2w ago

In 2020 I couldn't swing a stick without finding independent livestreamer links for protests. In 2024, I am having a very hard time finding livestreamers. Help?

Title says it. I feel like an idiot. A couple newscasts were all I could find on youtube, general search not very helpful, and I don't use tiktok or instagram. (Maybe that's my problem?)

Where are the independent livestreamers?

13 comments

If you were paying attention during the George Floyd protests; streamers were harassed, assaulted, doxed, stalked, and shut out from protests because they were creating evidence that was used to prosecute protesters doing crime.
So you are now less likely to find a live protest stream where anything happens because they will upload clips or edited videos so they can show the narrative devoid of identifiable protesters doing crime.
- streamers were harassed, assaulted, doxed, stalked, and shut out from protests because they were creating evidence that was used to prosecute protesters doing crime.
  Yeah I saw some streamers get in to trouble with some specific groups of protestors for that reason, but didn't see it very often on the streams I was watching. I also listened to some interviews with Portland protestors on the Uprising podcast who felt that was a bit excessive, so didn't think it was particularly widespread.
  
  During that whole event, I was up watching every stream that was available until they cut and went home. I was following all of their twitters and monitoring twitter in general.
  I can tell you that what I said is accurate with certainty. There were streamers that would end when the "night shift" took over protesting because it was "too dangerous to stream", when a week prior they were welcome. The ones that lasted the longest were filming their face or the ground and eventually they gave up because they were getting confronted or worse.
  Their presence was said to "endanger" protesters because the police were watching along with everybody else. The police would roll up out of nowhere and start grabbing up people around the streamers, because they used the streams to pinpoint locations.

I think the real question is.....why are you just swinging sticks willynilly, and hitting people? Maybe the live streamers left your general vicinity because you're violent and swing sticks at them.
- 😁
- Not OP, but dear gods thank you. With how scary the US is becoming, I genuinely needed that laugh.

Maybe left-wingers are too demoralized right now because of Trump to even protest and protests will ramp back up once they've had a chance to grieve?
I'm not familiar enough with the scene you're asking about to speak, though.
- For example there is a protest right now in Los Angeles. News coverage exits, but no independent livestreamers.
  https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/protest-erupts-in-downtown-los-angeles-over-surge-in-ice-raids-some-demonstrators-block-101-freeway/
  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IrBrYR71Xbc
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjTxbg5q5pw
  
  I was watching this one, but I think it’s ending soon.
  https://www.youtube.com/live/isSQeFpLCrU

They got "Disappeared" 👀

If I had to take a guess, it could be that either they are being moderated off platforms by companies that are toeing the line, or more likely the streamers have seen the way the current govt is dealing with their problems, and feel like identifying themselves digitally makes it more likely that ICE will turn up at their door and deport them despite being born white in the US.

I have never used it, but is it possible that twitter was the right platform to let them emerge and it's not anymore?

13 comments