Yes. And I am old enough to have attended my first protest without a mobile phone - because I simply didn’t have one yet back then. And my first one I organised actually was a failure because it was impossible to communicate a change of venue.
And before my time protesting was suddenly much harder once the other side had the option to mobilise their forces and react to protesters much mor fluidly. (Mainly when handheld police radio became widely available)
The point is: There is always a force, intelligence and information disadvantage between the different sides - a state actor will always be in a better position. This is even more true in times where mass surveillance is very easy to achieve. A developing world country nowadays easily can achieve a level of surveillance of protests that surpases Stasi levels in their best days for 1% of the resources.
Proper and secure communications are one of the only ways to level the playing field at least a bit.
Sure,you can go to plain old “we meet there at XY” protests. Have fun doing that.
Your chances to be a victim of repression if you do so within repressive circumstances are far higher,but if you like that?
You do realize that the act of protesting predates the invention of the phone by a long way, right?
Yes. And I am old enough to have attended my first protest without a mobile phone - because I simply didn’t have one yet back then. And my first one I organised actually was a failure because it was impossible to communicate a change of venue.
And before my time protesting was suddenly much harder once the other side had the option to mobilise their forces and react to protesters much mor fluidly. (Mainly when handheld police radio became widely available)
The point is: There is always a force, intelligence and information disadvantage between the different sides - a state actor will always be in a better position. This is even more true in times where mass surveillance is very easy to achieve. A developing world country nowadays easily can achieve a level of surveillance of protests that surpases Stasi levels in their best days for 1% of the resources. Proper and secure communications are one of the only ways to level the playing field at least a bit.
Sure,you can go to plain old “we meet there at XY” protests. Have fun doing that. Your chances to be a victim of repression if you do so within repressive circumstances are far higher,but if you like that?