'Occupy' Protestors Building Activist-Only Facebook

Activist-only.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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For all of the flack the Occupy protests got as just another hippy gathering, the movement did show some potential in its latter stages as showdowns with police became more frequent. To keep the momentum going despite having to vacate the public spaces they temporarily called home, some protestors are building an international social network, dubbed “Global Square,” closed off to non-activists.

An open-source platform, “Square” will connect the governing General Assemblies found in each city and require that new members know old ones in real life in order to maintain secrecy—in risking jail time and even their lives with their activities, activists need to ensure their plans be kept secret.

“We don’t want to trust Facebook with private messages among activists,” network designer Ed Knutson told Wired. “Those networks will be perfectly fine—until they are not.”

[via Wired via Gawker]

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