Mobile Ambivalence at Standing Rock: surveillance, antagonism, and mobility at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests

The protests surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline were marked by ambivalence, both in the blurring of protest spaces and in the interactions in digital spaces surrounding the protest. The Facebook check-in meme that began circulating on Halloween 2016 was a key site for the ambivalence of the protests. The meme prompted sympathizers to sign in to Standing Rock through the locational Facebook check-in feature to jam police surveillance. The meme capitalized on the hybridized nature of the protest spaces in an attempt to create safety for the physical protesters. However, the meme amplified attention paid to the protests, leading to trolls wandering into the digital spaces of the protest. Protesters and trolls engaged in mutual surveillance, doxxing, and other antagonisms. I argue that the Facebook Check-in meme constitutes a useful site of digital activism that is effective through its use of the messiness of hybrid spaces and tactical engagement, and one that also exemplifies the potential of tactical media in hybrid space to oppose power structures of surveillance. However, the discourse and actions surrounding the protest highlight the ambivalence of digital political activism coming from multiple coalitions. The focus on the intersections of ambivalence, hybridized space, and tactical engagement provides a fruitful lens not present in the literature of digital political protest.