Anonymous Takes On San Francisco’s anti-Protest Actions
August 18th, 2011
While Britain considers ways to limit the accessibility of social media in the wake of the devastating riots in the major cities, San Francisco decided to give it a dry run at some of its train stations to head off a potential protest.
The incident began after a fatal shooting occurred in the downtown area near one of the train stations. Fearing a potential riot might occur, resembling the events in London after a similar shooting incident, the BART, the city’s transportation authority, had cell service shut down in the area around where the shooting had occurred to prevent protests from forming in the area.
This angered the hacking group Anonymous, who decided to shut down a BART site. The group, also famous for their actions in Orlando after charity workers were arrested for feeding the homeless in a public park, was protesting the cell phone shutdown around the area. Cell phone usage was soon restored once it appeared the protests would not occur in the area.
We all feel a little rattled by the events in London, especially local governments with many of the same socio-economic symptoms as London, like massive unemployment and very upset young people over their lot in life. That being said, halting communication around affected areas is not the way to prevent protests. It amounts to a thinly veiled attempt to restrict free speech among citizens, and an attempt by government officials to quiet dissent and not address the problems that led to the dissent to begin with. Free speech is exercisable in all circumstances and not just when the government allows it.
