Situated activism for a digital society: The political discourse of Germany’s internet movement

1

Situated activism for a digital society: The political discourse of

Germany’s internet movement1 Kathrin Ganz

1. Introduction

When the discussions about the EU Data Retention Directive reached Germany in 2006, digital communications policy was set on the public political agenda. Topics like the surveillance of digital communication, internet censorship, copyright, Net neutrality and data privacy are now widely discussed after non-governmental actors successfully protested and influenced policy processes. One example is the Access Impediment Act (Zugangserschwerungsgesetz) that introduced the blocking of websites distributing child pornography. The bill had been altered during an intense public debate, was suspended only months after it had been passed in 2009 and finally was repealed in 2011. During the protests against the new law, a Berlin based software-developer expressed the growing potential for mobilization in the area of German digital communications policy in a tweet, stating "Soon, you’d wish we were political ignorants".2

My research focuses on Germany’s internet movement (Netzbewegung). In this paper, the term social movement will be used according to the definition of Diani (1992), referring to an informal network of interaction consisting of individuals, groups and organizations that share a collective identity and engage in conflicts about social change through public protest. Germany’s internet movement can roughly be characterized as an alliance of hackers, civil rights advocates and everyday social media users from different backgrounds. Besides its undisputed influence on Germany’s digital agenda and the notion of 'digital natives' defending cyberspace as their 'natural habitat', there is––with the exception of Hensel, Klecha and Schmitz (2013)–– little research on the movement, its ideological premisses and common goals. This paper critically examines how digital activism is situated in a specific political discourse and how activists reflect upon the movement as a collective actor in relation to its environment.

1 This paper will be presented at the 8th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis’ panel "The Contentious Politics of the Internet: New Actors, Practices, and Expertise in Digital Policymaking" (Vienna, 3-5 July 2013). It is based on the author’s ongoing PhD-project funded by the Hans-Böckler-Foundation.

2 See http://twitter.com/343max/status/2228357957 (accessed 6/10/13).

Situated activism for a digital society

2

The research project is based on Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985; Howarth 2000; Laclau 1990, 1996; Smith 1998) theoretical concepts of discourse and hegemony. Rather than using the framing approach (see, e.g., Benford/Snow 1992, 2000), which is more common in social movement studies but has been criticized for its functionalist bias (see Haunss 2004: 38), my work is based on a post-structural, post-foundational epistemology (see Marchart 2007). Here, the subject of action is not a strategical actor whose discursive strategies can be examined in terms of their ability to mobilize the masses. Instead, I am interested in the mutual construction of political subjects and political discourse. The political theory of Laclau and Mouffe, which has been developed in context of emerging New Social Movements (see Laclau 1985), conceives the political as a form of hegemonic and antagonistic articulation of discourses. Following their footsteps, Nonhoff (2006: 109) defines political discourses as contestations about the representation of the common good. As a collective actor, the internet movement is involved in the political discourse of digital communication policy. Through articulatory practices, the movement is constantly trying to establish a discourse where meanings are temporarily fixed. Here, the notion of a 'free internet' functions as the empty signifier which is linked with a range of specific ideas about what freedom in the realm of digital communication actually means.

Empirically, I work with a body of qualitative interviews. Using an intersectional multi-level methodology (Winker/Degele 2009, 2011), my analysis focuses on the interactions between identity, representations and social structures in activists’ articulatory practices, thus allowing to identify subject-constructions that individual activists embody.

For this paper, I am especially interested in the movement’s capability of self-reflection and its effects on the choice of strategies. Following the research of Arne Hintz and Stefania Milan (2009, 2011), I’m asking whether activists prefer insider, outsider or bypassing strategies and why they do so. It is Hintz and Milan’s finding that netizens prefer to "operate 'beyond' institutional policy-making by developing alternative infrastrcture and bypassing regulations through technical means" (Hintz/Milan 2011: 238). This raises the question of who benefits from such strategies. While grassroots tech-groups aim at providing the means for communication to the general public, most people don’t use grassroots tools but commercial services like Facebook. In my research, I found that activists are very much involved with that question. I argue that Germany’s internet movement is evaluating the movement’s perceived heterogeneity and that this might have resulted in a shift to insider strategies, where activists are seeking to influence the policy process from within rather than opposing or bypassing regulation.

Section two of this paper will give some insights into the German internet movement. After describing some of the major political debates it is involved in, the paper will take a look at the movements construction of a collective identity, its actors, and action repertoire. Based on my empirical research, section three will then attempt at analyzing articulatory practices within the movement. The paper suggests to look at how the activists’ collective identity is


3

situated within a liberal political discourse where specific policy concerns are connected with the idea of a free internet for everyone. In section four, I will then take a look at privacy and Net neutrality. While the two topics differ in their potential for controversy, both show that activists demand political regulation rather than pursuing an ideal of an internet independent from political influence.

2. Germany's internet movement

Since late 2005, when activists gathered to form a coalition against the upcoming European Data Retention Directive, Germany has seen the rise of a new social movement engaged in conflicts around digital communications policy. Citizens that critically engage in public discourse on digital communication policy and an emerging 'digital society' are often referred to as 'die Netzgemeinde' by observers as well as activists. The word 'Gemeinde' translates to 'community' but also 'parish'. The expression has an odd sound to it, for it is ironically de-politicizing the phenomenon of the internet movement. Albeit similarly vague, this is another expression that activists frequently use to describe a mobilization network that is sustained by a collective identity. Collectively, the movement aims at protecting user-rights and civil liberties online as well as a transformation of society in the digital age. In that sense, the notion of a digital civil liberties movement is to narrow. Using Diani’s (1992: 1) definition as a guideline, this part of the paper will examine the internet movement by giving an overview of the major conflicts the movement is involved in, the activists’ collective identity, key actors and action repertoire.

2.1 Challenging digital communication policy

Social Movements are involved in political conflicts. For the internet movement, their collective action on the one hand is targeted at the regulation of the internet and networked digital media. On the other hand, they are involved in conflicts about the impact of digital technologies on different areas of society. I want to highlight five areas of contestation that have been at the forefront of the movement’s activities:

(1) Data privacy: In 2007, AK Vorrat managed to launch a constitutional 'mass'-complaint against the realization of the EU Data Retention Directive with more than 34,000 supporters. In 2010, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled Germany’s Data Retention Law as unconstitutional. Up to the present day, the implementation of the EU Directive is hotly debated. This struggle is connected with a general demand for the protection of civil liberties and strong privacy laws. Most recently, there has been a debate on export controls for surveillance technologies. This debate takes place against the backdrop of the Federal Criminal Police Office’s purchase of the commercial Spyware toolkit FinFisher of Elaman/Gamma Group, which is also used in


4

authoritarian regimes such as Bahrain (see Meister 2013). Initiatives like 'Europe vs. Facebook' and the current struggle to fight lobby interests regarding the European Union’s planed Data Protection Directive3 show the debate is not only targeted at state surveillance, but at the private sector as well.

(2) Information control, filtering and censorship: In 2009, activists framed the controversy around the introduced Access Impediment Act as a fight against censorship, dreading a censorship infrastructure that would not be subject to democratic control.

(3) Net neutrality: For a long time, Net neutrality was considered as too complex to be of interest to the general public. This changed in April 2013, when an announcement by Deutsche Telekom finally brought attention to the topic.4 Activists assume that this change will be accompanied by violations of Net neutrality and demand the principles of Net neutrality to be legally codified.

(4) Open government and transparency: Activists demand transparency in political processes, e.g., by supporting open data projects, transparency laws and the protection of whistle blowers.5

(5) Intellectual property rights and copyright: Activists argue for a more liberal copyright law and fair use including rights to share and remix. They oppose harsh anti-piracy and counterfeit laws. This conflict peaked in early 2012 when ACTA was defeated with mass-demonstrations all across Europe.

2.2 Collective Identity: Cyberspace inhabitants and web kids

An important element of the internet movement’s collective identity is the generational narrative of 'cyberspace’s inhabitants'.6 In my interviews, activists often distinguished between 'original hackers' and 'digital natives'. The first group is said to have been experimenting with computer networks since the early 1980s and subsequently got involved in the world wide web in the early 1990s. The so-called 'digital natives', on the other hand, are younger. Consequently, they would not remember a world without the internet. The 'original hackers' are portrayed as heroes with superior technical skills in contrast to every day people

3 See https://www.nakedcitizens.eu/ (accessed 6/12/13).4 Starting in 2016, there will be a monthly volume limit for former DSL flat rate connections. After data

thresholds are reached, the connection’s speed will be severely slowed down. See http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/government-wary-of-telekom-limits-on-flat-rate-dsl-access-a-896435.html (accessed 6/12/13).

5 Most prominently discussed in the case of Wikileaks (see Brevini/Hintz/McCurdy 2013).6 Alberto Melucci defines the concept of collective identity as "an interactive and shared definition produced

by several individuals (or groups at a more complex level) and concerned with the orientations of action and the field of opportunities and constraints in which the action takes place" (Melucci 1995: 44). A collective identity is not a thing, but "a system of relations and representations" (Melucci 1995: 50): a discursive understanding of a movement’s shared means and objectives, rituals and artifacts, relationships between actors including their communication technologies, the "emotional investment" in collective action (Melucci 1995: 44f.) and activists’ lifestyle (Haunss 2004).


5

who just know how to use the internet and social media very well. For this group, "hacking is an inherently political act: the liberation of information" (Samuel 2004: 43). Quite a few of the younger activists I interviewed mention 9/11 and the ensuing 'war on terror' as a formative for their political identities. In contrast, older activists share individual stories of becoming "a political person"7 which they connect with their interest for technology, resulting in the feeling of "having to do something" when for example data retention was introduced.8 Both generations share the proliferation of security policies during the last two decades as formative political context of their activism. The narrative of 'cyberspace’s inhabitants' overcomes the gap between younger and older activists, thus enabling them to view themselves as parts of a collective actor. Furthermore, since collective identities are characterized by the boundaries they establish (Taylor/Whittier 1992), the generational narrative is accompanied by the construction of an Other. There is a distinction between 'us'–who are inhabitants of the internet and familiar with its technologies and cultural norms–and the "weary giants of flesh and steels" (Barlow 1996) who are outsiders to this world, but nevertheless seem to be obsessed by the will to enforce their norms upon the internet. Barlow’s 1996 "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" indisputably influenced said narrative of the 'cyberspace inhabitant'. But contrary to this vision, where cyberspace is represented as a separate "place" that needs to be self-governed by netizens (see Hintz/Milan 2011: 233), today’s internet activists see themselves as living in a digitalized world. Therefor, the distinction between offline and online, cyberspace and real life vanishes. In 2012, Piotr Czerski’s manifesto "We, the Web Kids" encapsulated this construction of collective identity, arguing:

The Internet to us is not something external to reality but a part of it: an invisible yet constantly present layer intertwined with the physical environment. We do not use the Internet, we live on the Internet and along it. If we were to tell our bildnungsroman [sic!] to you, the analog, we could say there was a natural Internet aspect to every single experience that has shaped us.9

This shift in the perception of space has political implications. In Barlow’s time, I argue, it was possible to demand to be left alone. Today, to many activists this doesn’t make sense. As their subjectivities are formed through interaction with digital technologies, they are demanding certain principles that are rooted in the digital world, to be implemented in society in general,

7 Unreferenced quotes are taken from the interview material and are translated by the author.8 This characterization of a movement that brings together two generation of internet activists corresponds

to Hensel, Klecha and Schmitz' (2013: 274-281) description of two protest groups.9 Czerskis text was originally published in Dziennik Bałtycki on February 11th 2012 under cc-by-sa 3.0. Die

Zeit published Czerski’s text in a German translation (http://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2012-02/wir-die-netz-kinder, accessed 6/12/13). An English translation by Marta Szreder can be found on pastebin: http://pastebin.com/0xXV8k7k (accessed 6/12/13).


6

e.g., open access, transparency, or even the freedom to not be limited to one fixed identity. Although I argue that 'cyberspace inhabitant' is a central element, it is not legitimate to reduce a collective identity to one narrative. The movement’s collective identity is the provisional outcome of an interactive process where a range of discursive elements is articulated, including references to so-called internet culture in general. In addition, the various sub-actors have their own, distinguished collective identities. That is to say that the notion of the collective identity of a Pirate Party member might differ from that of a member of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), while it is possible to belong to both organizations. Starting with the CCC, I will now take a closer look at some of the internet movement’s key organizations and their political culture.

2.3 Protagonists: Hackers, civil rights advocates and Pirates

In one of the interviews I conducted, the "Club" was described as the "nucleus" of the movement. The Chaos Communication Club, founded in the early 1980s, first and foremost is an organization of computer enthusiasts: Hackers, programmers and other techies who share a fascination with digital technologies and creative ways of having "Spaß am Gerät" (fun with the machine), a slogan used by CCC-founder Wau Holland to describe the activity of hacking. But the CCC is also a political organization of acknowledged experts. In this regard, it has been characterized as "do-ocracy": In the political realm of the Club’s activities, things are organized within informal networks based on getting involved in projects and earning respect. The Club’s normative framework builds upon the hacker ethics, which include "a mix of aesthetic and pragmatic imperatives: a commitment to information freedom, a mistrust to authority, a heightened dedication to meritocracy, and the firm belief that computers can be the basis of beauty and a better world" (Coleman 2013: 17; see Levy 2010). The last two points of the CCCs’ hacker ethics are additions made by Holland: "Don't litter other people's data" and "Make public data available, protect private data."10 The latter is an important point of reference in today’s debates on digital communication policy.

Additional organizations include Digital Courage (formerly known as FoeBud, founded in the late 1980s) and Digitale Gesellschaft (founded in 2010). With campaigns on ACTA, Net neutrality and the EU data protection reform, Digitale Gesellschaft works within a broad spectrum of digital civil liberties. They aim at becoming a professional social movement organization financed by subsidies as well as their passive members. Alongside those groups with formal membership, working groups are engaged with specific policy projects like AK Vorratsdatenspeicherung (Workgroup Data Retention) and the AK Zensur (Workgroup Censorship). Their work is mostly based in mailing lists and Wikis, but there also are meetings in major cities or during community events. Activists and organizations are involved in transnational networks, e.g., as members of the Brussels based organization European

10 See http://dasalte.ccc.de/hackerethics?language=en (accessed 6/12/13).


7

Digital Rights (EDRi). Some activists do not only use the web to keep in touch and follow the latest developments on the European level or in other national states, but frequently travel to workshops and events abroad.11

From the midst of the internet movement, the German Pirate Party was founded in 2006 (see Bieber 2012; Bieber/Leggiewie 2012). It gained recognition in 2009 when the public protest against the Access Impediment Act peaked and the Pirate Party won 0.9 percent of the German vote in the elections for European Parliament and 2.0 percent in the elections for the Bundestag. In September 2011, the Pirate Party managed to win 15 seats in Berlin’s Abgeordnetenhaus, followed by a streak of success in another three state parliament elections. Whereas digital communications policy is still one of their key assets, the Pirates are working to broaden their policy platform. Some activists joined the Pirate Party, others express detachment from the party for several reasons: a disappointment about internal organizational and interpersonal struggles, an affinity with other parties and ideologies or a general rejection of party politics. In my interviews, members tended to describe the Pirate Party as the movement’s parliamentarian representation, while most non-members disputed this notion.

2.4 Action repertoire: Activists online, in the streets and as experts

Two conjoined myths surround the public perception of the internet movement: internet activists only use the internet to voice their protest and always appear as a swarm. Even one of Germany’s leading experts in social movements, Dieter Rucht, was surprised by the rallies against ACTA.12 Allowedly, the movement’s activists spend a lot of time online and use a variety of digital tools for organizing, mobilizing and reaching out. They feel at home with sharing information on Twitter or creating memes. But to characterize the internet movement’s action repertoire, it’s important to note that their means of protest are not limited to the online sphere, e.g., online petitions, mobilizing on social networks, or hacktivism. In the past, there had been small rallies as well as large demonstrations, campaigns asking people to consult their MPs via telephone or face-to-face and various other forms of political expression. Furthermore, defining a social movement as an informal network without formal hierarchy and organizational core is not the same as arguing that a movement is a 'swarm': The internet movement’s structures and hierarchies might be informal, but they quickly become visible

11 Groups like CCC and Digitale Gesellschaft are characterized by "grassrootedness". Recently, new associations that address digital communications policies have been founded which are affiliated with parties in the parliamentary system. Examples are D64 Center for Digital Progress (affiliated with the Social Democrats) and C-Netz (affiliated with the Christian Democrats). The emergence of those groups reflects upon the rising interest of party members in digital communications policy. Activists raise the question whether such groups can legitimately claim to be part of the movement.

12 Rucht said to the German Press Agency that he’d expected people to perceive the issue sitting alone at their computers but that there was no organizational basis for protests on the street, see http://www.zeit.de/news/2012-02/26/internet-forscher-politik-hat-keine-antwort-auf-generation-internet-26084402 (accessed 6/12/13).


8

when looking at its organizational landscape. Most activists I interviewed named the same key persons who work within one or several organizations, e.g., the CCC’s spokesperson Constanze Kurz, netzpolitik.org’s Markus Beckedahl, or AK Zensur’s Alvar Freude. Frequently, my interviewees emphasized their respect for the hard work and personal sacrifices of those activists, indicating the importance of merit for the movement. While those activists are highly visible, influential and, for many of my interviewees, embody efficacy, there are others working in the background who are quite influential as well. Organizing rallies, drafting papers, discussing statements on mailing lists, writing blogs and even discussions of recent events on Twitter are vitally important for the movement.

Considering the role of experts in digital communication policy, activists have different insider strategies: Some are involved in parties, pushing for their ideas within the traditional political system. Others are involved in the policy process as experts, advising parliamentary committees, commissions of inquiry and the Constitutional Court. There is a vivid exchange between political parties, public authorities and activists happening around conferences, roundtables and workshops organized for example by political parties and political foundations. Some MPs in Berlin and Brussels who specialize in digital communications and media policy even hired activists as staff. Furthermore, being accredited with the status of an expert, some activists are given the chance to represent their points of view vis-à-vis the general public. They frequently appear on TV and radio, are invited to write op-ed columns and blogs for Germany’s major newspaper outlets like Spiegel Online or Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and gain publishing contracts (see, e.g. Heller 2011; Kurz/Rieger 2011; Beckedahl/Lüke 2012; Schramm 2012; Weisband 2013). Over all, the strength of Germany’s internet movement isn’t its presence in the streets or civil disobedience but its ability to lance and influence debates via its networks with the political and media system, as well as social media. The emerging forms of digital publics (see Münker 2009) are perceived as powerful and potentially transformative. The internet movement benefits from the fact that its everyday practices are rooted there, resulting in public attention for its demands.

Arne Hintz and Stephanie Milan discuss three types of "response according to the positioning of social actors vis-à-vis political institutions" (Hintz/Milan 2011: 237): "insider", "outsider" (see Tarrow 2005) and bypassing strategies. In their research, which focusses on grassroots tech-groups in six different countries, they found that each strategy is applied but argue that there is a focus on the later one. Germany’s internet movement can be described as a section of the global network Hintz and Milan’s research is about. In what follows, I will take a look at the explicit and implicit arguments about strategies, responses and the relation between movement and political institutions.


9

3. Situating activism: Between merit and privilege

A movement consists of many different voices. It is due to the process of collective identity that individual activists can act as collective body. Both the movement and its environment rely on this discursive construction of a collective actor. As Taylor and Whittier note, "collective political actors do not exist de facto by virtue of individuals sharing a common structural location; they are created in the course of social movement activity" (Taylor/Whittier 1992: 110; see Laclau 1985). Activists are not always already on the same page: They might share certain experiences, but they have individual biographical backgrounds. Furthermore, their intersectional social location in terms of gender, sexuality, race, ability, age and class is heterogeneous. Such locations signify social hierarchies and relations of power which influence everyday interactions between activists, their self-perception and their politics.13

The internet movement as a whole as well as the activists that I interviewed inhabit different social locations regarding their class background, their gender, their age and their biographical access to technology and computers.14 Nevertheless, they usually represent the movement as quite homogenous.15 Many of my interviewees described it as predominantly male, white, well educated and privileged. The ideal type of an internet movement activist, according to my interviewees, works as an IT-freelancer. In fact, most of the activists I talked to reflected upon the assumption that the average activist comes from a privileged background, regardless of their own fitting that picture.16 From this self-reflective approach results, I argue, a specific way of talking about policy concerns and movement strategy: Activists see the limits of bypassing strategies and shift to insider strategies. This argument can be illustrated in its relation to the movement’s political discourse.

13 This is not to say that via social locations, social structures determine individual activists’ politics. Rather, I’m proposing that social locations can act as indicators to differences within a social movement and the discursive process of their formation as a collective actor. In this paper though, I’m going to focus on the activist’s perceived homogeneity, which is also a result of the process of collective identity.

14 At this time, the sample consists of 10 qualitative interviews with a focus on open, narrative questions, complemented by guideline-based questions. The interviews cover the activists’ individual political biography, their view of the movement as a collective body as well their opinions on central political issues (copyright, censorship, Net neutrality and data privacy). In order to capture the activists’ heterogeneity, my sample consists of five female and five male activists that are located in urban centers as well as small cities and rural areas and have different class-background. Four of the activists I talked to where born in the FDR. So far, I haven’t have the opportunity to conduct an interview with a non-white person. This is foremost due to the fact that my research is still in progress, but it also resonates with the movement’s structure in terms of ethnicity.

15 For analysis, I use an Intersectional Multilevel Approach (IMA) developed by Gabriele Winker and Nina Degele (2009, 2011). Using IMA, the interactions between identity constructions, social structures and symbolic representations are identified, resulting in several subject constructions per interview. For this paper, I have been working with subject constructions, which are an intermediate step of the IMA research process. For a discussion of the application of IMA to the analysis of subject positions in political discourses see Ganz (2012).

16 The activist’s description of the movement’s social structure corresponds with the findings of Hensel, Klecha and Schmitz (2013: 274).


10

The interpretation of the articulatory practices that appear in the interviews shows that the internet movement’s discourse is structured around an empty signifier: the free internet. The free internet represents the chain of equivalence that the movement articulates and that consists of elements like access to infrastructure, culture and information, creativity, art and content creation, data protection, freedom from surveillance, open standards, open data, open architecture, free speech, free expression and freedom from censorship, utopia, participation and being connected with each other. While 'freedom' functions as a symbolic representation of the common good, the internet is seen the condition under which that freedom was allowed to flourish during the last decades. This discursive fullness is threatened by political as well as commercial actors trying to limit the freedom that is associated with the internet. The antagonism articulated here aims at those who seek to prevent the realization of the common good by interfering with how the internet is supposed to work as well as with personal freedom. Czerski sums it up in his web kids essay, stating:

What we value the most is freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of access to information and to culture. We feel that it is thanks to freedom that the Web is what it is, and that it is our duty to protect that freedom. We owe that to next generations, just as much as we owe to protect the environment.17

The 'internet freedom' here signifies two things: On the one hand, it is about the regulation of digital communications policy: free of repression and discrimination. On the other hand, the movement aims at transferring said freedom to general society beyond the virtual world. It’s a desire for freedom of speech, free access to information, knowledge and culture, flat hierarchies, transparency and democratic participation. I argue that this double meaning indicates the emptying of the 'free internet'-signifier. While the internet movement’s discourse is inscribed in a broader framework of a liberal hegemony, the internet movement’s discourse relies on a constitutive outside or antagonism which differs from the one that is characteristic of current neoliberal hegemony. Here, terrorism is constructed as the central threat to freedom. Internet activists reject this act of subjectivization through fear. By claiming "freedom not fear"––the motto of a series of political rallies against data retention and surveillance––activists state that for them, freedom is not threatened by terrorism. On the contrary, to them it is precisely the anti-terror politics of security and mass-surveillance that pose the greatest threat to their individual freedom and a free internet.

Most of the activists I interviewed articulate their ideas about a free internet, the state and surveillance in accordance to this discursive frame. In the words of one interviewee, they generally characterize movement’s primary objective as "the internet should stay free, should be regulated as little as possible". At a first glance, this vision of an internet that is free of

17 See http://pastebin.com/0xXV8k7k (accessed 6/12/13).


11

regulation points to preferring outsider and bypassing strategies over insider tactics. Instead of aiming at influencing the regulation of the internet, activists would seek to mass mobilize against regulation, "expressing fundamental opposition to either a particular policy or the policy process as such" (Hintz/Milan 2011: 237) or try to circumvent the law. As has been shown in section 2.4, outsider tactics often work as supplements to other tactics. During the protests against data retention, activists didn’t just aim at a de-legitimation of the policy processes from the outside: As experts and party members involved in said processes they were also actively seeking to influence the process from within.

Now let’s take a closer look at the movement’s stance towards tactics that are beyond insider and outsider strategies. Bypassing tactics

consist of creating alternatives to existing communication infrastructure, and bypassing laws and policy processes. 'Beyond-ers' react when their activities and values are threatened by laws, regulations, or repression. However, their tactical repertoire that they prefer includes circumvention, evading regulation, and 'hacking' norms and conventions. For that, they use their technical skills, creating encryption, moving servers to other countries, and generally developing creative solutions that allow them to stay one step ahed of regulatory effects. (Hintz/Milan 2011: 237).

The bypassing of policy that Hintz/Milan describe as one of the major strategies of grassroots tech-groups and other netizen-activists, demands a set of resources: Access to technology, access to community, education, technical skills, and in some cases even financial means. In the interviews I conducted, this is reflected upon in two ways: As merit and privilege. In accordance to the meritocracy, which is held high not only in the CCC but in the movement in general, activists and old-school hackers who have the skills to by-pass internet regulation elegantly are admired. One example being the grassroots tech-group Telecomix. During the Arab Spring, Telecomix activists helped to circumvent censorship by providing ways to access the internet despite of its blocking.18 In Germany, the case of Stephan Urbach found recognition as he talked publicly about the post-traumatic stress disorder and depression that resulted from his dedication to helping activists in Syria and Egypt.19 To many of my interviewees, people like Urbach are heroic figures of internet activism. But at the same time, tactics of bypassing the law are not presented as a political solution to surveillance, privacy concerns and over-regulation activists fear. Surprisingly, only one of my interviewees actually talked about using strategies like encryption, but even to him, bypassing doesn’t seem to be a feasible political solution. Here, the aspect of self-reflection comes into play: Most activists not only distinguish between the movement and its political antagonists, but between activists and ordinary people as well. Activists perceive themselves as belonging to a

18 See http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/07/telecomix-arab-spring (accessed 6/12/13).19 See http://12.re-publica.de/panel/dark-side-of-action/ (accessed 6/12/13).


12

privileged group that knows about the perils of digital communication and negative outcomes of 'wrong' digital communication policy. Moreover, they represent themselves as people who know how to interact with the "shady corners" of the internet, how to circumvent blockades and disguise their communication. At the same time, they are dealing self-referentiality. Referencing Eli Pariser (2011), this problem is described as fiter bubble effect (see Hensel/Klecha/Schmitz 2013: 281-283) where one is teaching to the converted but not able to reach people outside of the movement's bubble. Therefore, I argue, activists demand political solutions that transcend bypassing the law. In contradiction to the idea that the internet needs to be regulated as little as possible, activists declare themselves as supporters of regulation and apply insider strategies to promote their objectives. In what follows, I will discuss the debates on data privacy and Net neutrality as two examples for this shifting of strategy.

4. Policy concerns: Overcoming the bubble

In what follows, I want to dive further into the movement’s discourse. By taking a look at the demands activists articulate in relation to the free internet and the antagonistic relationships that appear as part of activists’ reasoning, points of contestation within the movement will be carved out. The first part will take a look at data protection and privacy, focussing on the debate around 'post-privacy' where different approaches to individual freedom and equality come in to play. The second part deals with the Net neutrality debate. In the light of a concentration of economic powers––powers to control infrastructure and content––to few key players, activists are asking for government regulation, thereby opposing the dominant liberal notion of the free market's invisible hand.

4.1 Privacy, data protection, and individual freedom

Privacy and data protection are one of the major areas of contention within the German internet movement. This may come as a surprise, as its collective identity is based on a narrative to which the proliferation of the politics of security and surveillance is an important political background. In fact, the movement is often understood as a digital civil liberties movement that first of all fights for the right to privacy. In fact, to most activists, the idea of losing one’s privacy in the digital world is rather dystopian. But in contrast, there are some post-privacy advocates for whom it is fascinating to think about the emancipatory effects of radical transparency, defining post-privacy as utopia where societies will have overcome privacy as a need to protect individual freedom (see, e.g. Heller 2011; Seemann 2012a). In 2011, some adherents to the post-privacy idea formed the Datenschutzkritische Spackeria, a small, informal network of activists and thinkers that question the necessity of institutionalized data protection and privacy.20


13

I want to take a closer look at what some of my interviewees say about the challenges that societies face in terms of data privacy today. Most notably, the Spackeria is mentioned in every interview. It is regularly pointed out that there is a quarrel between advocacies of data protection and the Spackeria. Some people argue that the Spackeria is "not useful", "horribly nonreflective", that the "jabbering" about post-privacy is "stupid". Other activists critically point out their alleged demand for everyone to life a post-private life and blame the Spackeria for their failure to differentiate between the academic and policy level of the issues at stake. But still, no one expresses a clear antagonism between the Spackeria and the movement. Rather, the Spackeria is shrugged off as not being of much influence and not being "the real threat" (which, to them, conservative politicians are). Even if the Spackeria’s ideas are outside of the assumed consensus on data privacy, activists usually don’t dispute it being part of the movement.

The majority of my interviewees would agree that informational self-determination is a fundamental right that needs to be defended in the digital age. But their argumentation usually doesn’t focus on commercial interests exploiting private data or snooping authorities but on users ability to assess what is happening with their data. By doing so, they represent themselves as being outstandingly aware of the dangers of governmental and private invasions into privacy. To give some examples, one activist argues that algorithms collect data even if a person doesn’t use a service. Therefore, it isn’t enough to warn people not to use certain services, but they need to be enabled to assess the consequences of what they are doing online. For this activist, media literacy is the key. She demands that activists not only work on a political level but to also get connected with ordinary people from outside their own "bubbles". One CCC-activist says: "(…) people don’t know the facts, they don’t know what happens with their data on Facebook, they don’t know what can be done with data aggregation, what stalking means if I have some technical skills and so on. And that is my line of battle." A pirate party member demands that people take responsibility not to hack into other people’s private data. He is critical of some hackers’ attitude who say people just need to keep their systems safe if they don’t want to be hacked.

Here, the main line of argumentation is the wish to protect other people from harm. It is not primarily the activist's own need for privacy or bad experiences with authorities that constitutes their privacy advocacy. For most activists, it’s a fact that data privacy is of high importance because other people need to be protected from snooping governments and private companies that collect data. Still, they all made sure not to represent themselves as 'realists' rather than 'hardliners'. This indicates the possibility that the Spackeria’s critic of the unworldly "privacy fundamentalism" has to some extend already influenced the internet movement’s discourse.

20 In a provoking manner, the Spackeria re-appropriated its name after CCC-spokesperson Constanze Kurz had used the insulting term "post-privacy spacken" ("post-privacy idiots").


14

In contrast to the internet movement’s privacy-mainstream, one person adhered to the post-privacy idea at the time of the interview. Compared to the rest of the sample, she not only takes a different stand on institutionalized data protection and privacy. Her view on data protection, privacy, individual freedom and social inequality is quite different as well. First of all, she argues that a restrictive data protection and privacy legislation is not feasible any more. Secondly, to her, privacy is not an end in itself, but the sphere of self-realization. Self-realization has in her eyes nothing to do with personal data. She blames advocates of data protection and privacy for not realizing the shifting borders between private and (semi-)public life and their "useless" appeals to moral. To her, the most important question is what societal problems are obscured by the alleged need to protect data. She thinks that the true problems we face are discrimination and marginalization: sexism, racism, poverty. The premise for individual freedom, she argues, first and foremost is social equality, encompassed by the right to express oneself in public without having to face intolerance and hatred.

The quarrels between privacy advocates and post-privacy adherents show that the movement’s discourse to some extend is about interpreting ordinary people's needs and comparing them to one’s own abilities. To most privacy advocates, it seems clear that bypassing strategies are not useful for everybody. Ordinary people, in their eyes, don’t use encryption but post private messages on Facebook. Therefore, despite of them being sceptic of the state, they demand better media literacy and strong protection of privacy via regulation. Instead of betting their money on bypassing strategies, they seek solutions inside the political system, by for example supporting the EU data protection directive. Post-privacy advocates, on the other hand, also ask what people need in order to be able to express themselves freely online. But in contrast to the movement’s mainstream, they don’t think that the solution lies in privacy regulation.

4.2 Net neutrality vs. the free market

Another major debate where the internet movement articulates an antagonistic relation between the free internet and commercial interests is Net neutrality. Net neutrality is a central demand of the movement. It signifies the ideal of a "proper web", as Digitale Gesellschaft puts it in their campaign for Net neutrality, meaning an internet which is governed by open standards, interoperability and the 'best effort' principle.21 In contrast, a 'two-tier' internet, where some content is privileged, customers can’t access every website and use every service (including Peer-to-Peer or Voice-over-IP), and traffic might be subjected to deep package inspection, is not 'proper'.

The activists of my sample all agree on the importance of the issue. One of them even states that Net neutrality is the key to "freedom to communicate, freedom to organize". Net neutrality is supposed to be a tangible demand that represents the abstract claim of a free

21 See http://echtesnetz.de/ (accessed 6/12/13).


15

internet. At the same time, no one fails to mention the high complexity of the matter, arguing that it is extremely difficult to come up with a definition of Net neutrality that is precise on a technical as well as political level: "Of course, everybody loves Net neutrality. But I don’t think that anybody actually knows what it is."

Taking a look at the chains of equivalence surfacing in the interview material, it is interesting to see what the activists actually associate Net neutrality with. To one of the older activists I talked to, the Net neutrality problem signifies the ongoing commercialization of the web. On an aesthetic level, this doesn’t correspond with his identity as an internet user for whom the ideal website still is "grey with a blue font". Many say that they are advocates of Net neutrality because they mistrust internet access providers. One of the interviewees thinks that he’d rather have the opportunity to take the task of traffic management into his own hands. The "catastrophe", another activist argues, lies in the fact that access providers might filter content in order to raise their profits. For one activist, demanding Net neutrality even is equivalent to fighting for a public provision with basic internet access that is independent of capitalist interests. They altogether doubt that a free market governed by private interests leads to the kind of infrastructure that corresponds with the movement’s empty signifier, the free internet. Whereas some demand individual control over their traffic management, others associate Net neutrality with social and cultural participation: To them, it is important that people with low incomes are able to use the internet as well. They refer to the fact that in Germany, welfare recipients are not granted a computer and internet access. For one activist, who tells me that she has not once in her life written a job application without using a computer, that’s just ridiculous.

In the Net neutrality debate, the internet movement contests the dominant notion of neoliberal freedom. The activists' ideal of a free internet is not one governed by market mechanisms. Thereby, they oppose the governing majority of Christian Democrats and Liberals, who in the course of the parliamentary commission’s working group on Net neutrality voted for a market-based solution (Deutscher Bundestag 2012). Here, it was argued that by the law of supply and demand, consumers' choices will automatically result in Net neutrality. The activists I talked to don’t believe that the invisible hand will result in the 'free internet' they desire. Regardless of the idea that the internet should be free from governmental regulation, which is addressed quite often in the interviews, they demand government regulations or even a state-funded infrastructure. But still there are quite noticeably differences in their argumentation: For some of the interviewees, Net neutrality is about individual freedom and control over one’s access to the internet. For others, participation is the priority. In this context, it is remarkable that only a few of the activists I talked to emphasized digital divide as a field of conflict the movement is involved in.

One activist related Net neutrality to the principle of 'platform neutrality', a conceptional approach to politics developed by author and internet activist Seemann (2012b). Social institutions, e.g., schools, culture and public transport, are understood as infrastructure for


16

communication. In analogy to Net neutrality, the requirements for communication on a platform have to be neutralized, resulting in guaranteed equal access to infrastructure. According to the activist who brought it up, platform neutrality is "the key to how the Pirate Party sees the world": Equal access to services like public transport regardless of a person’s social and economic status. The idea of platform neutrality is an example for how parts of the internet movement start to think beyond the realm of digital communication policy, asking how principles that seem to work online can enhance other parts of society. Thereby, the internet movement’s discourse seems to be moving further away from the cyberlibertarian idea of an independent place.

The institutionalization of Net neutrality demands getting actively involved in policy processes. Here, even activists who say that they don’t trust in government think that regulation might be helpful, because as long as internet access is predominantly provided by private companies, bypassing strategies won’t apply. The shift to insider strategies corresponds with the idea the political purpose is not limited to cyberspace. The concept of platform neutrality in itself aims at changing the system from within as it targets access to public infrastructure rather than promoting community-based alternatives.

5. Conclusion

In the light of the recent leaks on the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program, the Electronic Frontier Foundation launched a website that promotes classical bypassing strategies. The EFF proposes to use GNU/Linux instead of Windows or OSX, the TOR-Browser Bundle and community run social networks like Diaspora: "Opt out of PRISM, the NSA’s global data surveillance program. Stop reporting your online activities to the American government with these free alternatives to proprietary software."22 On Twitter, a German activist, who, according to his blog, uses and supports free and open source software, linked to the site, ironically asking who would be willing to help his father to install all this via telephone.23 His tweet encapsulates the limits of strategies that seek to bypass law in the realm of digital communication technologies.

In this paper, I have argued that Germany’s internet movement focuses on insider strategies instead of outsider tactics and bypassing digital communication policy. Drawing from a set of interviews, I have shown that the movement’s strategic choice is situated in a political discourse which places the free internet in its center and challenges, to some extend, current neoliberal hegemony. For the internet movement, the central threat to the free internet is surveillance. Although many of the activist groups themselves rely on a principle of meritocracy, they take into account that bypassing the law requires resources that many

22 See http://prism-break.org/ (accessed 6/12/13).23 See http://twitter.com/tante/status/344371136357867521 (accessed 6/12/13).


17

people don’t have. The activists’ contemplation of privilege results in a shift to insider strategies. Those strategies aim at preserving the free internet not only for skillful hackers and people who are in touch with grassroots tech-groups but for ordinary people who use commercial tools for digital communication. This applies, for example, to the contested areas of data protection and privacy as well as Net neutrality. In both fields, a majority of activists demand regulatory solutions and are willing to get involved into the policy process in order to reach out of their own filter bubbles. Regarding the changing way of how policy is made in the field of digital communication, the movement’s focus on inside strategies give legitimacy to those activists who become highly involved in public discourse as well as policy processes.

Nevertheless, the fact that social movement organizations usually rely on meritocratic structures raises further questions in terms of who is included in the movement and who is recognized as an expert by other fellow activists as well as political institutions.

ReferencesBarlow, J. P. (1996): A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,

http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html (accessed 6/12/13).

Beckedahl, M., & Lüke, F. (2012): Die digitale Gesellschaft. Netzpolitik, Bürgerrechte und die Machtfrage. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.

Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000): Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26(1), 611–639.

Bieber, C. (2012): Die Piratenpartei als neue Akteurin im Parteiensystem. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 62(7), 27–33.

Bieber, C., & Leggewie, C. (Eds.) (2012): Unter Piraten: Erkundungen in einer neuen politischen Arena. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

Brevini, B., Hintz, A., & McCurdy, P. (Eds.) (2013): Beyond Wikileaks  : implications for the Future of Communications, Journalism and Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Coleman, G. (2013): Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Deutscher Bundestag (2012): Drucksache 17/8536 - Vierter Zwischenbericht der Enquete-Kommission "Internet und digitale Gesellschaft": Netzneutralität, http://www.bundestag.de/internetenquete/dokumentation/Netzneutralitaet/Netzneutralitaet_Zwischenbericht_1708536.pdf (accessed 6/12/13).

Diani, M. (1992): The concept of social movement. The Sociological Review, 40(1), 1–25.

Ganz, K. (2012): Die Artikulation von Differenz. Subjektpositionen, Intersektionalität und hegemoniale Kämpfe. In I. Dzudzek, C. Kunze, & J. Wullweber (Eds.), Diskurs und Hegemonie. Gesellschaftskritische Perspektiven (pp. 127–149). Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

Haunss, S. (2004): Identität in Bewegung. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

http://www.bundestag.de/internetenquete/dokumentation/Netzneutralitaet/Netzneutralitaet_Zwischenbericht_1708536.pdf

http://www.bundestag.de/internetenquete/dokumentation/Netzneutralitaet/Netzneutralitaet_Zwischenbericht_1708536.pdf


18

Heller, C. (2011): Post Privacy: Prima leben ohne Privatsphäre. Munich: Beck.

Hensel, A., Klecha, S., & Schmitz, C. (2013): "Vernetzt euch – das ist die einzige Waffe, die man hat” Internetproteste. In F. Walter (Eds.), Die neue Macht der Bürger. Was motiviert die Protestbewegungen (pp. 267–300). Reinbek: Rowohlt.

Hintz, A., & Milan, S. (2009): At the margins of Internet governance: grassroots tech groups and communication policy. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 5(1), 23–38.

Hintz, A., & Milan, S. (2011): User Rights for the Internet Age: Communications Policy According to "Netizens”. In R. Mansell & M. Raboy (Eds.), The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy (pp. 230–241). Chichester, West Sussex: Blackwell.

Howarth, D. (2000). Discourse. Buckingham: Open Univ. Press.

Kurz, C., & Rieger, F. (2011): Die Datenfresser: Wie Internetfirmen und Staat sich unsere persönlichen Daten einverleiben und wie wir die Kontrolle darüber zurückerlangen. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer S. Verlag.

Laclau, E. (1985): New Social Movements and the Plurality of the Social. In D. Slater (Ed.), New Social Movements and the State in Latin America (pp. 27–42). Amsterdam: Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation.

Laclau, E. (1990): New Reflections On The Revolutions Of Our Time. London & New York, NY: Verso.

Laclau, E. (1996): Emancipation(s). London & New York, NY: Verso.

Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (2001): Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London & New York, NY: Verso.

Levy, S. (2010): Hackers. Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.

Marchart, O. (2007): Post-Foundational Political Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau. Contemporary Political Theory. Edinburgh University Press.

Meister, André (2013): Secret Government Document Reveals: German Federal Police Plans To Use Gamma FinFisher Spyware, http://netzpolitik.org/2013/secret-government-document-reveals-german-federal-police-plans-to-use-gamma-finfisher-spyware/ (accessed 6/12/13).

Melucci, A. (1995): The Process of Collective Identity. In H. Johnston & B. Klandermans (Eds.): Social movements and culture, 4, 41–63.

Münker, S. (2009): Emergenz digitaler Öffentlichkeiten: die sozialen Medien im Web 2.0. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Nonhoff, M. (2006): Politischer Diskurs und Hegemonie. Das Projekt Soziale Marktwirtschaft. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

Pariser, E. (2011). The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. London: Penguin Press.

Samuel, A. W. (2004): Hacktivism and the Future of Political Participation. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Schramm, J. (2012): Klick mich: Bekenntnisse einer Internet-Exhibitionistin. München: Albrecht Knaus Verlag.


19

Seemann, M. (2012a): Lasst die Daten, schützt die Menschen! In J.-H. Schmidt & T. Weichert (Eds.), Datenschutz. Grundlagen, Entwicklungen und Kontroversen (pp. 243–248). Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.

Seemann, M. (2012b): Plattformneutralität  : das politische Denken der Piraten. In C. Bieber & C. Leggewie (Eds.), Unter Piraten: Erkundungen in einer neuen politischen Arena (pp. 91–99). Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

Smith, A. M. (1998): Laclau and Mouffe: The radical democratic imaginary. Discourse. New York, NY: Routledge.

Snow, D. A., & Benford, R. D. (1992): Master Frames and Cycles of Protest. In A. D. Morris & C. M. Mueller (Eds.), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (pp. 133–155). Yale University Press.

Tarrow, S. (2005): The New Transnational Activism. Politics. Cambridge University Press.

Taylor, V., & Whittier, N. E. (1992): Collective Identity in Social Movement Communities: Lesbian Feminist Mobilization. In A. D. Morris & C. M. Mueller (Eds.), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (pp. 104–129). Yale University Press.

Weisband, M. (2013): Wir nennen es Politik: Ideen für eine zeitgemäße Demokratie. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Winker, G, & Degele, N. (2011): Intersectionality as multi-level analysis: Dealing with social inequality. European Journal Of Womens Studies, 18(1), 51–66.

Winker, Gabriele, & Degele, N. (2009): Intersektionalität. Zur Analyse sozialer Ungleichheiten. Bielefeld: Transcript.

Situated activism for a digital society: The political discourse of Germany’s internet movement

Documents