I don’t know who created the “Israel Participatory Media Group – indymedia Israel” list on Riseup.net. And I don’t know why they thought I would be so interested that I would want to be subscribed 5 times without prior consent. I do know that no matter how passionately important you think your issue is, how relevant, how pressing, how critical to the survival of the world, if you start sending me your bulk emails without my consent, if you start subscribing me to mailing lists, you’re a spammer, and you deserve to be treated as such. Thankfully the Riseup folks feel even more strongly about this then I do. Activist spam is a phenomena in its own right. Sometimes called tofu, it is often hard to filter on because these spam engines aren’t powered by scripts (which are predictable) but by the righteous and dedicated (who vary from wearily predictable to wildly un-). Thankfully education seem to effective and has been making head way in many parts of the community.

If you’ve got a message that you think is critical to broadcast at me, get a blog, get an RSS feed, write something so compelling someone I read and trust links to it. If you can’t do those things perhaps you need to re-evaluate you effectiveness as a spokesperson for your issue. Spam is many things, but one of them is a question of self-determination; my ability to cope with email is key to my ability to effectively to do the sort of organizing work I do. Your choice to impede that work shows a lack of commitment to democratic decision making and dialogue.

There was a short thread about tofu about a year ago on Anarchogeek.