Organizing Direct Action in the Digital Age

Janaya Khan

The revolution of communication through the Internet and social media has changed how we approach organizing, how we access each other, and how we share information, explains Janaya Khan in this essay. It comes from a compulsion that spurs direct action like the Tamil shutdown of the Gardiner Expressway, Idle No More, Black Lives Matter—Toronto, and #BLMToTentCity. Direct action does not appeal to power, it disrupts it and redirects that power to communities that have been exploited, erased, and disenfranchised by the imperialist white supremacist state. The discord between media reporting of protests and the live reporting from protesters brought home the importance of a platform like Facebook for organizers to tell the truth that mainstream media cannot be trusted to tell.

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Images: Erik Carter (Highsnobiety), Josie Huang (LAist), Kyle Grillot (EPA), Tommy Oliver, Mark Trowbridge (Getty Images), Rene Johnston, Darryl Dyck (The Canadian Press), Fred Greenslade (The Globe and Mail), Nick Czernkovitch (CBC), Mark Blinch (Reuters), Kevin Konyu (ARP Books), Giordano Ciampini, Eugene Eliseev, Joyita Sengupta, Robert Gauthier (Getty Images)