how to secure your phone for a protest.
don’t fucking bring it
If you can, leave your phone at home
That’s it! There’s the answer!
If you aren’t communicating that a protest happened, then it didn’t happen.
It’s quite literally the entire point.
Its 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 patrol 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.
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.
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
Hmm if it’s a smartphone, their location can still be tracked even if they’re not recording videos for social media. Even if it’s not a smartphone, their location can be triangulated.
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.
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.
What is this “vid-eo chimera” you speak of? Some ancient technology from the Mayans? /j
I’ve aged myself, haven’t I? lol
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!
Just an aside that Paddy wagons is pretty racist.
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.
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 predominantly Irish police forces is similar to “cracker” in that… can you REALLY be that racist against the oppressors?
But tweaked anyway. Thanks.
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.
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.
Yeah racism doesn’t apply to whypepo
Ideally also leave your car at home and take public transit while paying with cash or walk. CCTV and facial recognition are still issues, but you would be reducing your fingerprint a ton.
“But how will I livestream my protest against Elon on X with out my phone?”
Of course! It’s so obvious!
deleted by creator
The EFF also has an article: https://ssd.eff.org/module/attending-protest
Back when I had Amazon smile, the donations went to the EFF. This makes me happy it went to a worthy cause.
Don’t take your phone to a protest
What a boring dystopian article. It’s sad, but necessary.
purchase and use a burner phone instead, and only turn it on when you’re at the site of the demonstration
This should be the de facto response. In addition, I’d suggest not using your personal phone for any protest related communications and stick with burners no matter how much you may trust the organizers.
Write down your name and ICE information with a sharpie on your body. Use a rugged phone case.
Don’t bother going to peaceful protests, they don’t work against post-truth authoritarian governments.
Burners
The Hated One is another good resource on these topics. The guy is a paranoid and has an extreme threat model, but the information is still on point. Worth watching and sharing.
Got a specific video you could suggest from them?
How To be Anonymous In A Protest | Burner Phone Tutorial
I think this one is pretty good. Pretty good explanation of how a protester might leave digital information and what to do about it.
