Political saboteurs can weaponize platform algorithms legally without any coding skills

Evidence

Dexterous coding skills were not required. Instead, these activists possessed a deep awareness of the nuanced politics of visibility and invisibility. Tulsa’s sabotage and the BLM hashtag hijackings were in their essence manifestations of a lightly encoded vernacular engulfing its targets like a cloud of smoke. While “lone wolf” hackings fundamentally represent an outsider’s unauthorized invasion into proprietary space (typically announcing itself suddenly), the TikTokers’ actions worked collectively within such a proprietary system by gently (and wholly legally) shepherding the platforms’ algorithms toward their own aims. At the same time, Tulsa’s saboteurs entered markets by buying rally tickets or, in a simultaneous coordinated offensive, by “holding” Trump campaign merchandise products in online shopping carts and indefinitely suspending checkout payments, both of which fed the campaign bad data and corrupted its election database. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 473

Categorization

• DEFINE: Contrasts ‘lone wolf’ hacking (unauthorized invasion) with collective, legal algorithmic ‘shepherding’ — a useful distinction between two modes of political action.
• ADDENDUM: Connects to speculative-politics theme of counter-speculation; the shopping-cart ‘holding’ tactic is a concrete mechanic that could illustrate instability as political tool.
• XREF: connects to: Embedding ethics in software cannot guarantee lawful conduct because software is reprogrammable.; Surveillance capitalists weaponize free speech doctrine to block oversight of their algorithms — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 352

Broader Connections

• Embedding ethics in software cannot guarantee lawful conduct because software is reprogrammable. #expands (0.72)
• Surveillance capitalists weaponize free speech doctrine to block oversight of their algorithms #corroborates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 352