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TECHNOLOGY Thursday 16 February 2017

From protests to ‘pussy hats,’ Trump resistance brews online

BARBARA ORTUTAY
AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The
revolution may not be
televised — but it appar-
ently will be tweeted. And
Facebooked. And Insta-
grammed.
Not long after President
Donald Trump temporar-
ily barred most people
from seven majority-Mus-
lim countries from enter-
ing the U.S., social activist
Dex Torricke-Barton took
to Facebook. “I’m thinking
of organizing a rally,” he
posted. Within a few hours,
more than 1,000 people
expressed interest. The re-
sulting protest a week later,
in front of San Francisco’s
City Hall, drew thousands
more.
Torricke-Barton is far from
alone. From organizing
protests on the fly to raising
money for refugee and im-
migrant rights groups, peo-
ple have been using social In this Jan. 21, 2017, file photo, demonstrators march along Fifth Avenue during a women’s march, in New York.
media to fuel the resistance Associated Press
against Trump in ways their
organizing predecessors ganization to get it off the the company wrote in Back then, “lawyers, mar- The effects of social media
from the 1960s could have ground,” says Christopher a Medium post this week. keters, communications aren’t limited to huge ef-
hardly imagined. Huff, a Beacon College “But after Donald Trump’s people would help you forts.
ROOTS OF PROTEST professor focused on social order to block people on get (the protests) off the A week or so after the
In Queens, New York, for movements of the 1960s. the basis of nationality and ground ... networks had to election, Marisa Frantz,
instance, a group of 27 “The women’s march was religion, a line had been be created in advance,” an art director in Cerrillos,
women met up to write achieved at a much larger crossed.” he said. “Now, protests can New Mexico, teamed up
postcards to their state scale at a fraction of the So Meetup held a compa- start without any kind of in- with her sister-in-law Sarah
and local representatives time.” This immediacy is ny-wide “resist-a-thon” — a frastructure.” Bailey Hogarty to create a
during a “Postcard-Writing both an asset and a dis- riff on the hackathons tech FOLLOW THE MONEY private Facebook group
Happy Hour” organized advantage. While online companies hold to devise Shortly after Trump’s order, called “America is Watch-
through Facebook. networks help people rally new technologies — to the venture capitalist Bi- ing.” To join, all people had
And on Ravelry, the so- quickly around a cause, help people get involved in jan Sabet tweeted a link to do was comment “yes.”
cial network for knitters Huff says, they don’t neces- the anti-Trump movement to the fundraising platform If they then posted their zip
and crocheters, members sarily help people grasp the known as “the resistance.” Crowdrise alongside an ex- code in comments, Frantz
have been trading advice “long-term effort” required It then unveiled more than planation of his support for would send them contact
and knitting patterns for to sustain a movement. 1,000 new “#resist” Meetup the American Civil Liberties information for their sena-
the pink “pussy hats” that ONLINE, THEN OFF groups that people can join Union— and then asked his tors and representative,
emerged as a symbol dur- In Silicon Valley and across for free (it’s normally $15 followers to do the same. Hogarty explained in an
ing the Women’s March the tech world, Trump’s a month to run a group). Sabet figured it might take email.
on Washington and similar travel ban created a stir As of Wednesday, some as long as two months to “Like many of us, I was
protests elsewhere after that went well beyond the 35,000 people had joined reach his $50,000 goal. It floundering around feeling
Trump’s inauguration. industry’s usual calls for de- the #resist Meetup groups, took three days. That week- terrible and afraid,” said
“This is an incredible proj- regulation and more cod- and scheduled 625 events end, the ACLU raised $24 Hogarty, a digital produc-
ect because it’s mixed ing classes for kids. Between around the world. million, far more than the $4 er for the San Francisco
between digital and physi- aggregating donations, is- Torricke-Barton, who in million it receives in a typi- Museum of Modern Art. “I
cal,” says Jayna Zweiman, suing fiery statements, and earlier incarnations wrote cal year. wanted to do something,
one of the founders of the walking out of work in pro- speeches for Facebook Sabet, whose father is from but I had no idea where to
Pussyhat Project. “We har- test, tech company execu- CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Iran, says he’s seeing civic start.”
nessed social media for tives and employees took Alphabet Chairman Eric involvement “level up,” Hogarty called the group
good.” up the anti-Trump cause at Schmidt, said he and two and that social media is her “foothold to resis-
In 1969, activists planned a scale not seen in other in- sisters of Iranian descent pushing that along. Pre- tance.” Now, the group
massive marches around dustries. organized their last-minute viously, he said, people has more than 1,000 mem-
the U.S. to protest the war New York-based Meetup, protest using Facebook would maybe say, “yeah, bers across the U.S. and
in Vietnam. The protests, for instance, broke with groups and Messenger. I’m a bit frustrated, but I organizes weekly “calls to
called the Moratorium, nearly 15 years of help- That’s quite a contrast to don’t have all the informa- action,” such as contact-
drew millions of people ing people form and join Torricke-Barton’s earlier tion, I don’t know how to ing senators and represen-
around the world. But “it interest groups on a non- experience protesting vio- get involved.” Now, there’s tatives about a particular
took months, a lot of effort, partisan basis. “We’re vital lence in Darfur more than a no excuse. issue determined by a poll
a national office of the or- plumbing for democracy,” decade ago. LITTLE THINGS of the group.q