ALL jews murdered and raped? That it was just "Crackpot agitators and off-the-wall causes" that wanted that?
That's Good To Know!
Serious Question:
If the most (well, Some) pro Hamas protesters DIDN'T want to see ALL jews murdered and raped.. How come NO pro Hamas protesters ever (and i mean EVER) spoke out against it?
I'll wait for a response from the pro Hamas people
I really thought the pro-Hamas people would make a bigger fuss at the Dem convention, but they must have been warned off somehow with threats of J6 treatment. Nothing may interfere with Joy!
A couple of weeks after 9/11, my dad and I drove past the Pentagon and then to the White House. There was an ANSWER protest to its east that we had to maneuver around. Then we parked at the base of the Capitol and walked up the hill. There was one policeman on each side and zero (other) tourists on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Were people that afraid of another attack? I don't think planes were flying again. When we walked back to the car, I could see the black-clad riot police gathered next to a Senate office building, but they weren't needed.
National Guard can be Fderalized and the milllions of military age foreigners that invaded st Biden’s request will have to be rounded up or we will be rounded up by them,
I could swear I've seen the name Eynep Tufekci before on this blog.
"Those in power have figured out how to outmaneuver protesters..." I disagree. Those in power have understood very well, the usefulness of protest to further a cause, and have incorporated 'protest' as a component of spreading the message. Modern protest is highly managed, and tightly controlled, right down to the timing and escalation. The Progressive Left understands the value of these images.
"brings the threat of long prison sentences" For J6ers, sure, but that was hardly a protest in the modern sense. But Antifa? BLM rioters? Hamasniks? In blue jurisdictions? I call BS.
Protestors can be snipers and bombers... I'd move them out of sight to.
From what is available this side of the paywall, the article makes no sense at all.
The ONLY event where protesters were punished was brief Jan 6 Capitol occupation. To the extent that it was organized at all, that was arguably organized BY the Government ("those in Power").
Other events, before and since 6 Jan - Occupy Wall Street, Seattle CHAZ, Portland Federal Bldgs, campus Anti-Isreal occupation mayhem and destruction - were at best tolerated, at worst facilitated, by "those in Power."
Native Brits and Irish immigration protestors in Britain are receiving long sentences. Some Jan 6th protestors have as well.
I don't recall any BLM or antifa protestors being unduly inconvenienced by the law. Not sure about how the Free Palestine folk are being treated these days.
I couldn't read the article unfortunately.
Brian Lamb just retired from CSPAN, which he founded. He has said that the protestors he saw during Vietnam, and how he they altered the "story", was a factor in his founding CSPAN. Maybe the clip the hostess shared is a good thing?
One might read the article here:
https://archive.ph/CiMjY
Give em hell while you are here, amigo.
Those in power have understood very well, the usefulness of protest to further a cause, and have incorporated 'protest' as a component of spreading the message. Modern protest is highly managed, and tightly controlled, right down to the timing and escalation. The Progressive Left understands the value of these images.
This is where I was ending up with my prior question. I think she has "those in power" pegged incorrectly (or, possibly, is deliberately misstating who the powerful are in her view), because it's still important for protests to appear to be authentic outpourings of passionate commitment, even though she knows (I infer) that they are in fact tightly managed.
On the Left, anyway. The Right is way behind the 8-ball.
I heard it in a sneeze.
Bullshit.
This is what I do. I infiltrate leftist terrorist groups. When I physically can now.
It is their lies and tactics that have forced law enforcement to engage in these strategies. And I support law enforcement.
I don't care to whom they are doing it, because no matter what, it is police, innocent bystanders, ambulances with patients, commuters feeding families, and small businesses that get damaged or destroyed. Also construction workers, lumberjacks (spiking trees) -- not to mention these commies are brainwashing a new generation of cushy college radicals.
Everyone should try sitting through one of their eight hour struggle sessions. You'll be shocked.
Buy Quell first, and don't eat their rice and bean lunch.
Yes. Compare "anti war" protests during W years with the "anti war" protest during the Obama years.
Thanks, Aggie.
Is this thing on? Test.
Rent-a-mob ain't what it used to be.
Ann, Ms Tufecki's first name starts with a 'Z' - Zeynep.
Charges are being dropped or not pursued across the board.
"Have any protesters been sentenced to long prison terms?"
There has been but one example in the last quarter century- January 6th 2021 protestors.
Of course not. It was all orchestrated and overseen by the Dem party. And the looting in particular, was very often instigated by AntiFA, still, after 90 years, the left’s shock troops. If the Dem elite want them active, they are active, and when they don’t, they aren’t.
+1000
Ah Ha! There she is. No wonder the tag didn't find her. Good catch.
“Hail Donald”? Really?
My cousin with Tourette's Syndrome spits it out regularly.
Interesting, based on her byline photograph she appears to be in middle school.
ALL politics is "astro turfed" as you say. The term of art is organized event. Both sides do this. All sides really. Get real man. Next time you have a close caucus event watch as seven buses full of UAW retirees get off and crush your candidate. I've seen it many many times here in MI.
What Prof. Tufekci means is that no protest can take place without the blessing of the establishment.
That was a hilarious op-ed! Ms. Tufekci is fucking clueless. The orders went down from the very top of the Democratic Party that there were to be no inconvenient protests at the Democratic Party convention- that was why the turnout at such protests was so disappointing to the likes of Ms. Tufekci. The same orders came down for no significant campus protests this Fall- they are not be held during the three months of voting from mid September to mid December. But Ms. Tufekci can't bring herself to acknowledge this glaringly obvious fact so she fabricates non-existent reasons for the languidness of the anti-Israel protests since Harris' installment as the Democrat nominee.
She's upset that the pro-Palestinian protests aren't working and blaming "those in power". It hasn't seemed to occur to her (or she won't mentally go there) that the Palestinians aren't a very sympathetic bunch and that the public is kind of sick of protests. I'm kind of getting that she believes there should be constant protest about everything all the time, kind of like the way Che Guevara believed that all revolutions were good revolutions, even if it was a revolution to force cannibalism on the populace.
The left are protestors. The right are insurrectionists.
Tufekci "missed it by that much".
This piece cries out for the classic "Oh no! Anyway - " response.
Trump is not "astroturf." His movement can be traced back to Palin, then the TEA Party. Both halves of the Uniparty have always hated them.
I agree with 101. The Palestinians and the lefty college students are not sympathetic causes. Without the present Democrat regime in power, they would be quickly seen as losers. This is Obama's "transformation."
If the checks cleared, including those from the Muslim governments that fund their student visas, they were satisfied.
I don't recommend this, especially if you have a family or class se friends, but someone has to do it because most of us can't:
https://survivalblog.com/2020/09/01/intelligence-gathering-protests-j-d/
And the trust fund kids who fund them are following Churchill's advice about crocodiles.
I think Tufecki misses the point of priests, and as a result misses one of the reasons they aren't very effective.
In a party-run democracy, the parties will have some core positions that line up with their voter base, but there will be many issues where the elected politicians don't line up with their voters. Often, these issues aren't important enough for the voters to defect, or the other party is just as bad on that issue, so there's no point to defecting. (The Republican party and immigration restriction before Trump is a strong example.)
So when there are a large number of voters who feel unheard, especially when their party is in power, they protest. They protest to show their politicians that there are large numbers who disagree with them on a specific issue, to persuade their politicians to change their views (or at least their actions). When the numbers are large enough and the protests sustained enough, they'll often succeed, as happened when people protested the Democrats' positions on civil rights and the Vietnam war.
But the art of opinion polling has advanced quite a bit since the 1960s, and so politicians can quickly get a pulse on the actual state of public opinion. (This is why pro-choice protests have been pointless and pro-life protests futile.) So now the only real benefit of protests is to bring attention to an issue that hasn't been past of the discourse. The initial WTO protests and the initial BLM protests successfully did this. The WTO protests failed because politicians quickly discovered that a lot of people benefited from globalization. The BLM protests succeeded, which was their undoing. The main policy change from BLM was police body cameras, which definitively showed the problem wasn't nearly as big as the protestors complained it was. The general pullback of policing caused by BLM had horrific results and got thousands of people killed, so only the most dedicated anti-police politicians will support their agenda anymore.
So why should Harris pay attention to anti-Israel protests? She can read the polls, including polls that give far more detail about the strengths of opinions on the issue than get released in the media. She knows what any given position will cost her or gain her.
This morning, I watched two interviews of retired BBC presenter Emily Maitlis, who brought Prince Andrew to ruin in 2019. She's produced a new 6 hour show about the famous interview. She was quite impressive--for a govt TV journalist--until she mentioned the attempt on democracy on Jan 6. I reckon she's another bubble dweller. I left an angry comment.
...and courts doling out lengthy sentences...
Stated without evidence. I'd love to know what her definition of "lengthy sentences" is.
I've heard a lot of Zeynep Tufekci over the years, though not lately - I may have blocked her on Twitter for saying something stupid. I'm pretty sure Ann's "Eynep" is a typo for "Zeynep".
The theatrics and the costumes (keffiyeh purchased on Etsy) are grimly hilarious. Revolution theater.
Somehow camping on the lawn of a school that has a tuition of nearly $80,000 a year (Columbia) in an expensive tent doesn't seem like real protest. Consider too that many of these brave freedom fighters wear masks so they won't get in trouble with the school or their parents.
Good protests compel people to listen, but don't immediately condemn them for disagreeing. Stop using terms like "Zionist thugs" and "Zionist fascists." Don't turn into bigots. Maybe a little history lesson why Jews were desperate for a homeland after the Holocaust.
These protests, increasingly, are terribly counter-productive. It's a shame.
I should have read the whole thread before correcting the typo further up the page. You beat me to it by a couple of hours.
I can't get past the NYT paywall, but the excerpt leaves me wondering why the "powerful" haven't reclaimed the campuses from the antisemites and why the prisons aren't filled with BLM and Antifa protesters who ravaged the cities in 2020.
Reichstag Fire is to "the complete seizure of power by the Nazis, the end of freedom of assemble and free speech and the rights of the accused and the creation of a single-party state out of a liberal democracy" as J6 is to "well, the similarities are striking...."
But the US was built on magic dirt where the underhanded techniques of power politics are never used, Scout's honor.
I remember a scene in the recent Franklin series where he and his young ward, Temple, were walking past a violent demonstration in Paris, and the Franklin character tells him to keep out of it, because it's half paid agitators, the other half secret police, and the rest are foolish innocent bystanders who get sucked in.
Thanks for the help on the spelling of the author's first name.
Don't worry. We can always use pagers organize future protests.
The violence did not poll as well as expected. That’s the only reason…
Don’t forget the vertical integration, or rather circular. Top level strategists focus group test, then the secret and not so secret government and political minions of the NGOs are sent out to organize and execute, their propagandists coordinating and timing the release of video and word for maximum desired effect. Seamless enough so those who don’t want to believe won’t.
The "overwhelming police presence" is there becsuse the protests are anything nut a "protest" or "peaceful".
does not CIA also organize groups for its own type of protest?
Of course he swallowed the same techniques he decries here, hook line and sinker and without critical examination when it came to J6:
The authoritarian label has been attached to Trump by critics for years, especially after he sought to overturn the 2020 election results, which culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. - Zeynep Tufekci NYT
by keeping peaceful demonstrators far out of sight, organizing an overwhelming police response that brings the threat of long prison sentences, and circulating images of the most disruptive outliers that makes the whole movement look bad. It works. And the organizers have failed to keep up.
Looking up the author I saw that she was Turkish so I'm assuming that her lament at the lack of effectiveness of protests and ability of those in power to control them is mostly in regard to the recent Pro-Palestinian protests. When she mentions protests being kept far out of sight the recent protests at the DNC convention being kept blocks away came to mind for me. Though the best example of long prison sentences being levied against protesters is probably the January 6th riot.
They are already bigots, as Democrats have been since 1619.
Make them take a knee. Wait, we can use that one. NOW. NOw.Now.
From a past encounter.
“Do you want Facebook looking at over 1.5 billion people’s posts?” said Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor in technology policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “And if so, then for what?”
Well, I would want to know about all the get-togethers that I never get invited to.
The authorities can come down hard on protestors when they disagree with them, but they've gone easy on the Palestine, BLM, and Antifa protestors. The things the regime could do to crack down on dissent are scandalous, but their inaction in the face of violent and disruptive protestors and rioters is also scandalous.
That operation by Pelosi was almost as successful as Israel's beeper op. The only giveaway was her daughter filming but it has been covered up.
circulating images of the most disruptive outliers that makes the whole movement look bad. It works
The only reason why it works is because the organizers aren't willing / able to criticize the "outliers".
And that means they aren't really "outliers", they're just telling the truth
And the organizers have failed to keep up.
That's because the organizers agree with "the outliers", they just don't want to admit it.
Trump said about Charlottesville protests that the Nazis are bad people, but that other than them there were fine people on both sides of the issue, which was generous of him (I don't believe that they are any "fine people" in the Taliban wing of the Democrat Party, and those are the ones trying to tear down statues).
People pushing "pro-Gaza" protests could condemn Hamas, Hezbollah, and people who chant "from the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free". They could reject terrorism and genocide.
But they're in favor of it, they just want to hide that.
Not letting them hide that is good
DSR, I think we're saying the same thing from slightly different angles. The Deep State/Uniparty only allows protests that further it's power.
Dear Heartless, I know how you feel, but here's the problem. The older you get, the longer your life expectancy. If you're 60, your statistical life expectancy includes whole bunches of people who will die in their 60's, 70's, etc. When you get to be 80, all those folks are dead. Who's left? Folks like you with lucky genes, non-smokers, folks who decided NOT to climb Mt. Rushmore (again!), who look both ways when they cross the street. If you had 7 years to go at 80, by the time you're 90, you'll still have 6 years to go.
If you get old enough, your life expectancy should drop to less than 4 years, so you won't have to worry about which ass hole gets elected president. Unless you have children, grandchildren, etc. Then you're screwed.
From the link:
"Over the last few weeks, as protests and riots have continued, I decided to stop blindly accepting the media’s reporting and to get out and see what was actually going on at the rampant protests.
Let me start by saying that I don’t advocate everyone doing this…I’m a trained professional with over 20 years of investigations experience. I do want to share the interesting findings and make a few recommendations to everyone, though.
The narrative being presented was that these protests were not centrally organized and that they were grass-roots protests just springing up in response to social issues. My time inside the protests verified that this just isn’t true; they are very organized and are being planned by someone.
[snip]
The first one I attended was on the University of Michigan campus. The protest was rather large, about 1,500 people. What I found interesting was that the first speaker pointed out that “allies from RevCom/ANTIFA” were present, just to provide “logistical support” including medical and security teams. The local RevCom leader got up and explained how to find the medics (Large red or green crosses) and explained that security was “circulating among the crowd” for safety. That was an ominous statement, as I’ll point out later.
I began moving through the crowd and quickly spotted several security team members, obviously watching the crowd for anyone who wasn’t clapping or cheering along. It’s important to note that these protests require 100% ideological agreement or they will approach you and become confrontational, so I made sure I was chanting along. I noticed almost immediately that despite the man who said he was the RevCom leader, a young man named Ethan, that I would later have many interactions with, was actually in charge. He is a security team leader within the ANTIFA organization.
The biggest observation from the first protest was that despite the claims that they aren’t organized, they are highly organized by a central organization. Ethan and his security/medical team have been at every protest I’ve attended in Michigan, including one at the Capitol an hour away. They use the ubiquitous BaoFeng Handi-talkie radios to communicate."
Lots more at the link, but take note that the organizers plan to the nth degree, and are suspicious of anyone who isn't totally on board. They are organized like paramilitary units and try to incite violence from victims and law enforcement.
She wants more rioting and destruction. We normal people want none.
Has she considered the possibility that protests just don't work?
Good references, Mad Town Guy. Yes, all these "leaderless," "autonomist," "spontaneous" marches and riots and occupations are highly organized, and participants are trained and screened in advance using sophisticated technology to select them for different roles. There are layers of leadership, and you advance through them. But for fifty years, the media just repeats the "leaderless" lie.
I know when I've found the leaders. They're the ones speaking French and pounding away in a tent filled with computers.
Chicago was, interestingly, different. The Democrats were cooperating so much with the Palestinian leader that he didn't have to hide, and he kicked the ANTIFA types to the curb. But he also violated agreements he made with the city, attacked the Israeli consulate, violated other permit rules...all with no consequences, of course.
It was fun watching the Code Pink types deflate in their abortion pill costumes as they were swarmed by Palestinian women pushing baby carriages. Not much fun, but a tiny bit of fun.
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