Protesters Against Public Protest Ban in the Philippines Shift Their Activism Online
On March 23, demonstrators opposing the ban on public protests in the Philippines decided to take their activism to the Internet by launching a website that redirected all traffic to the police’s official site.
The message for visitors to the website read: “You are about to participate in an online direct protest campaign. Please confirm that you are truly ready to engage in this action by clicking OK or exit by clicking CANCEL.”
The organizers of this campaign, who remain anonymous, identify themselves with the trend of “hacktivism,” which can be understood as using computer techniques for activism. They emphasized that this action is entirely legal since, technically, it only involves accessing a website.
However, this method of protest is not much different from the denial-of-service attacks carried out by hackers, which continue to be a nightmare for many e-commerce websites, including well-known addresses like Amazon.com, Yahoo, CNN, eBay, and the websites of major corporations like Microsoft.
The Philippine police have not commented on these activities and have yet to assess the level of access to their website.
