Prosecutors in New York have subpoenaed the Twitter accounts of Occupy Wall Street protestors, and the movement in Oakland is quarrelling with itself over livestreaming: #OWS, the first movement born of a hashtag, is beginning to realize the dark side of social media.
Several protestors arrested during the infamous Brooklyn Bridge march were sent notifications by Twitter that their accounts had been subpoenaed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office; Twitter is allowing the users seven days to file motions to quash, in which case they will withhold supplying the records until a court rules.
Jeff Rae, of Washington D.C., is baffled by the DA’s request, as not only does he feel his tweets were minor and general in nature, but he’s not exactly hiding them. “It’s a bit surprising because all my tweets are public,” said Rae, who, to his credit, has not taken any of them down.
But prosecutors may be trying to prove that the protestors were aware of police orders to keep off the bridge, in contradiction to claims that they were caught in a trap by the NYPD.
Those protestors contacted by the media say both say they are filing motions to quash.
Meanwhile in Oakland—and there’s always a meanwhile in Oakland in OWS stories—the more diffuse and risible iteration of the movement is having an impassioned discussion over livestreaming, which is to the west coast version of OWS what Twitter was to the east.
In October, live video filmed by fellow protestors captured the worst of the Oakland police’s abuses, catapulting the Oakland movement to national prominence. But livestreaming is “a double-edged sword,” says Ellen Cushing, in a smart article about both edges. Even if it’s not meant to “catch citizens breaking the law, the problem with live, uncut video is, well, that it's live and uncut. In other words, livestreamers capture what happens, exactly as it happens—and that has contentious implications for a movement that continues to wrestle with its relationship with violence and property destruction.”
In short, those who keep their cameras running are finding themselves called snitches, and in some cases threatened with violence, as the same video used today to implicate police officers could be used tomorrow to indict protestors. And attempts to only film certain behaviors would not only be difficult to execute, but would enervate the transparency of the movement as a whole. “If people know that we turn our camera off for certain situations or certain people,” said one livestreamer, “they'll have no reason to trust anything else that we show.”
The livestreamers Cushing spoke to recognize that the movement is based on transparency, and are keeping their cameras on even through the intimidation, using the hashtag #sunshinebloc, in reference to the maxim that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” If they’re right, their videos could show the Occupy movement the worst of itself, and keep the it focused on issues of income inequality and corporate influence over politics, the two issues on which the movement has been the most powerful, eloquent, and influential.
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Follow Evan McMurry @evanmcmurry
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