Hacktivism as a radical media practice

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HACKTIVISM AS A RADICAL MEDIA PRACTICE Stefania Milan Introduction When in September 1995 President Jacques Chirac announced that France would run a series of nuclear tests in the Polynesian atoll of Mururoa, a group of Italian artists decided to exploit the technical properties of the nascent internet to make a political statement. The call for action invited activists to join “a demonstration of 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 netusers all together making part of a line crossing French Government’s sites. The result of this strike will be to stop for an hour the network activities of the French Government” (Tozzi, n.d.). On 21 December, ten websites, including that of the Nuclear Energy Agency, were attacked simultaneously by thousands of users who continuously reloaded the pages, making them temporarily unavailable. It was the first ‘netstrike’, or network strike, a type of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. According to its promoters, a netstrike is “the networked version of a peaceful sit-in. The metaphor that best represents it is that of a number of people that walk on pedestrian crossings with signs and banners, if their number is really big they can stop traffic for a noticeable period of time” (Tozzi, n.d.). A decade later, a decentralized network going under the mass noun of Anonymous launched a disruption campaign on the web in defence of freedom of expression online. These “digital Robin Hoods” (Carter, 2012) engaged in several DDoS attacks against institutional and business websites, including Amazon and Mastercard. The Mururoa netstrike and Anonymous’s web disruptions are instances of hacktivism. Hacktivism indicates collective action in cyberspace that addresses network infrastructure or exploits the infrastructure’s technical and ontological features for political or social change. Activists engage in politically motivated use of technical expertise in view of fixing society through software and online action. In short, it is “activism gone electronic” (Jordan and Taylor, 2004: 1). The Texas-based computer underground group known as Cult of the Dead Cow (currently Hacktivismo) claims to have coined the term, a portmanteau of ‘hacking’ and ‘activism’, in 1998 (Delio, 2004). Hacktivists emerge from within the so-called civil society, that is to say the relatively autonomous realm of human action outside the remit of the state and the market. However, hacktivism disputes some of our fundamental interpretations of said civil

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society, more often than not associated with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). It challenges the increasing professionalisation of transnational activist networks by routinely involving non-professional activists, and points to the disembodiment of contemporary activism by decoupling resistance and physical presence (Wong and Brown, 2013). Following Couldry, who called for a sociological approach in addressing media as practice, this chapter explores hacktivism focusing on “the open set of practices relating to, or oriented around” technology (2004: 117). In particular, hacktivism positions itself in the long tradition of radical media practices, as defined by Downing (2001). Similarly to radical media practitioners, hacktivists “express an alternative vision to hegemonic politics, priorities, and perspectives”; their tactics “break somebody’s rules, although rarely all of them in every aspect” (v–ix). The emergence of hacktivism signals the need to think of liberation as an everyday process that disrupts immediate realities (Downing, 1984). This disruption of the present takes place at two levels: at the level of political participation, and at the level of political contention. In fact, hacktivists see cyberspace as both an arena for civic engagement, and an object of contention in its own right. As an arena for civic engagement and a platform for collective action where alternative views about society are articulated and shared, cyberspace allows activists to practice digital citizenry, to organise and to engage in cyber-specific forms of collective action. As an object of contention, cyberspace is to be defended from tightening state control, restrictive legislation and aggressive commercialization. Hacktivism is a highly contested concept, used to label diverse tactics and ethical codes not always compatible with each other. For instance, while Anonymous may not hesitate to deface websites or launch DDoS, other groups may consider these tactics a form of censorship and a breach of freedom of speech, as such counter to the very aims of hacktivism. With this contention in mind, this chapter explores the main features of hacktivism as a radical media practice, looking at the shared history and core values of activists. As we shall see, it adopts an inclusive definition of hacktivism that involves both disruptive and self-organization tactics. It takes a sociological perspective and asks “what people are doing and how they categorise what they are doing” (Couldry, 2004: 125). It is based on in-depth interviews with radical internet activists collected over the period 2005–2012, which gained the author access to “the categorisations of practice that people make themselves” (122). The chapter is structured as follows: first, it offers an historical overview on hacktivism as a radical media practice, illustrating how its understandings and actions have evolved since its inception; second, it offers a sociological analysis of hacktivist organizational patterns; third, it explores hacktivists’ tactics and their approach to institutions and social norms. In the conclusion, it delves into the challenges that hacktivism faces in the present and near future, touching upon issues of repression, accountability and impact.

The rise of hacktivism as a political subject We can identify three main phases in the brief history of hacktivism as a political subject. They follow the gradual recognition of the potential of cyberspace as an arena for collective action, and reflect the increasingly lower cost and availability of

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internet access and skills. In the pre-internet phase, resourced NGOs joined forces to create their own networking infrastructure. The second phase, which corresponds approximately to the diffusion of the internet in the 1990s, saw the idea of cyberspace as a political arena spreading also to grassroots groups. In the third phase, in the early 2000s, hacktivism became the playground of individual activists too, partially thanks to the increasing readiness of hacktivism tactics. The first instances of activists appropriating digital technologies for civic engagement date back to the 1980s. Before the diffusion of the internet, the Bulletin Board System (BBS) allowed users to exchange messages and files by means of a common landline. In 1984 a coalition of human rights, development and women’s NGOs from four continents signed the Velletri Agreement, committing to use telephone lines to network their computers (Murphy, 2005). With funding from the Canadian International Development Research Centre, they developed their own network, named Interdoc and open to civil society organizations. Several other networks followed between 1985 and 1990, providing progressive activists with cheap systems for sharing textbased information: amongst them were Fidonet, which relied on BBS technology; the London-based GreenNet, oriented towards the “progressive community working for peace, the environment, gender equality and social justice”; PeaceNet and EcoNet in the US, which later merged into the Institute for Global Communications; and the European Counter Network, based in Italy and connected to the most radical fringes of European social movements. Some still operate today. In 1988 PeaceNet and GreenNet teamed up to establish the first NGO-owned transatlantic cable, implementing “the Internet vision of global communications unfettered by commercial barriers” (Murphy, 2000). In 1990 they joined forces in the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), to ensure that “all people have easy and affordable access to a free and open internet to improve their lives and create a more just world” (Association for Progressive Communications, n.d.). The second phase of hacktivism follows the spread of the internet in the mid-1990s, which facilitated the emergence of a new type of grassroots activism which had direct action in cyberspace at its core. As an activist put it, “finally technology and politics were talking the same language, and the links between the physical and electronic spaces were becoming real” (Milan, 2010: 89). Hacktivism stricto sensu appeared to the scene, exploiting for protest purposes the low cost, speed and flexibility of networkmediated communication. In 1994, the US tactical media collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) was the first to theorize electronic civil disobedience “as another option for digital resistance … that would produce multiple currents and trajectories to slow the velocity of capitalist political economy” (Critical Arts Ensemble, 2001: 13–14). In their view, electronic civil disobedience was the most meaningful forms of political resistance in times of nomadic and decentralized power. Rather than a mass movement, CAE activists saw electronic disturbance as a cell-based hit-and-run media intervention taking advantage of the decentralisation typical of the information society (Critical Arts Ensemble, 1996). In 1995, the first netstrike targeted the websites of the French government, in retaliation for its nuclear experiments in Polynesia. The following year, the Italian activists credited with having invented the netstrike published a 145-page book designed to spread the tactic. The first chapter, entitled “Net strike starter”, included a detailed explanation of how to organize a netstrike, with theoretical premises

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and practical hints (Strano Network and Tozzi, 1996). Many netstrikes followed across the world, including in Saudi Arabia and South Korea, targeting government websites and protesting, among other things, the war in Yugoslavia and the death penalty. Other hit-and-run media interventions emerged, such as tactical media projects, “media of crisis, criticism and opposition” by “groups and individuals who feel aggrieved by, or excluded from, the wider culture” (Garcia and Lovink, 1997). In 1994, the Zapatista uprising, an indigenous rights movement, exploited the networking capabilities of the internet to speak for itself, bypassing mainstream media. What was barely a local struggle in the remote state of Chiapas, Mexico, turned into the first global “information guerrilla movement”, which gained the support of many transnational networks (Martinez-Torres, 2001). In 1996 the Zapatistas called out for activists around the world to team up to “make a network of communication among all our struggles and resistances” (Hamm, 2005). Inspired by the Zapatistas’ call for action, Western activists realized that “grass-roots ‘social movements’ needed new networks of communication … but also that the way these networks were created, run and developed, mirrored, as much as possible, the direct, participatory, collective and autonomous nature of the emerging social movement(s) themselves” (Milan, 2010: 88–89). In 1999, activists protesting against the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, Washington, gave life to the first Independent Media Centre, or Indymedia. For the first time in internet history, thanks to an open-source software developed by activists in Sydney, Australia, users could publish content online without editorial filter, prior registration or webmaster skills. Three years after its foundation, Indymedia counted already 89 nodes across six continents (Kidd, 2003). Do-it-yourself radical communication projects became increasingly popular: they put self-organization, freedom of speech and grassroots media production at the centre of social change. Networking infrastructure, too, became an object of contention, as activists progressively realized the importance of controlling their own channels of communication. Radical tech activists engaged in the creation of autonomous networking infrastructure independent from the state and the market, recognizing the role of the internet as a tool for individual and collective empowerment. With internet connections in households still a rarity, activists offered public access points, often in occupied buildings. When internet became mainstream, they started operating exclusively as noncommercial internet service providers (ISPs), offering at no cost privacyaware email accounts, mailing lists and web hosting. Popular self-organized servers include Autistici/Inventati in Italy, Riseup and Mayfirst/People’s Link in the United States, SO36 and Nadir in Germany and Plentyfact in the UK. They provide the digital backbone for activists to network, communicate and protest: Riseup alone hosts some 50,000 email accounts, and over one million people subscribe to the mailing lists hosted on its servers. In Europe, alternative ISPs emerged in the milieu of the squatted social centres, and maintain strong linkages to the more radical and antagonist scene. Their mission goes well beyond self-organization in the communication sphere: for example, Riseup’s purpose is “to aid in the creation of a free society, a world with freedom from want and freedom of expression, a world without oppression or hierarchy, where power is shared equally” (Riseup, n.d.). The third phase in the evolution of hacktivism corresponds to the popularisation of hacktivism practices by individuals aligned to Anonymous, whose nuisance

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campaigns started in 2003 and made the news for the first time in 2008. Anonymous originated in online chat rooms focused on politically incorrect pranks. Later, it mutated into a politically engaged group, maintaining, however, an orientation to the ‘lulz’, a neologism indicating the fun associated with pranks (Gorenstein Massa, 2010; Coleman, 2013a). Activists mobilise against companies, governments and individuals in retaliation for behaviours that threaten the uncensored internet. Earlier actions included online mobilisation and nuisance campaigns against the Church of Scientology, accused of censoring its members’ opinions; the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry for its pro-copyright battles; and child pornography sites. Anonymous mobilised also in support of WikiLeaks, by attacking the websites of companies and security agencies guilty of taking action against the whistle-blower website (Milan, 2013a). Similarly, the now defunct LulzSec, whose motto was “Laughing at your security since 2011”, has exposed security concerns with spectacular hacks, attacking companies of the calibre of Sony Pictures and News Corporation. Thanks to Anonymous and LulzSec, hacktivism is no longer a marginal struggle by a bunch of geeks: what were back in the 1990s sporadic cell-based interventions are now tactics practiced on a regular basis by transnational decentralised networks of individuals seeking to intervene regularly into real-world struggles. While the diffusion of hacktivist exploits is also a consequence of the sheer number of people with access to technology and technical expertise, it was Anonymous who gave hacktivism popularity, encouraging young people who do not care about the consequences to join. However, Anonymous-like disruptive actions co-exist with self-organization efforts. Radical internet activists continue to defend, seek and expand spaces of autonomy in cyberspace, for example by creating encryption tools and alternatives to corporate social networking services in view of protecting user privacy and online dissent. Among the newest projects are Tor, an ‘onion routing’ encryption system designed to protect users’ anonymity in online interactions, and Crabgrass, a Riseup spin-off that offers an open-source social networking platform for activists where users are in control of their data.

Structurelessness and dictatorship of action: Organizational norms and forms Hacktivist groups include for the most part techno-savvy activists. However, technical expertise is progressively losing relevance, as software makes it easier to engage in disruptive exploits. Organisation norms and forms are strictly interconnected: the ways people organise tend to mirror the values they stand for, such as grassroots autonomy, antagonism and participation. In turn, these principles mirror the features of the technology that is at the core of the mobilisation: the decentralisation of the internet inspires the hacktivist preference for distributed forms of organisation, while internet neutrality, according to which “all bits are created equal”, partially explains the activists’ inclination towards a participatory approach to decision-making. Grassroots autonomy refers both to the autonomy of the group from the context in which it is embedded (that is to say, actions and decisions are supposedly independent from social norms and even existing legislation), and to the autonomy of the

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individual within the group. Antagonism indicates an anti-establishment ethos and a political radicalism that translates as a principled scepticism towards power holders and structures. In this respect, hacktivists are subcultural and contentious at the same time: the challenge to authority is a building block of their identity and a recurrent feature in the normative order of groups. Finally, participation entails openness to anybody who is willing to get involved, although it is kept in check by the fact that members tend to share a certain social and political proximity as a prerequisite to action. These principles translate into practice in organisational forms that are also an “ethical statement” per se (Jordan, 2002: 74). Organisational patterns vary in the degree of formalisation and openness, but groups usually share a number of features. First, they are likely to be informal groups of equals, and reject hierarchies in both organisation and representation mechanisms (e.g., spokespersons). They resemble a “community without structure” (Leach, 2009: 1059), characterised by decentralisation and horizontality. Nonetheless, there are mechanisms in place that ensure that some structure is preserved, such the consensusbased division of tasks to ensure the project sustainability. Second, recruitment mechanisms and the focus on action assimilate hacktivist groupings to affinity groups, that is to say small temporary clusters of individuals who gather around a given objective, usually a disruptive action (McDonald, 2002). Like affinity groups, hacktivist groupings are fairly small, and regulated by trust and loyalty. Members share the same values prior to action; new members are recruited over time according to the same affinity principle. Third, hacktivist groupings operate through a division of labour system rooted in individual skills and reputation, which assumes a high degree of personal motivation but flexible individual contributions. Reputation, in particular, regulates interaction within the group of peers and is a critical driving force for engagement. Finally, hacktivist groups are deliberately kept ‘invisible’ through the use of collective nouns and anonymity in online interactions (e.g., nicknames, encryption). What is visible is the action, which identifies the group and has a performative and expressive function. Typically, groups implement a participatory decision-making method rooted in consensus, and based on countless virtual meetings to discuss actions and strategies. However, by admission of the same activists, distortions of these non-hierarchical patterns do exist, and translate into actions being occasionally undertaken by individuals without consulting their fellow members. An activist called it “the dictatorship of action”, by which “those who decide to organize something, are in charge of their own project and get support of the others of the group” (Milan, 2013b: 94). This mechanism is similar to the so-called “tyranny of structurelessness” (Freeman, 1972): the high consideration for the leaderless nature of the organisation makes it difficult for activists to counterbalance informal and unacknowledged leadership, which is dangerous precisely because it is denied. Hacktivists, however, justify these distortions on the ground that it is essential for the group to ‘get things done’. They operate on the basis of a sort of inferred consensus derived from the fact that activists tend to share a set of tacit values as a precondition for joint action. Hacktivist organisational forms and decision-making patterns identify a tension between collectivism and individualism, which we see at work also in other currents of contemporary social movements (see, e.g., McDonald, 2006; Milan, 2013a).

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Whereas generally activism is a collective process, hacktivism is experienced through actions like coding and hacking, which remain essentially individual, although they gain meaning in the interaction with peers. This is why we can speak of an ‘experience movement’, which cannot be explained in terms of the relation of the individual to the collective, but where the individual practice takes central stage. Rather than being characterised by “the power to represent”, experience movements involve “grammars of embodiment” rooted on the individual (McDonald, 2006: 37).

Beyond laws and social norms: Hacktivism tactics Tactics adopted by hacktivists range from disruptive protest and direct action to forms of resistance and self-organisation. Protest, in particular, provides a “moral voice”, giving activists “an opportunity to articulate, elaborate, alter, or affirm one’s moral sensibilities, principles, and allegiances” (Jasper, 1997: 15). Tactics embody a strong contestation ethos, are intentional and rooted in a group’s values, but most importantly, they are a reaction to the socio-political context in which activists are embedded. In other words, activists react to and interact with social norms and institutions of a given social system. Many hacktivist actions, such as netstrikes, DDoS attacks and website defacements, fall under the rubric of ‘outsider’ tactics. Outsider tactics allow activists to apply pressure on institutions and businesses by organising rallies and direct action. They are typical of activists who lack access to institutions and cannot advance their demands from within the system, or who refuse to interact with institutions because they do not consider them to be legitimate political actors (see also Tarrow, 2005). On the contrary, self-organisation and forms of resistance such as those implemented by encryption developers and alternative ISPs, are examples of tactics that go ‘beyond’ institutions and social norms. Like those hacktivists who do not accept institutions as legitimate power-holders, hacktivists who engage in beyond tactics reject institutions altogether, thus positioning themselves outside the reform axis (c.f., Day, 2005). In addition, they also refuse to stay within the known social system and respect its rules, be it social norms or existing legislation. At the same time, they seek to build a different social order by creating alternative prefigurative realities that attempt to achieve here and now the principles activists stand for. These prefigurative realities take the shape of alternative technology, infrastructure and sets of values. Examples include alternative ISPs and open-source software. As an activist put it, “the political goal is to create counter-power, not to oppose [power] … like in the Indymedia slogan: ‘don’t hate the media, become the media’” (Milan, 2013b: 127). The main objective is to “by-pass the mainstream by creating living alternatives to it. I don’t think we need to focus in ‘asking’ or ‘having a voice’. I think we have ‘to do’, ‘keep doing’ and keep building working structures and alternatives … that work regardless of ‘their’ regulation[s]” (130). Prefigurative realities “provide staging posts along the way, moments of transformation, however small” (Downing, 2001: 72). They point to the fact that the vision of a fairer society cannot be detached from the process of its making. We can position hacktivist prefigurative political projects in a continuum ranging from concrete and

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down-to-earth to abstract and utopian. But these projects do not represent the simple withdrawal of activists into a parallel world, insofar as they seek to send an emancipatory revolutionary message to society. Although they are mostly local projects, their aims are much broader in scope: by creating these parallel realities, hacktivists send a signal to contemporary societies and show a possible way out of the current order. It was precisely the recognition of this revolutionary message that prompted Coleman (2013b) to claim that geeks are “the new guardians of our civil liberties”. Whereas hacktivists prefer not to interact with institutions and policy arenas, they do react when laws, regulations or police repression jeopardize their activities and values. Threats act as moral shocks and are able to foster collection action. The hacktivist tactical repertoire then includes avoiding control, creating technical bypasses to evade legislation, hacking norms and conventions and all those “obscure technically savvy ways of circumventing limitations” (Milan, 2013b: 132). It is the “engineering philosophy to ‘make things work’” that encounters an “insistence on adopting a technocratic approach to solving societal problems and to bypassing (‘hacking’) legislative approaches” (Berry, 2008: 102). To say it with an activist, the “main tactic is just avoid all the laws, sneak a way around it” (Milan, 2013b: 132). Hacktivists, for example, bypass data retention regulations by creating cryptographic means of ‘hiding’ the metadata of electronic communications, or by relocating their servers in countries in which certain regulations do not apply. Further, activists ‘hack’ norms by envisioning different working rules and implementing them ‘by design’ in their daily practices and in the software they design. They may also try to change the definition and perception of social practices in view of legitimising them, thus engaging in longer-term norm change strategies.

Conclusion Hacktivists nowadays face three main challenges: the growing repression of people and actions, the accountability of tactics towards the broader society activists claim to serve and the impact of projects and strategies. Hacktivism is undoubtedly increasingly common. As its popularity grows, so do surveillance and repression of its activities. Whereas earlier generations of activists preferred to remain under the radar in order to protect their projects from law enforcement, Anonymous have included ‘making the news’ in their tactical repertoire. This strategy came at the price of several imprisonments, and in the long term might have a negative impact on recruitment and the sustainability of projects and campaigns. As a relatively specialized form of activism, hacktivism lacks widespread support, partially due to the discrepancy between its radical content and form, and a not-soradical community of internet users. Observers have criticized the lack of transparency of hacktivists groups and projects, and their poor accountability to the people they claim to protect and serve. In addition, hacktivism tactics might occasionally become coercive insofar as activists “assert their moral claims, irrespective of the legality of their protest, by using their bodies to occupy a space” (Doherty, Plows and Wall, 2003: 670). Are these radical media practices without a radical movement? The poor accountability might seem intrinsic to nonprofit dissident practices, as the

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price to pay for their independence. However, although hacktivists score high in terms of “grassrootedness” (van Rooy, 2004) and do not claim to speak for a third party but for themselves, they should cultivate the relation with their audiences as part of their strategy. Finally, one might question the impact of hacktivism practices on the wider society. Hacktivists in fact often “create little islands of prefigurative politics with no empirical attention to how these might ever be expanded into the rest of society” (Downing, 2001: 72). However, their projects and actions represent an example to society. As an activist explained, radical media practices “can be very utopian, very experimental. They don’t have the pressure to present an outcome at the end … As such, they might have the function of some utopian ‘guiding star’, the star that provides a fix[ed] point of navigation for sailors, who use it for orientation without attempting to reach it” (Hintz, 2010: 252).

Note 1 See http://theagenda.tvo.org/episode/124944/hacktivism-and-the-trouble-with-rim (accessed 10 August 2014).

Further reading Jordan and Taylor (2004) is the first systematic book on hacktivism as a political subject and offers a vivid, even if now slightly outdated, account of hacktivism practices. Milan (2013b) provides an exhaustive sociological analysis of radical internet activism. In particular, chapter 2 places internet activism in relation to other past and present mobilizations, and chapter 3 illustrates cultural and ideological references as well as identity building in technology activism. TVO’s broadcast Attack of the Hacktivists (The Agenda with Steve Paikin, 25 October 2011)1 explores Anonymous from multiple perspectives. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous (London: Verso, 2014) by anthropologist Gabriella Coleman brings readers inside the hacktivist subculture, drawing from extensive interviews with key actors. The Coming Swarm: DDOS Actions, Hacktivism, and Civil Disobedience on the Internet by Molly Sauter (London: Bloomsbury, 2014) investigates the history, theory and practice of DDoS attacks as a tactic of political activism.

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