Electronic Civil Disobedience - History

History

The origins of computerized activism extend back in pre-Web history to the mid 1980s. Examples include PeaceNet (1986), a newsgroup service, which allowed political activists to communicate across international borders with relative ease and speed using Bulletin Board Systems and email lists. The terms "electronic civil disobedience" was first coined by the Critical Art Ensemble in the context of nomadic conceptions of capital and resistance, a concept that can be traced back to Hakim Bey’s (1991) "T. A. Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone: Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism" and Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s (1987) "A Thousand Plateaus". ECF uses temporary - and nomadic -"autonomous zones" as the launch pads from where electronic civil disobedience is activated (for example, temporary websites that announce the ECD action).

Before 1998, ECD remained largely theoretical musings, or was badly articulated, such as the Zippies 1994 call for an "Internet Invasion" which deployed the metaphor of war albeit within the logic of civil disobedience and information activism. Some commentators pinpointing the 1997 Acteal Massacre in Chiapas, Mexico, as a turning point towards the internet infrastructure being viewed not only as means for communication but also a site for direct action. In reaction to the Acteal Massacre a group called Electronic Disturbance Theatre (not associated with Autonomedia) created a software called FloodNet, which improved upon early experiments with virtual sit-ins. The Electronic Disruption Theatre exhibited its SWARM project21 at the Ars Electronic Festival on Information Warfare, where it launched a three-pronged FloodNet disturbance against web sites of the Mexican presidency, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and the Pentagon, in solidarity with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, against the Mexican government, against the U.S. military, and against a symbol of international capital. The Acteal Massacre also prompted another group, called the Anonymous Digital Coalition, to post messages calling for cyber attacks against five Mexico City based financial institution’s web sites, the plan being for thousands of people around the world to simultaneously load these web sites on to their Internet browsers. Electrohippies flooded the World Trade Organization site during the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity.