Civil Disobedience Pt. 4: ONLINE DISOBEDIENCE or Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD)

Written By: Puck Arks

Civil Disobedience Pt. 4: ONLINE DISOBEDIENCE or Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD)

 

In its simplest form civil disobedience involves defying the law for a good cause and it has taken the Internet by storm. The Internet is used for every conceivable form of communication and it is therefore only natural that it should be used as an infrastructure even for protest and civil disobedience. 

Protest activities carried out online are new form of political activism. The goal of this is to inform people of the various methods and techniques currently being utilized.
Unsolicited email- otherwise known as spam is sent as a mass mailing to huge numbers of recipients at a time without consent. 

Email bombing- consists of sending huge volumes of email to an address in an attempt to overflow the mailbox or overwhelm the server where the email address is hosted in a denial-of-service attack.

Hacking- also known as hacktivism is the subversive use of computers to promote political change or a social agenda of consciousness. 

Webpage defacement- an attack on a website or webpage that changes its appearance in order to to get or message and attract attention of a cause. 

Denial of service attack (DDOS)- This tactics aim to upset the status quo by disrupting the normal flow of information, thereby attracting attention to their cause and message.
Information Distribution-Information distribution-based tactics are built around the acquisition and release of hidden or secret information. 

Infrastructure-activism based on the creation of alternate systems to replace those that have been compromised by state or corporate information-gathering schemes. Tor, Diaspora and guerilla VPNS are examples. 

Twitter and Facebook helped organize and bring attention to the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and Standing Rock movements, bringing thousands of protestors to the streets. As digital activism continues to grow, civil disobedience online will continue to a be vital tool for expressing dissent. As society continues to flock towards social media and digital activism and governments crack down we can expect the internet to be the the futures best zone for free speech and activism. 

It has the ability to reach millions in a short period of time spanning almost all geographical boundaries. New tactics will be developed and while it may not be in the streets it is having a profound effect on people everywhere as they connect and wake up to the numerous atrocities on a global scale.