Edit, because I was unclear: This is not a suggestion that these events should be avoided. On the contrary, I just think that having more information will motivate more people to participate and to share the invitation, making these more successful events.
The group that arranged the state capitol protests not long ago started on reddit at r/50501. Their initial site is https://50501movement.carrd.co/ and they’ve recently added a “website” link there which is https://fiftyfifty.one/ - down right now, but it was up yesterday.
If these were events started or promoted by them, I would be more comfortable participating than if it was from (for example) “American Opposition”, which appears to be less trustworthy.
Interesting. A post about the 50501 protest itself also had a whole bunch of people coming into the comments and saying that the protest looked suspicious, and that friends of theirs who were plugged-in were telling them it looked like it might be a “false flag”.
I’ve heard from some of my more active friends that none of the usual leaders or orgs they know of were a part of founding this and there’s some suspicion it was created by right wingers to collect data; can anyone speak to this?
There was no information on who was organizing this, who is backing it, and most importantly, who to contact. From an OPSEC standpoint, without a clear contact on who was organizing, it read like a false flag.
I feel like the enemy started this so they then say “see nobody cares, nobody showed up” because we saw through their bullshit.
The lack of organizer info after a whole bunch of people have tried to find it is a huge red flag to me.
I’m sorry to hear you’re “not comfortable” attending this one. I am planning to. To me, the risk of whatever is making you not comfortable about it is absolutely dwarfed by the risk of the police and governmental reaction to it, whether it is “well sourced” or not. It honestly just doesn’t matter which way, in terms of risk, I think, although the risk is of course significant in both cases. Right? What would be the increased risk of attending one that isn’t sufficiently well-sourced?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to raise any hackles. It’s really just me liking to have some kind of source for things proclaimed by screenshots in general.
… “not comfortable” …
I didn’t say that. I said I would be more comfortable if it was associated with 50501 than if it was associated with American Opposition.
Yes, the risk is relatively small in any case. There’s still nothing wrong with asking for more information, especially with (what I think is) the high likelihood of things going sideways at one of these events at some point.
And questioning unsourced information is just a good habit to be in. Of course, we’re often going to have to make decisions without complete information. That’s kind of part of being a person in general. More information is better.
I am far more interested in looking into the source for the claims from “some of my more active friends” and so on, than I am in the source for this. When those people were trying to throw cold water on the idea of attending that protest, I asked all of those people what protests their more active friends would recommend instead, and none of them pointed me to one or to any further information. You would think that the active friends would be interested in disseminating that kind of information of course. Strange that they are not.
It took all of thirty seconds of searching to find:
Is this legit? I have no idea. Of course questioning unsourced information is good. But like I said, I don’t think it really matters all that much in terms of whether it’s a good idea to attend the protest itself, and I think it’s strange that there is this sudden extreme tension and discomfort with the idea of attending protests, sourced from several people’s more active friends or similar, none of whom are interested in sharing more information about any protests that they would feel more comfortable with.
Edit: Actually, probably the safest of all possible ways you can get involved in some kind of resistance to Trump is to see one of these images with just a place and time, show up in person to the thing, and talk with the people who happen to be near you and make some random connections. It won’t be completely safe of course. But it will be far better than blabbing all over the internet, or signing up for some kind of mailing list, or subscribing to whoever’s feed on Bluesky, or whatever. I think any “group” you’re likely to interact with on the internet might wind up leading to you getting put on a list, eventually, one way or another. Showing up in person and meeting random people is an infinitely better way to get plugged in.
Oh, I definitely was unclear then. My hope is that with more information, more people might be motivated to share and participate, making these events more impactful.
Yeah, fair enough. A lot of the sharpness of my reaction was because of what happened on the last post, which to me was hella suspicious. You were just asking an interested question and I used it as an opportunity to talk about some stuff that bothered me the last time.
I did find more stuff about who’s behind this group, but as I said in my edit, I actually think just showing up is probably better than poking around and doing a bunch of internet interaction with “resistance” or protest groups.
Heh, I kind of figured that, I caught the other post just before this one. No harm, no foul. You raised important points, and gave me chance to actually say what I was intending to be heard.
… just showing up is probably better than poking around and doing a bunch of internet interaction with “resistance” or protest groups.
Source on this? https://fiftyfifty.one/ appears to be down right now.
Edit, because I was unclear: This is not a suggestion that these events should be avoided. On the contrary, I just think that having more information will motivate more people to participate and to share the invitation, making these more successful events.
What sources might it be sourced from? I’d like to get more involved with protest movements if there are some that like to publicize events like this.
The group that arranged the state capitol protests not long ago started on reddit at r/50501. Their initial site is https://50501movement.carrd.co/ and they’ve recently added a “website” link there which is https://fiftyfifty.one/ - down right now, but it was up yesterday.
If these were events started or promoted by them, I would be more comfortable participating than if it was from (for example) “American Opposition”, which appears to be less trustworthy.
https://fedia.io/m/Resist/t/1772186/American-Opposition-Not-sure-I-trust-this-organization
Knowing more is better than knowing less.
Interesting. A post about the 50501 protest itself also had a whole bunch of people coming into the comments and saying that the protest looked suspicious, and that friends of theirs who were plugged-in were telling them it looked like it might be a “false flag”.
https://ponder.cat/post/1528582?sort=Old
I’m sorry to hear you’re “not comfortable” attending this one. I am planning to. To me, the risk of whatever is making you not comfortable about it is absolutely dwarfed by the risk of the police and governmental reaction to it, whether it is “well sourced” or not. It honestly just doesn’t matter which way, in terms of risk, I think, although the risk is of course significant in both cases. Right? What would be the increased risk of attending one that isn’t sufficiently well-sourced?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to raise any hackles. It’s really just me liking to have some kind of source for things proclaimed by screenshots in general.
I didn’t say that. I said I would be more comfortable if it was associated with 50501 than if it was associated with American Opposition.
Yes, the risk is relatively small in any case. There’s still nothing wrong with asking for more information, especially with (what I think is) the high likelihood of things going sideways at one of these events at some point.
And questioning unsourced information is just a good habit to be in. Of course, we’re often going to have to make decisions without complete information. That’s kind of part of being a person in general. More information is better.
I am far more interested in looking into the source for the claims from “some of my more active friends” and so on, than I am in the source for this. When those people were trying to throw cold water on the idea of attending that protest, I asked all of those people what protests their more active friends would recommend instead, and none of them pointed me to one or to any further information. You would think that the active friends would be interested in disseminating that kind of information of course. Strange that they are not.
It took all of thirty seconds of searching to find:
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/02/12/national-no-spend-day-economic-blackout-amazon-walmart/78410711007/
https://jointhepeoplesunion.com/
Is this legit? I have no idea. Of course questioning unsourced information is good. But like I said, I don’t think it really matters all that much in terms of whether it’s a good idea to attend the protest itself, and I think it’s strange that there is this sudden extreme tension and discomfort with the idea of attending protests, sourced from several people’s more active friends or similar, none of whom are interested in sharing more information about any protests that they would feel more comfortable with.
Edit: Actually, probably the safest of all possible ways you can get involved in some kind of resistance to Trump is to see one of these images with just a place and time, show up in person to the thing, and talk with the people who happen to be near you and make some random connections. It won’t be completely safe of course. But it will be far better than blabbing all over the internet, or signing up for some kind of mailing list, or subscribing to whoever’s feed on Bluesky, or whatever. I think any “group” you’re likely to interact with on the internet might wind up leading to you getting put on a list, eventually, one way or another. Showing up in person and meeting random people is an infinitely better way to get plugged in.
Oh, I definitely was unclear then. My hope is that with more information, more people might be motivated to share and participate, making these events more impactful.
Yeah, fair enough. A lot of the sharpness of my reaction was because of what happened on the last post, which to me was hella suspicious. You were just asking an interested question and I used it as an opportunity to talk about some stuff that bothered me the last time.
I did find more stuff about who’s behind this group, but as I said in my edit, I actually think just showing up is probably better than poking around and doing a bunch of internet interaction with “resistance” or protest groups.
Also, the EFF’s guide to safely attending a protest: https://ssd.eff.org/module/attending-protest
Heh, I kind of figured that, I caught the other post just before this one. No harm, no foul. You raised important points, and gave me chance to actually say what I was intending to be heard.
You are 100% correct.