Social Media

The Occupy Movement can be said to be the most technologically advanced protest ever. Protesters are using social media daily to inform the masses on the moment to moment news of the occupy movement, keeping its followers updated at all times.

Twitter has been a major player in the Occupy Movement. It helps bring live feed at that moment to the followers. Notifying them of either events that are taking place, events to come, words of protest, words of motivation and anything else in between. It was one of the first major social media tools used to bring the masses together on September 17, the first day of protest.

The Adbusters Media Foundation group is a Canadian based organization. Through the use of social media and their magazine, Adbusters, they began the Occupy Wall Street Movement when they released the following post:

"On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices," the post said.

This was the start of the Occupy Movement that would later spread to the world.

It seems as though President Obama isn’t the only one using Sesame Street to help his campaign. The Occupy Movement has been using Sesame Street as one of their memes, and it all started on Twitter.

This comical Cookie Monster post was the first tweet to reference Sesame Street, and it seemed to snow ball after that. It now even has its own hash tag which people are able to read different Sesame Street themed post.

Facebook has also been widely used to bring together its followers. There are hundreds of Occupy themed pages. One of the more popular pages is an Occupy Wall Street page that has over 400,000 likes. There are pages for some major cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Austin and so many more. There is even a Sesame Street Facebook page. There is even a false Facebook page that has been posting racist views, but it is titled Occupy Wall Street. This page is now under protest from the other Occupy Wall Street pages.

                                                                                       his is the main Facebook page.

One of the greatest tools being used has been YouTube. It has been an amazing tool in showing up close moments of the Movement. It’s one thing to write about something, no matter how detailed the post may be, but to actually be able to see real moments that have been recorded is an amazing way to connect the audience and enlighten the clueless.

There is a range of video post, from police beatings to protester interviews. News cast have gone down to the protest sites and interviewed individuals there, showing to everyone the movement that is taking place and how it works. Peter Schiff, a one percenter, has gone to the site and had one on one conversation with the protesters.

His presence wasn’t widely appreciated, and many of the protesters came at him with much hostility and seemed disinterested in anything he had to say. Much of which, ironically enough, had to do with him agreeing with the protesters.

Tumblr has been a crucial tool in the growing of the Occupy Movement. This is one of the only platforms in which someone can really write and tell people their story, their struggle. The Tumblr page, We Are The 99%, has been used by bloggers to show what makes them part of the 99%. They bring to light their dissatisfaction and their pain. It is said to be one of the most heart wrenching social media pages available.

It allows for those who can’t be in the physical protest, to still show their support. It connects people in a personal way that no other media source is really able to do.

This 26 year old has a 2 year old daughter and 4 step children. Her fiancée works 14 hours a day, 6 days a week and still can’t pay the bills.  Her mom buys most of her daughter’s clothes and toys. She can’t have a job because she can’t afford day care, but her fiancée can’t claim their daughter because his taxes our being garnished. She has problems, but can’t afford to go to the doctor.

This is a 24 year old college graduate. She has her B.A. in English. After 5 years of work she is working two jobs at 40-50 hours a week and still barely making more than when she graduated from high school 6 years ago. She has accumulated $33,000+ to pay in student loans. She can’t find a full time job because she has no experience, but one will hire her because she has no experience.

There are so many great social media at our disposal that it’s no wonder how the movement spread like wildfire. Although the movement has seemed to calm down and isn’t as prominent as it was last September, the protest still continues to rage on and fight for the 99%.

 

 

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/page/2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adbusters

http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/127158/occupy_sesame_street_makes_fun

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/business/media/occupy-movement-focuses-on-staying-current-on-social-networks.html?_r=1&

http://www.nycga.net/resources/documents/principles-of-solidarity/

 

Who's Leading the Movement?

NO ONE! The Occupy Movement is referred to as a people's assembly. It is where people peacefully assembly and allow anyone who feels that they are attempting to contribute to the welfare of the situation may voice their opinion. Or, more simply, it is a participatory decision-making body which works towards a consensus. Within the movement there are hundreds and hundreds of assemblies that go on daily. People will post on their Twitter accounts or on Blogs or wherever else to meet up at a certain location at a certain time to vote on whatever comes to mind. These people's assemblies are what allow for Occupy Wall St. to remain a leaderless movement. 

     So how does it work? The assembly looks for the best arguments to take a decision that reflects every opinion. This is similar to a vote except for the fact that they do not consider positions at odds with each other. It is a peaceful process, respecting all opinions, however, in order for it to function correctly all prejudices and ideologies must be set aside. Rather than focusing on an ideological discussion the assembly harps on practical questions: What do we need? How Can we get it? One caveat  to the assembly is that if you are not in agreement with the decisions that have been made, you are not obligated to carry them out. The assembly attempts to create collective intelligence, shared lines of thought and action.

     This is not the first time we have seen people's assemblies in the United States. The Woman's rights/ suffrage movement instituted this style of decision making. Before women had the right to vote it was impossible for a female's voice to be heard in the public domain. However, with enough protest and noise they were able to secure legislation in their favor. Another example of this is the LBGQT movement. The open forum style of assembly/protest allowed for many of those who felt insecure about their sexuality or uncomfortable in coming out the opportunity to speak freely and express themselves fully. Even today, LBGQT rights continue to be more and more accepted, hugely in part by their ability to assemble. These two overwhelmingly successful movements set precedents in the U.S. for this style of protesting.

    

The Right to Occupy, the Right to Assemble?

Time, Place or Manner Restrictions

Reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions will be upheld if:

1. They are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech;
2. They are narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest; and
3. They leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information.

Exercise of restrictions on the Occupy movement.

This movement that began about a year ago seemed to have sects of it all over the world in over 800 cities. The movement is the most recent example of Time, Place, or Manner restrictions pertaining to protests and free speech. 

Each state has a code for public protest on public property. They all pertain to time, place and manner restrictions. They tell you what you need a permit for and where you can protest. If you break these rules you may be subject to arrest, fines, etc.

The Maryland code mentions that "the First Amendment does not regulate the activities of private individuals, business or organizations. You therefore do not have a constitutional right to speech, assembly or 

protest while on private property." This pertains to all states. Occupy members were often arrested for infractions that involved private property or actions that may be detrimental to public health and safety. These restrictions are all constitutional. 

New York

California

Florida

Maryland

Notable Controversies in Time, Place and Manner

Time, place and manner restrictions have been imposed in a wide variety of communications cases. Before the restrictions may be imposed, however, they must go through a three pronged test in order to determine the constitutionality of the regulation. One of the most important and fundamental elements of the three pronged test is the idea that the regulation must be content neutral. The case of Collin v Smith directly discusses the importance of content neutrality in creating restrictions. This case originated when the National Socialist Party of America planned a march in Skokie, Illinois. During the march, members of the party would wear uniforms reminiscent of those worn by Nazi Germany during the Third Reich. The town of Skokie was home to many Jews, much of whom were survivors of the Nazi regime. In order to be permitted to march, the Village of Skokie passed a parade ordinance which required applicants to obtain $350,000 insurance and gave the village ability to deny a permit if the assembly would “incite violence, hatred, abuse or hostility toward a group of persons by reason of reference to religious, racial, ethnic, national or regional affiliation”. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the ordinance was a violation of the First Amendment because regulations were not content neutral as they aimed at limiting the demonstration because the town of Skokie objected the content of Nazi views and symbols.

Major Players In This Leaderless Movement

One of the most distinctive features of the Occupy Wall Street was the lack of any real face attached to the movement. When thinking of Occupy Wall Street and its prominent players, it is difficult to think of one leader or even a specific agenda within the movement. This was done intentionally by the participants and protestors to represent their commonality and interconnectedness in their dissatisfaction with the disparity of wealth in America. Despite not having a distinctive leader, there were a few key players within Occupy Wall Street.

  1. Adbusters: This Canadian based not for profit, anti-consumerist, pro-environment organization was founded by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia  In mid-2011 they proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street where they would protest against corporate influence on Democracy, the growing disparity in wealth and absence of legal repercussions behind the recent global financial crisis. Senior Editor of Adbusters magazine Micah White said they had suggested the protest via their email list and it was "spontaneously taken up by all people of the world". 

    2. Anonymous: Rather than having official organizers, the protest instead relied on a massive scale group assembly of "hacktivists" under the banner of the virtual collective Anonymous. These hacktivists were able to participate not only in street protests but also in online activism, using their social network accounts as an organizational tool. Anonymous used social network applications such as Twitter to supress potential violence and keep the protests peaceful and avoid disorder. The idea of Anonymous only served to reinforced the goal of the movement which was to be portrayed as a leaderless organization and as more of a united effort.

    3. General Assembly: The General Assembly was considered by many to be the backbone of the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially in the decision making process. It was a parliament like organization of activists, artists and students who had first convened to occupy the City Hall in New York to protest the Mayors plans for budget cuts and layoffs. They represented an autonomous, leaderless organization who learned from their experiences and wanted to repeat the process on a larger scale with greater impact. The General Assembly along with OWS as a whole, borrowed much fromthe social movements happening all around the world in places like Tahrir Square in Egypt and Madrid's Puerta Del Sol. .

5. Pete Dutro: Dutro was known amongst many Occupiers as "Pete the Heat" and was dubbed by CNN as Occupy Wall Street's "money man". Pete, a tattoo artist and former software project manager who dropped out of pursuing an NYU finance degree to participate in OWS, was part of an eight member finance team for the movement. Once OWS started receiving major media attention, donations came flocking in. Dutro was in charge of accounting for the movement which raised more than $300,000 in donations. He described the job of financing for OWS "like doing an office job in a mosh pit".

All the locations the movement has spread to

The Occupy Wall Street Movement began on September 17th, 2011 in New York Cities wall street dristrict.  Since it began, the movement has spread throughout the world.  On October 15th 2011, global protests broke out in over 951 cities and 82 countries.

Protests broke out in Africa, South America, North America, Asia, Australia, and Europe.  Some of these global protests turned violent, most did not.  Most of the violence occurred in New York when police got involved with protesters in Lower Manhattan.

Santiago Chile and Zagreb Croatia had over 10,000 protestors come out in support of the movement.  Rome had over 200,000 protestors.  Spain had organized protests as Movimiento 15-M/Indignants before Occupy Wall Street spread to Spain, and as a country Spain attracted over 1,000,000 protestors. The executive leaders of the protests are located in New York.

September 17th was the last time large amounts of protests broke out globally and those protests occurred through out the United States and the United Kingdom.

Why Occupy Wall Street?

There are four major reasons to Occupy Wall Street. 

        1-Healthcare

        2-Public Debt 

        3-Unemployment

        4-Women’s rights

The rising cost of healthcare in this country is staggering and most of the costs that patients pay to hospitals are not for the actual care they are receiving. Administrative costs have gone up as mobile technology has entered the work place. These products may have minute prices, but the average price for a 3G connection on an iPhone is $65 per month. 

The public debt is increasing. The national debt is above $15 trillion as of right now. The largest debt in this country are student loans. People have just been borrowing and borrowing money from the government at unreasonable interest rates and when the student goes bankrupt, the loans do not go away. Right now I have taken three separate loans from the federal government to help pay off my education. The lowest interest rate I am paying is around 6% for less than $5,000. The math behind it is not complex, depending on the amount of time it takes to pay off the loan the interest payments rise. For my loans it will be 6% of $5,000 added every year until I pay them off. That’s $300 per year after graduation. 

The US Bureau of labor statistics say that unemployment has reached 7.8% nationally. That means in a country of more than 308 million people, there are 24 million people with out work. More social programs are being pushed into effect to try and counteract this recession but that skyrockets the national debt. Many people are angered that our economy has become primarily service based. 

The whole Occupy Movement started in Canada when a group of LGBTQ members started protesting against big corporations and the idea that they did not get equal pay if they were female, gay, or lesbian versus straight males. Those who run Wall Street are predominantly straight males. Women and the LGBTQ have always stood for occupation of safe and equal spaces. 

These are the most broad topics related to the Occupy Movement and are very loosely detailed. Please do more research if you want to know more.

Sources:

http://occupywallst.org/

http://www.att.com/

http://www.bls.gov/

http://www.nycga.net/resources/documents/principles-of-solidarity/

http://www.nycga.net/resources/documents/declaration/

http://occupywallst.org/article/everyone-has-right-occupy-space-safely/

http://www.census.gov/

Despite there having been hundreds of arrests in the past year of the Occupy Wall Street movement there are 3 significant cases that made it through to court.
In the first case, NYU Junior, Alex Arbuckle, was arrested for "disrupting the peace, by obstructing traffic," in a OWS protest. A journalist Tim Poole caught everything on video. The ironic part of the arrest is that Arbuckle was filming to document the movement and the "raw" personalities of the police and protesters, as opposed to what the media portrayed of them. After getting arrested he was given an adjournment contemplating dismissal. He did not take it and decided to fight the case in court. Video evidence from Pool showed that the NYPD were the ones obstructing the traffic and the case was dropped.
The second case was similar to the one of Arbuckle. Jessica Hall was arrested in a protest for the same reason as Arbuckle, "disrupting the peace, by obstructing traffic." The charges were dropped once NYPD video footage emerged showing that Hall, along with the other protesters that day, had not been the ones obstructing the traffic. It was in fact the NYPD themselves, who had set up metal barricades to stop the protest.
The third case involves 8 men who trespassed into an empty lot owned by Trinity church in Manhattan. One of the men, Mark Adams used bolt cutters to take down the fence. He was charged with attempted criminal mischief and attempted criminal possession of burglar's tools. Adams was sentenced to 45 days in jail and the other 7 men were fined and assigned 4 hours of community service.



Police were caught on video blocking traffic. The protesters still got arrested and the police who made false accusations were not punished

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/05/in_the_first_oc.phphttp://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/05/in_the_first_oc.php

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/05/in_second_occup.php

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/06/eight_occupy_wa.php

http://www.propublica.org/article/explainer-just-how-much-can-the-state-restrict-a-peaceful-protest 

Government's Response to OWS

During the OWC movement, the New York Police arrested some participants which leads to some debates and arguments. On Oct 1, 2011, a large group of protesters set out to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and the police arrested about 700 of them. Most of those who were arrested were released soon, while some of them were still facing the criminal charges.
    The NYC Mayor Bloomberg said:" We'll see. People have a right to protest, but we also have to make sure that people who don't want to protest can go down the streets unmolested." "The protester are protesting against people who make $40,000, $50,000 year and are struggling to make ends meet." He also added, "Those are the people that work on Wall Street in the finance sector...If the banks don't go our and make loans, we will not come out of our economic problems. We will not have jobs."
    Moreover, President Obama said: "I think it expresses the frustration the American people feel, that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country... and yet you're still seeing efforts to crack down on the abusive practices that got us into this in the first place." Obviously, he stands for the protesters. However, the Republican president candidate Matt Romney thinks that the movement was Obama's fault. He said there are "bad actors" that needed to found and plucked out." He believes that targeting one industry or region of America is a mistake and regards the OWS as "dangerous" and inciting "class warfare".
     Romney later expressed sympathy for the movement, "I look at what's happening on Wall Street and my view is, boy, I understand how those people feel."

How it started...

In September of 2011 the Occupy Wall Street protest began. It started with a group of about 1,000 people gathered in downtown Manhattan who walked up and down the streets in protest until they ultimately settled into Zuccotti Park, two blocks North of Wall Street. The idea for the movement stemmed from the anti-consumerism magazine based in Vancouver, British Columbia, titled Adbusters. On July 13^th, 2011 Adbusters ran an article by the magazine’s co-founder, Kalle Lasn, stating “On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.” That demand being, “It’s time for DEMOCRACY NOT CORPORATOCRACY!” 

Despite Lasn’s intentions, it seems as though the occupy protestors do not posit any single set of grievances or demands as the protests reflect many points of view and widely different agendas. However, the one commonality between every protestor is they believe they are amongst the 99%. Statistics show that 30-40% of all private wealth in the United States is owned by the top 1% - wealthy traders and bankers at the top of the financial services sector. According to protestors, the top 1% are believed to have too much wealth and power and also to have interests in conflict with the economic well being of the rest of the country. 

http://theweek.com/article/index/220100/occupy-wall-street-a-protest-timeline

http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/adbusters-blog/who-will-occupy-wall-street-september-17.html

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/08/occupy_wall_street_a_historical_perspective/