Wilson, who attended political protests in the past, but was never involved in organizing them, joined the band’s Discord Channel to help plan.
“Not even in my wildest dreams I thought my first protest, which I organized with another group of Pennsylvanians, will appear 200 people,” Wilson tells Wired. “Then the next, I think we had 300 or 400, so I’m optimistic now. The trick will be to continue this energy.”
Like Wilson, many of the 311,000 subscribers to the Subreddit and the 17,000 members of the group’s disagreement have no experience in organizing protests. However, they felt they had to.
“Democracy must be defended, and it is to us how community members get up and do that job, because no one else will do it for us,” Wilson says.
The group 50501 also uses a wide variety of other online platforms to coordinate their efforts, including encrypted message programs such as signal and matrix, smaller subgroups use for sensitive conversations. Platforms like Mobilize.us Allow participants to share information about upcoming protests, while state -level groups come with ideas for signs and chants in shared Google Docs.
“Everyone uses various strategies to communicate, so it’s everywhere,” says TJ Demetriou, the public affairs officer for a 50501 subgroup for veterans. “If you participate in a few different groups, it can be confusing.”
Disagreement is the main platform for planning and allocating volunteer positions within local groups, but it also serves as a place for the community to vent. Following the group’s protests on March 4, many of the members gathered on the group’s disk server to watch Trump’s address to a joint session of the congress.
The “General Chat” channel was quickly filled with anger, not what Trump said, but about the Democrats’ response in the room that decided the best way to face Trump was To wear pink blouses And Hold tiny characters that no one could see.
“I’m not childish, they own signs instead of slaughter,” one member wrote incredibly. “A bunch of spines,” another added, after no other Democrat came to the defense of a representative to Green from Texas who was removed from the room for Heckling Trump.
“Well, I’m glad you are all protesting, because holy fear that was weak showing Dems with his nasty = ass = donkey [sic] Paddles and pink shirts and blue ties, “another member wrote.
Although the group had many hits, some fighting unfortunately became entertainment.
In April, the person who posted the original 50501 poster, known online as developed fungi, locked the Subreddit altogether, claiming that some national groups aim to rule the group 50501 for their own ends. According to a since -deleted poster on Reddit, fungi believed that someone was looking to file trademark applications for the name 50501. A member of the 50501 guidance group later claimed in Reddit mail that there was an attempt to trade the name and create a 501C4 -anent, but that was done by a “separate, independent group of three people completely unconnected to the wider group 50501.
