Media Activism & Independent Media News

Facebook blocked hundreds of accounts days before a September 21 online event targeting the Coastal GasLink pipeline. The pipeline is set to cut through sovereign Wet’suwet’en land, defiantly ignoring hereditary chiefs of their rights, title, and consent for the project. The project would lock in decades of increased fracked gas and the impacts to climate, air, water and the risks posed to Indigenous camps built along the route.

Citing a pattern of consistent stonewalling, investigative journalists have taken the Oakland Police Department to court to force it to comply with state public records laws. Two petitions brought in Alameda County Superior Court claim the department routinely ignores public records requests, professing a commitment to transparency even as thousands of open Public Records Act requests languish in their system. One petition claims the department offers only an automatic response to thousands of requests — if it replies at all.

On August 19, Facebook took down multiple pages they believe to be connected with crimethinc.com and itsgoingdown.org, among other anarchist and anti-fascist projects, officially on the pretext that they “support violence.” A joint statement issued in response says Facebook lumping anarchists and anti-fascists together with far-right militias, who explicitly support the state and especially the current administration, is a strategic move to muddy the issues.

John Malkin speaks with Mark Hosler, founding member of Negativland, the art, music, film, activist, culture jamming collective established in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970's. Mixing original materials and original music with things taken from corporately owned mass culture and the world around them, Negativland surreally re-arrange these found bits and pieces to make them say and suggest things that they never intended to. In 2004 Negativland worked with Creative Commons to write the Creative Commons Sampling License, an alternative to existing copyrights that is now widely used by many artists, writers, musicians, film makers, and websites.

Two decades is a long time and a lot has happened in the movement for global justice since the first Independent Media Center was established in preparation for the World Trade Organization protests that began in Seattle on November 30, 1999. The global IMC network exploded on the scene in cities around the world within a few years of N30. It didn't come easy, though. Volunteers have been arrested, jailed, maimed, and even killed by state forces. While the network has contracted in the intervening years, Independent Media Centers continue to make major contributions supporting worldwide struggles for justice.

Robert Norse writes: "On Saturday morning, I saw several police officers and a deputy examine what appeared to be a dead body behind a yellow "crime scene" tape at the edge of a culvert adjoining Highway 17 near the Plymouth/Highway 17 stoplight. I notice there was no mention of this in the Sentinel. It's quite possible the man died from hypothermia. The closure of the River St. campground as well as all the parks aggravates the situation for those outside."

On July 30, around 50 security guards of NutriAsia and 20 members of the Philippine National Police in Marilao and Meycauayan violently dispersed the striking NutriAsia workers while an ecumenical mass was being held at the picketline near the factory gates. Nineteen were arrested. Arrestees were released two days later, but still face charges and the strike continues.