Protestors acting against repressive regimes face a particular problem: The tools they use to organize demonstrations can also be deployed to repress their actions. For instance, when citizens communicate on the internet to plan a protest, a ruling regime can access that information and be ready to break up the demonstration. Then what? What happens next, according to MIT political scientist Mai Hassan, is that protestors can engage in “coordinated discoordination,” as she calls it, finding ways to rapidly create new demonstrations, divert security forces, and keep social movements active,…
