For all you rabble rousers out there

[Steve]

Protest Portal Unites Activists Under One URL

Bob Tedeschi
NY Times 9/2/98


Like countless others, political organizers hailed the Internet as a
potential savior: a cheap, easy way to disseminate information, get
people into the streets and change the world. Then came the grim
reality -- that you can't find an audience if you don't have a catchy
URL, a fat publicity budget or a major Web site to carry your link. 

What leftists have needed is a central source of information about
current issues and upcoming events -- a protest portal, as it were.
And that is precisely what Evan Henshaw-Plath has created. His site,
Protest.Net, offers worldwide protest schedules and links, free of
charge, under the umbrella of an easily memorized URL. And while it may
not be enough to save the summer of '98 from drifting into activist
obscurity, it could bring new volume to civil disobedience in the
future. 

"It's like finding the protest du jour," said David Ronfeldt, senior
social scientist at RAND. "Folks across the conflict spectrum are
resorting to network strategy and technology to help dispersed
individuals link up and act jointly. This Web site fits that model." 

Other sites, like the Association for Progressive Communications and
the Institute for Global Communications offer links to left-leaning
activist networks such as PeaceNet and EcoNet, but they don't offer
quick access to information about protests. With Protest.Net, not
only can a prospective protester find out about an upcoming action in
their region, they can also click on different nations and find out
where similar efforts are underway. 

Although the site's creator goes by the e-mail moniker "rabble
rouser," he is more entrepreneur than political dissenter.
Henshaw-Plath, 21, created an Internet calendar software program in
college, and recently received venture capital financing to develop
it. 

"I was talking to some of my friends who are activists about how
difficult it is -- how, if you don't happen to see a flyer or if
you're not in the right circle, it's hard to know what's going on,"
he said. "So I took this calendar software and started the site." 

Since the June 1 launch date, Henshaw-Plath says "about 700" actions
have been posted on his site, "whether it's a 10-year-old kid in
Australia who wants more humane treatment for wild animals or union
organizers who are conducting outreach sessions," he said. "With this,
I can simultaneously test my software and give something back to the
activists." 

And for publicity-hungry organizations, "it's definitely a big help,"
said Brett Wycker, co-founder of the Philadelphia chapter of the
Coalition Against the Fur Trade and the Vegan Resistance for
Liberation. "It's too early to say what kind of impact it's had on
our protests, but our name for the vegan group isn't catchy, and the
URL is a mile long, so to have our information in one condensed area
is great." 

Henshaw-Plath said the site "hasn't been up long enough to see
trends," but noted that "there was definitely a jump after the recent
bombings" in Afghanistan and the Sudan. 

Indeed, the next protracted United States military operation should
be a watershed for protest sites and Internet-generated activism,
academics said. According to Jerry M. Lewis, professor of sociology
at Kent State University and one of two faculty members present at
the May 4, 1970 shootings, "With the Internet, the communication is
immediate, and the analysis starts immediately. If we'd had the
Internet back then, the reaction to May 4 would've been huge. It
would've solidified the anti-war movement." 

On the other hand, the sheer number of possibilities for information
gathering may paralyze potential activists, said Jack Levin, director
of the Program for the Study of Violence and Conflict at Northeastern
University. "Because you can find seven or eight sides of an issue,
it creates a cyber-environment in which one form of protest has to
complete against another," he said. "People move faster when they
hear one compelling argument, and slower when they're confronted with
many sides of an issue. The question is whether someone would take
the time and effort to find out all sides, and that remains to be
seen." 

Another open question is what exactly qualifies as a protest worthy
of inclusion on the Protest.Net site. "It's really open to anything,
unless it's really offensive like the KKK," Henshaw-Plath said,
noting that he has not had to pull any protests from the site. "If it
was a pro-life protest, I'd probably suggest other ways to promote
the cause. This just isn't the right forum." 

Ronfeldt, of RAND, said another potential pitfall that could slow
widescale acceptance of Protest.Net and sites like it is that it may
have trouble attracting committed participants. "It sort of invites a
lot of revolutionary tourists, and happy-go-lucky activists who want
to jump in briefly," he said. "I wonder how the true activists will
receive this." 

So far, the activists are happy to accept anyone who would have them.
"If anything, it's good, because it gets all types of audiences
interested -- people other than just young college kids," said Wycker
of the Coalition Against the Fur Trade and the Vegan Resistance for
Liberation. "We definitely want anyone to come out." 

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company 





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