Riseup Collective

Although new communication technologies hold great democratizing potential, these new technologies are part of a historic expansion in the surveillance powers of governments and corporations. Social media tools allow us to collaborate, but the business model behind them relies on selling our behavior to advertisers. The collection of all this data has become a vast multiplier of state power. The US government is actively building a social network database of the relationships among everyone in the country. This presents a serious and long term threat to the viability of any social movement that is perceived as a problem by law enforcement. Fortunately, there is something we can do about it. This workshop will focus on the free and easy-to-use alternative communication tools provided by activist tech collectives around the world. These secure alternatives include email, mailing lists, web hosting, chat, online document collaboration, blogs, wikis, social networking, and text messaging. We will also show you how to easily prevent any google service from tracking you and how to circumvent state censorship and surveillance in all your online activities.

Movements that successfully challenge state or corporate power will face surveillance and repression. As online organizing becomes common place, the choice of tools social movements use is critical. The internet may herald a deep change in democratic communication, but the internet is simultaneously the most effective tool for mass surveillance ever devised. Corporations like facebook and google monitor you closely in order to sell you to advertisers. We think their model poses a grave threat to social movements and have been busy creating Crabgrass, a secure alternative to for-profit social networking and organizing platforms. We would like to present Crabgrass, get feedback, and talk about the tools you use and what tools you wish you had. The workshop will be in three parts. 1) quick introduction to crabgrass – how it was built and why we think its important 2) A longer presentation of crabgrass in action. We will have crabgrass running live and will show you what it can do and how people are using it. 3) Feedback section from the presentation, conversation with current users of crabgrass, and a conversation on what tools you use and which ones you would like to see developed.

Although new communication technologies hold great democratizing potential, these new technologies are part of a historic expansion in the surveillance powers of governments and corporations. Social media tools allow us to collaborate, but the business model behind them relies on selling our behavior to advertisers. The collection of all this data has become a vast multiplier of state power. The US government is actively building a social network database of the relationships among everyone in the country. This presents a serious and long term threat to the viability of any social movement that is perceived as a problem by law enforcement. Fortunately, there is something we can do about it. This workshop will focus on the free and easy-to-use alternative communication tools provided by activist tech collectives around the world. These secure alternatives include email, mailing lists, web hosting, chat, online document collaboration, blogs, wikis, social networking, and text messaging. We will also show you how to easily prevent any google service from tracking you and how to circumvent state censorship and surveillance in all your online activities.

Movements that successfully challenge state or corporate power will face surveillance and repression. As online organizing becomes common place, the choice of tools social movements use is critical. The internet may herald a deep change in democratic communication, but the internet is simultaneously the most effective tool for mass surveillance ever devised. Corporations like facebook and google monitor you closely in order to sell you to advertisers. We think their model poses a grave threat to social movements and have been busy creating Crabgrass, a secure alternative to for-profit social networking and organizing platforms. We would like to present Crabgrass, get feedback, and talk about the tools you use and what tools you wish you had. The workshop will be in three parts. 1) quick introduction to crabgrass – how it was built and why we think its important 2) A longer presentation of crabgrass in action. We will have crabgrass running live and will show you what it can do and how people are using it. 3) Feedback section from the presentation, conversation with current users of crabgrass, and a conversation on what tools you use and which ones you would like to see developed.