Launch HN: Tsunami – A platform for coordination of peaceful civil disobedience
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These are a few articles on Wired and TechCrunch to give more context for the discussion:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/barcelonia-riots-catalonia-p...
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/17/catalan-separatists-have-t...
We've also launched on ProductHunt today; you are welcome to join the conversation there as well: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/tsunami-democratic-app
Our website, still in Catalan, censored in Spain: https://www.tsunamidemocratic.cat
We've also launched on ProductHunt today; you are welcome to join the conversation there as well: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/tsunami-democratic-app
Our website, still in Catalan, censored in Spain: https://www.tsunamidemocratic.cat
Our goal is to eventually open source the client Apps. We had planned to release it earlier but a couple Spanish government officials in Spain threatened to incarcerate any developer working with this app so we'll have to take additional precautions before releasing it. The pressure to develop a product and gain traction is hard as is, but adding the pressure of personal integrity and security is another order of magnitude.
Does it support offline mode?
As we seen in Hong Kong and Iran, governments don't hesitate to shutdown internet.
It doesn't support offline mode yet but we are definitely thinking it for a future release.
We are hundreds of thousands of citizens from Tsunami Democràtic (https://t.me/tsunamid) based in Catalonia. We're excited to start sharing this first version of our Android App and getting your feedback.
While technology has made our lives easier and more manageable in many ways, it is just in the last 10 years that we have seen its impact in helping citizens organize protests around causes to achieve change faster. A few years ago we saw how social media was key in global movements to achieve more democracy in certain countries. As social media has been censored and used against citizens we think we'll see more hard-to-censor technology products being used by mobilized citizens.
Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard University, found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. She has shown that it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.
Over the past few months, we’ve been building a set of civic technology tools to empower citizens to organize more efficiently and achieve change faster. This week we’ve launched and tested the first version of our Android app in Catalonia. It has successfully helped tens of thousands of Catalans to protest by blocking the Pyrenees border highway with concerts, dinners, and camps.
Join us as we build and test #civictech in Catalonia to empower its citizens to protest peacefully and effectively towards change.
If you have questions, we’ll be here to answer them. We’d love any feedback, ideas and comments. Thank you!