Revolutionary Code
Why we need more conscious and collaborative social movement technologies.
Standing in the crowd of Tahrir Square, Gigi Ibrahim quickly typed and posted to Twitter: “Pro-Mubarak march now coming into Tahrir in ‘a big number’ and it will get ugly.”
Like thousands of others, Ibrahim used social media to share the police brutality and human rights abuses of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution with the world. In response, the Egyptian government shut down the internet and SMS for nearly a week. In the years since, organizations have stepped in with new technologies promising to help activists like Ibrahim avoid this type of backlash, creating tools that enable users to circumvent internet shutdowns and surveillance. These developers have designed mesh networks, self-healing networks that enable smartphones or wireless routers to connect to one another via Bluetooth or WiFi without an internet connection, and apps that encrypt end-to-end internet traffic, creating additional security strongholds that enable protesters to anonymously communicate.
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