Introduction: Taking to the streets in the information age

The idiosyncrasies of protesting, rioting, demonstrating, taking to the streets in the information age can be highlighted through a few recent anecdotes. If you were in Kiev, Ukraine, while anti-government protests took place on 21 January 2014, you possibly received the following message on your cellphone: ‘Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass riot.’ The message, in Ukrainian, was sent from an unrecognized phone number to people in the vicinity of the streets where the riots took place. The three main Ukrainian cellphone companies, however, denied any participation in the delivery of these messages or having forwarded any confidential geolocation data of their customers to third parties.

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