The guide seems to be aimed at attendees, rather than organizers and media. If someone is showing up to add their voice to the protest, then leaving their phone at home is an ideal way to minimize their footprint.
Comment on How to secure your phone before attending a protest
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 3 days agoIts a balancing act. You shouldn’t be recording tiktoks and doing the carlton.
But there is a lot of value in organizers being able to communicate. If you see a fat white kid with an assault rifle, you let people know. Same with when the paddy wagons roll in.
And there is a LOT of value in being able to make it clear to the cops that you are recording before they decide to “teach some people a lesson”.
I chat about this with my activist buddies a lot. And one thing we are increasingly realizing is that there is a LOT of value in convincing even a mid-tier IRL streamer to come out. Yeah, they are fucking obnoxious when they are trying to yell to chat. But it is someone who is high enough profile that they won’t immediately have their gear destroyed AND privileged enough that they won’t even realize that is an option until it is too late. At which point the decision as to how to handle the escalation is already happening.
sbv@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 days ago
You shouldn’t be recording tiktoks and doing the carlton.
Then why even GO to a protest??? To stand up for our freedoms? Pssshhhh!!!
does the carlton
18_24_61_b_17_17_4@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Just an aside that Paddy wagons is pretty racist.
shalafi@lemmy.world 3 days ago
That’s so old-school racist it doesn’t count anymore, like Irish_Americans give a shit in 2025. You’re diluting the word, making it worth less.
This is what people mean when they say, “You can’t say anything anymore!” They’re not mad they can’t say n*****, they’re mad because of silly shit like this. If everything is racist, language becomes a minefield, impossible to keep up with and navigate.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Every sourcing I have seen comes more from the UK as a way to shorten patrol and the argument that it is an ethnic slur against Irish people is similar to “cracker” in that… can you REALLY be that racist against the oppressors?
But tweaked anyway. Thanks.
Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Irish people were actually considered “non-white” throughout most of the history of race as a concept. They were only recently recategorized by racists when they felt their numbers dwindling and decided to expand the tent a little.
Irish people have suffered from a history of explicitly racist oppression; calling them “the oppressors” flies directly in the face of history. Their skin colour may be white, but the history of their relationship with race as a power structure is far more complex.
This does not mean that it’s impossible for Irish people to be racist themselves, or for Irish people to embrace “white” as an identity. Race is complicated; that’s exactly why trying to adopt simplistic attitudes to it never works.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Yes, the Irish were (and kind of still are) looked down upon by “Whites”.
They historically chose to address that by becoming cops. Oppressors. The idea being that if they were useful they would at least be better than the brown and yellow people. And irish cops have caused untold horrors amongst labor and minorities.
So while I disagree that “paddy wagon” is an Irish slur so much as MAYBE it is a cop slur, it is close enough that I’ll refrain from using it. But it is still the same issue as with “cracker” where… you are gonna have to try a whole hell of a lot harder for me to care if people’s feelings are hurt that folk don’t appreciate how many skulls they cracked in the name of impressing the crackers.
Ulrich@feddit.org 3 days ago
Yeah racism doesn’t apply to whypepo
gnome@programming.dev 3 days ago
Hmm if it’s a smartphone, their location can still be tracked even if they’re not recording videos for social media. I’ve never attended a protest, but one of my younger siblings has. I agree with the author here: don’t take a smartphone with you. If you need to go to a protest, and it’s a charged topic (i.e. people have been fired or detained for it), take a dumb phone and make calls once you’re considerably away from the protest’s meeting site. Or, buy a burner phone for use only at the meeting site. If video footage is that big of a deal, take an old-fashioned video camera to record.
Telorand@reddthat.com 3 days ago
What is this “vid-eo chimera” you speak of? Some ancient technology from the Mayans? /j
But seriously, unless there’s some reason to stream live, old tricks are sometimes still the best tricks.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Cops who know they are being recorded MIGHT behave slightly better. It is why they are so hellbent on never wearing bodycams ever again.
An SD card on the person of someone being thrown in the back of a van to have an “accident” on the way to booking? Not so useful.
gnome@programming.dev 3 days ago
I’ve aged myself, haven’t I? lol
Telorand@reddthat.com 3 days ago
Maybe. I’ve had the same thought, to the point of bringing a cheap point and click camera or even a disposable one, so you’re not alone!
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
At least you didn’t call it a camcorder.