National scenarios of digitalization of political protest

Pataraya Kristina Iraklievna Student, Department of Russian Politics, Lomonosov Moscow State University 410080, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Lomonosovsky Prospekt 27, 24 ussr8673@gmail.com

Krymova Kseniya Mikhailovna Student, Department of Russian Politics, Lomonosov Moscow State University 410080, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Lomonosovsky Prospekt 27, 24 ussr8673@gmail.com

IntroductionIn the context of the rapid development of digital technologies, significant changes in the political landscape have taken place in recent years.

With the advent of new digital tools that have transformed political participation, the nature of political protest organized with the help of various mobile technologies and social media has also changed.

Despite the fact that the use of digital technologies in organizing and supporting political protest has been studied by scientists for quite a long time, the last few years have been marked by significant changes in the role of digital tools in these processes. Digital technologies are beginning to occupy an increasingly important place in them, ceasing to be only auxiliary means. This was especially clearly manifested in the following cases of digitalization of political protest: protests against the extradition bill in Hong Kong (2019-2020), protests of those who disagree with the results of the presidential elections in Belarus (2020-2021), protests in France against the bill "On Global Security" (2020-2021), protests of those who disagree with the results of the elections in the United States (2020-2021 As well as protests in support of A. Navalny in Russia (2021). The need for a scientific rethinking of the political and technological status of digital tools within the framework of national scenarios for organizing and maintaining protest activity determines the theoretical and practical relevance of the study.

Within the framework of this work, five cases were considered that reveal the essence of the scenarios of digitalization of political protest in Hong Kong, Belarus, France, the USA and Russia in order to identify common and special characteristics of these models.

Theoretical and methodological basis of the studyThe theoretical basis of this research is the following theories and concepts: network society (M. Castels), "smart crowd" (G. Reinhold), competitive politics (D. McAdam, C. Tilly, S. Tarrow) and relative deprivation (T. Garr).

Modern research on this issue can be divided into several groups. The first group includes works that study the nature of modern political protest (R. Pyrma, A. Sokolov)^[1]. To the second – research concerning the phenomenon of digitalization in the political sphere (M. Vasiliev, Ya. Ignatovsky, A. Konkov, D. Mukhametov)^[2]. The third group is represented by publications related to the study of the mobilization potential of digital technologies (V. Achkasova, O. Basheva, A. Makarychev, R. Enikolopov, etc.)^[3]. The fourth group consists of studies analyzing individual domestic and foreign protest actions mediated by digital tools (I. Suslov, E. Brodovskaya, etc.)^[4].

It is worth noting that two main approaches to assessing the impact of digital tools on protest political participation have long been identified in the scientific literature^[5]. One is that digitalization provides new opportunities for organizing and maintaining political protest, becoming one of the key ones. Thus, according to K. Shirka, the development of digital technologies has transformed political activity due to the significant facilitation of the search and mobilization of supporters^[6]. Among adherents of the second approach – techno-skeptics – the thesis is popular that modern technologies, on the contrary, cause new threats to the organization of political protest (for example, the phenomenon of activism, the possibility of cyber attacks, loss of confidentiality of information) ^[7]. Despite the fact that the events of recent years mostly confirm the positions of techno-optimists, in our opinion, both approaches to one degree or another reflect the influence of digital technologies on the nature of modern political protest.

As the main methods, we used case study and comparative analysis based on open statistics, the study of scientific and analytical publications of domestic and foreign researchers, as well as coverage of selected cases of protests in the media environment. In addition, in the course of the study, a scenario approach was also applied (E. Minks, E. Boelcke) to identify key factors influencing the process of digitalization of political protest, to determine various prospects for the development of the future, as well as to develop possible practical solutions.

The case study method was used to analyze modern practices of using digital technologies in the context of modern political protest. To identify national scenarios of digitalization of political protest, five cases were analyzed: protests in Hong Kong, Belarus, France, the USA and Russia.

The method of comparative analysis was applied to identify significant features of national models of digitalization of political protest in Hong Kong, Belarus, France, the USA and Russia. The comparative analysis was carried out in two stages: the first was necessary to study the current conditions and prerequisites for digitalization of political protest in selected cases, the second – to identify common and special characteristics of national models of digitalization of political protest.

Research resultsAs the first stage, the technological and socio-political aspects affecting the digitalization of political protest in selected cases were investigated.

A separate important block was associated with the modern stage of digital technology development. The following indicators were selected as criteria for comparing digital consumption: Internet penetration, the level of public involvement in social media (the total number of active users and the share of smartphone users among them), the most popular platforms. The criteria for assessing the socio-political state were chosen as follows: the level of development of political rights and civil liberties (according to Freedom House, which evaluates their condition on a scale where 100 is the highest indicator), the level of trust in the authorities among the population, the level of media freedom (the world press freedom index according to the organization "Reporters without Borders borders", where 0 is the best indicator) and the level of urbanization. The results are presented in table 1.

Table 1. Technological and socio-political aspects affecting the digitalization of political protest

Table 1. Technological and socio-political aspects affecting the digitalization of political protest

Based on the results of the comparison of indicators, we can draw the following conclusions:

Firstly, it is noticeable that in Belarus and Russia the percentage of the population using the Internet is significantly inferior to the level of Internet penetration in Hong Kong, the USA and France: if in these countries only one out of ten residents does not use the Internet, then in Russia and Belarus – about two, which nationwide can create difficulties for operational mobilization and coordination of protests.

Secondly, despite the significant difference in the total number of active users of social networks, we can note the tendency to prefer smartphones to other devices: everywhere more than 95% of active users of social media choose them. As for Belarus and Russia, it is worth noting that a smaller number of tools for organizing and supporting protests (which affects, for example, their geography or intensity) does not indicate their complete absence, although it somewhat slows down the processes of protest mobilization and coordination.

Thirdly, it is worth noting that national platforms are popular among the population of Hong Kong, Russia and the United States, which can also influence the specifics of national scenarios of digitalization of political protest, determining their scale and information coverage. Belarus' close relations with Russia determine the popularity of Russian platforms, and the absence of such national projects in France is compensated by the dominance of Facebook. In addition, we also assume that Facebook's growing popularity in Hong Kong is due not only to the growing global influence of this platform, but to a certain extent, the desire of Hong Kongers to separate themselves from Chinese influence: according to surveys, only 11% of Hong Kongers would call themselves "Chinese", and 71% claim that they are not proud of that they are Chinese citizens^[16].

Fourth, a fairly high level of urbanization in the selected countries confirms the researchers' conclusions that a high concentration of population in cities presents more opportunities for social mobilization^[17].

Finally, fifthly, despite the high level of development of political rights and civil liberties in the USA and France, trust in the authorities and the state of media freedom in these countries (as in the more unfree Belarus, Russia and Hong Kong) are not in perfect condition, which indicates possible difficulties in the dialogue between state institutions and civil society. This contributes to the growth of political tension and the strengthening of protest potential. However, their nature, due to different indicators, will also differ.

Hong Kong: protests against the extradition billThe extradition bill proposed by the Hong Kong government in February 2019 gave the Chief Executive and local courts the authority to consider requests for the extradition of suspects in crimes, including from mainland China.

Such actions by the government caused discontent: opponents of the bill believed that Hong Kongers in mainland China could be subjected to an unfair trial. In addition, they argued that the bill would allow China to prosecute human rights defenders.

Despite the fact that thousands of protests against the bill were in March-April, the largest actions took place in the summer of 2019. On June 9, about a million people participated in a peaceful march against the second reading of the bill. On June 12, the day of the second reading, a new action took place, during which the police used rubber bullets and tear gas. On June 15, the chief executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, announced the suspension of discussion of the bill, but the next day about two million people took to the streets demanding its complete recall. As the protest unfolded, four more demands were put forward: the organization of an investigation into the actions of the police, the rejection of the characterization of the protest as a "riot", amnesty for those arrested and the introduction of universal suffrage along with the resignation of Carrie Lam. By July-August, the protest escalated: in response to the tightening of police actions, acts of vandalism became more frequent^[18]. The bill was withdrawn by autumn, but the number of speeches decreased only after the outbreak of COVID-19, although with the easing of restrictions, the actions resumed due to China's adoption of a new national security law in Hong Kong. As a result, despite the repressive actions of the Hong Kong government, some concessions were still made.

Although the use of digital technologies in organizing and conducting protest actions has been familiar to Hong Kongers since the "umbrella revolution", the emergence of new tactics and principles has predetermined changes in the use of digital tools themselves. In the case of the Hong Kong protests, a request for anonymity is visible: for example, if Facebook and Twitter were used as the main platforms in 2014, then in the 2019 protests their function was only for global coverage of protest actions and the formation of an agenda, since the public nature of these platforms did not allow protesters to coordinate actions. This function has been performed by more "secure" digital platforms and the use of VPNs to bypass blocking and support privacy. For example, if in July 2018 Telegram had 26 thousand new users, then a year later this number increased by 323%, amounting to 110 thousand. Telegram channels and closed secret chats were used to obtain information about events and coordinate actions. In addition, Telegram served as one of the sources for the HKmap.live service, where the map showed the location of the police and the actions being carried out.

In the case of Hong Kong, it is noticeable how the fixed "occupation" (from the Occupy movement) logic of protest, noticeable even in the "umbrella revolution", is gradually transformed into flexible and mobile tactics-a metaphor: by blocking the streets, the protesters sought to "be like water", geographically dispersing and changing the direction, focus and nature of the action. The principle of decentralized leadership is combined with the "tactics of water": in the case of the Hong Kong protests, there was no clearly expressed leader (as D. Wong in 2014), and actions during the actions were determined collectively. Another principle – "not to be divided" – united radical and peaceful protest groups among themselves. Thus, the voting system on the anonymous LIHKG forum facilitated decision-making in preparation for protests. The listed principles and tactics also contributed to the anonymization of participants. It is important that the request for anonymity during the protests in Hong Kong was required not only online, but also offline: because of the existing facial recognition system in the country, protesters wore glasses and masks, turned away from CCTV cameras and used laser pointers to "dazzle" them.

It is also interesting to strive for the so-called "gamification" of protest: it is noted that some strategies for organizing actions resemble video games, where young participants, choosing a certain role, perform the tasks assigned to it ^[19].

The protesters also used digital technologies that work via Bluetooth (Bridgefy, AirDrop) to coordinate the protests, which allowed them to "be water" and act collectively even without access to the Network. For the hidden transmission of information about the protests by Hong Kongers, atypical services were also used: Uber, Tinder and the game Pokemon Go, and during coronavirus restrictions, online rallies were held in the game Animal Crossing. In addition, in order to draw attention to the problems of Hong Kongers, global actions were held: for example, the online flash mob #Eye4HK, when users were encouraged to publish photos of them closing their right eye as a sign of sympathy for one of the protesters who damaged it as a result of police actions. There were also cases of hacktivism (doxing), when protesters disclosed the personal data of police officers.

Thus, the variety of forms of digital activity combined with offline actions allowed, in our opinion, the Hong Kong opposition to organize a massive and prolonged protest campaign, even despite the restrictions that arose (in addition to resisting protest actions offline) in the form of disinforming bot attacks on social media, DDoS attacks on Telegram, as well as censorship of Chinese platforms (Weibo) in order to promote the agenda of mainland China.

Belarus: protests of those who disagree with the results of the presidential election

In the Republic of Belarus, the actualization of the protest situation occurred in the context of the results of the presidential elections held on August 9, 2020, in which Alexander Lukashenko, the current president, won. It is worth noting that protest activity in Belarus was also observed during the pre-election period (it was associated with the non-admission of alternative candidates to participate in the elections, as well as their arrest), it reached its peak after the closure of polling stations. On August 9, thousands of residents took to the streets of Minsk and other Belarusian cities to express their disagreement with the election results. On the same day, problems with Internet access began in Belarus. They were eliminated only by August 12, when residents could again use social media and search engines without the help of VPNs and proxy servers.

Under these conditions, Telegram became one of the key sources of information for residents of Belarus, which, despite temporary failures, still continued to work. Telegram channels (NEXTA, NEXTA Live, "TUT.BY News", "Belarus of the Brain", "May Kraina Belarus", etc.) and chat rooms formed a protest agenda, reporting on events (for example, acts of violence by law enforcement officers) and at the same time acting as platforms for their discussion. Telegram was also used by hacktivists as a platform for publishing personal data of law enforcement officers. However, the main role of the messenger was to use it as a tool for organizing and conducting protest actions: Telegram published methodological recommendations for participants, announcements and plans for future actions, disclosed the location of law enforcement agencies, indicated the direction of movement and the possibility of shelter, as well as organized assistance to those arrested and injured during the protests. Chats and Telegram channels combined in one messenger played an important role, since they were able to consolidate protest activity scattered across the country into a single information stream^[20]. Telegram also granted the protesters' request for anonymity with the help of secret chats configured to automatically erase messages and the ability to create groups without revealing names and phone numbers.

Despite the fact that protest activity in the Republic of Belarus has been called the "first Telegram revolution", the landscape of the use of digital technologies during the Belarusian protests is much broader. Instagram, Facebook, VK and Twitter were also used to inform and express solidarity (for example, using the hashtags #FreeBelarus and #ZhyvEbelarus). In August 2020 , activists created the BYSOL project and Probono.by , helping victims and those arrested during the protests. They also have their own platforms in social media (Facebook, VK, YouTube, Odnoklassniki, etc.). In addition, Belarusians used ZUBR platforms that exercise civil control over electoral and judicial processes. In addition, the protesters used services that allow them to coordinate actions without an Internet connection ("March").

As for the basic principles of protest organization, despite the fact that Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Maria Kolesnikova could be consistently considered as leaders at the initial stages of the protest in the Republic of Belarus, in fact, the Belarusian protests were depersonalized in nature – they were not characterized by centralized leadership^[21]. In addition, the protesters borrowed the "water tactics" used by Hong Kongers to avoid arrest. Nevertheless, despite the rather high degree of coordination of protests in Belarus and their duration, their participants still failed to achieve their goals, since the state system managed to reorganize itself to suppress protest activity.

France: protests against the bill "On global security"In 2020, the French government decided on the need to introduce a draft law "On global security".

The need for it was justified by the importance of security at all stages and levels of social interactions. The authors of this initiative also stressed the novelty and correctness of the approach of both the protection of citizens and law enforcement agencies. In addition, the legislators were guided by the logic that simplifying the work of police officers is beneficial for the whole society as a whole, since they will be able to perform their tasks more efficiently and efficiently.

Nevertheless, some points of this document caused a public outcry. According to the draft, the powers of law enforcement agencies have significantly expanded: now representatives of the law could independently establish the existence of a number of crimes, seize certain evidence, use video surveillance to regulate order, and so on. The most controversial was article 24, according to which the recording of police operations was limited. In addition, for publishing such materials, any violator could receive a fine of up to 45,000 euros and a criminal penalty. 

These innovations relate directly to the freedom of speech of citizens and the boundaries of the use of social media. Due to the fact that posting news with police arbitrariness often becomes the only possible reason for the outbreak of public outcry, the French have shown an extreme degree of disagreement with the actions of the government. During the entire time of the raging protests in France, more than 90 demonstrations were held, many rallies, as a result of which mass detentions of activists took place, some of whom received a criminal sentence. Instagram Facebook, Twitter and TikTok have become one of the main tools for expressing dissatisfaction with the mass publication of negative opinions about the initiative on such platforms as Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.

It is worth noting that this is not the first series of mass prolonged protests in France over the past few years: in 2018, due to a number of political actions of Emmanuel Macron, the yellow vest movement broke out in the country, distinguished by numerous rallies and processions, as well as numerous clashes with law enforcement agencies. This movement was also actively coordinated through social media: the agenda, time, place of a protest were coordinated on the Internet. In addition, dissatisfied people often discussed through similar applications and actions during the events themselves.

We can say that the protests in Paris against the draft law "On global security" have acquired a fairly large scale. According to one data or another, the number of protesters during these demonstrations reached from 133,000 to 500,000 people.

Despite the fact that the government promised the public to withdraw and revise the draft law "On Global Security", which it eventually did, the protesters, as well as journalists whose activities are directly related to these restrictions, were not satisfied with these measures. They demanded the complete exclusion of article 24 from the document. In addition, the cancellation requirements extended to articles 21 and 22, which provided for the expansion of video surveillance by means of unmanned aerial vehicles. The dissenters see these paragraphs as an attempt to restrict freedom of speech and an encroachment on the privacy of citizens. This attitude is not surprising: over the past few years, support for law enforcement in France has fallen from 72% to 66%^[22].

USA: protests in WashingtonOn November 3, 2020, the 46th presidential election was held in the United States, which resulted in the victory of Joseph Biden from the Democratic Party with 306 votes and the defeat of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, with 232 votes.

As part of this event, multiple scandals broke out: the Republicans were sure that the votes had been thrown and the actual victory remained with their candidate. There were several reasons for such suspicions: an attempt to conduct impeachment proceedings against D. Trump on the part of the Democratic Party; Trump's accusations of cooperation with Russia; doubts of major media platforms about the reliability of information posted on them by Trump; the "mail scandal", in which supporters of the Democratic Party accused the president of what he had done.

Because of this, in the opinion of Republicans, injustice, supporters of Donald Trump decided to raise a number of protests, culminating in the events of January 5 and 6, when many supporters of the candidate gathered in Washington to demonstrate their disagreement with the results of the presidential race. The apogee of this action was the seizure of the Capitol on January 6 as part of the rally "Save America", which resulted in mass riots and led to human casualties.

During the counting of the votes of the Electoral College by the Congress, the protesters launched an assault on the Capitol: they broke down potential ways of entering the building, while the government representatives sitting in it were forced to evacuate. In addition to other acts of vandalism, manifested in the destruction of a state facility, some dissatisfied were preparing a terrorist attack, as evidenced by the improvised explosive devices found later.

The action was not spontaneous and isolated: public discontent accumulated from the very beginning of the presidential race. The seizure of the Capitol is the culmination of protest movements in the United States that have been forming since the fall of 2020, and therefore it will be more competent to consider the activities of January 5 and 6 in the context of negative sentiments that have been growing in society, and not separately from the rest of the events of this period.

Despite the ambiguous methods in resolving the political conflict, the result of which was the death of 4 people, Donald Trump called the actions of the protesters a manifestation of patriotism and openly approved the use of violent acts against the current government. By the evening of January 6, the protest was dispersed by American law enforcement agencies, and the FBI opened more than 170 cases against particularly aggressive activists.

Internet platforms, in particular social media, played a special role in the protest. It was in them that the protesters posted materials confirming their participation in this event. In addition, in support of their words about the storming of the Capitol, the corresponding photos and videos were posted by members of Congress themselves. In addition, D. Trump himself methodically called on his accounts, in particular on Twitter, for illegal actions against his political opponents.

In this regard, the accounts of Donald Trump, as well as many of his supporters, were blocked by major social media. For example, the Internet platform Reddit blocked several communities dedicated to supporting D. Trump, whose total audience was more than 800,000 accounts. In addition, the most active platforms within these events, such as Twitter, Facebook, whose policies were supported by Amazon, censor the posts of Trump supporters and delete both them and the accounts themselves. These actions are motivated by an article in the user messages of the platforms about the prohibition of calls to violence, which, according to the administration of the sites, is universally violated by Republicans^[23]. In addition, the Parler platform, popular with Trump supporters, was removed from Apple and Google stores, as a result of which its users began to call for switching to Telegram, which, against the background of news about the blocking of Trump and his supporters, entered the top popular applications in the United States.

In addition to the bans, D. Trump was subjected to a culture of cancellation by the Democrats, in connection with which he temporarily almost completely lost the opportunity to communicate with his audience and, in particular, the protesters loyal to him. After the events described, the team of the political leader decided to create a "censorship-free" social network Gettr as an alternative to the 45th US president who blocked Twitter for life. Despite the scale of the riots that broke out, 68 people were actually arrested during the seizure of the Capitol, and no sanctions were applied to Trump, except for condemnation from media personalities.

Russia: protests in support of A. NavalnyIn January 2021, due to an important event in the political life of Russia, namely the delay of the well-known opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a series of mass protests began, the scale of which was especially distinguished on the territory of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The actions lasted from January 23, from the detention of A. Navalny himself and several representatives of the Anti-Corruption Fund organization created by him, to April 21, when independent doctors were allowed to visit the public figure after he announced a hunger strike. It should be noted that the protests were nationwide in nature: although we focus on the Moscow and St. Petersburg cases, a wave of rallies took place in most major cities of Russia. Tens of thousands of detainees were not only in the central cities of the country, but also in the regions.

The rallies held by A. Navalny and his supporters have always been held using digital technologies: the announcement and organization of these events in connection with the specifics of his blogs appeared on YouTube and Telegram channels. However, it is important to understand that these protests differ from previous actions of expressing disagreement with the political activities carried out by the state, primarily by the level of use of digital technologies within their framework. This time, a larger number of electronic platforms were involved, the functionality of which has significantly expanded. This fact is indicated by a fine issued by Roskomnadzor and addressed to six Internet sites at once, within the framework of which certain materials were published in support of A. Navalny's activities and rallies supporting his ideas. The preparation of protocols on administrative offenses was carried out on the basis of Article 13.41 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation in connection with the dissemination of information aimed at attracting minors to participate in unauthorized mass (public) events.

Instagram Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, VK, Odnoklassniki and YouTube are among the list of violators. "Despite the requirement of the Prosecutor General's Office and the notification of Roskomnadzor, these Internet platforms did not remove a total of 170 illegal appeals in a timely manner," the agency said in a statement^[24].

For many government officials, as well as for the protesters themselves, it was a revelation that the Russian segment of TikTok turned out to be very oppositional and decided to actively support the protests that had already gained great popularity. Users everywhere began to post videos notifying the population about the dates, times and places of the protests, motivating them to take part in them and demanding the freedom of A. Navalny. So, during the period of this series of rallies, thematic videos collected about 200 million views. This phenomenon managed to get the name "factorTikTok" in the Network.

TikTok was originally created as a platform where users could share dances to audio tracks with the audience. Nevertheless, now in the vastness of this video hosting in the recommendations, we can regularly watch videos dedicated to political topics: cutting speeches of media politicians and political experts, expressing opinions about certain state decisions, building our own forecasts of the subsequent development of the state, etc. A similar leap in political activity in TikTok and its subsequent development occurred precisely during the protests of 2021.

This wave of protests ended with mass detentions, arrests and criminal cases against activists who somehow violated the law of the Russian Federation. Nevertheless, digital activity in support of these protests has become unprecedented: speaking of TikTok, the hashtag #23yanvar (the date of the uncoordinated action announced by Navalny's supporters) has 70 million views, and another 29 million – from a similar one: #23yanvar2021^[25].

Among other things, the activities of the protesters were coordinated using Telegram channels. It was through this platform that activists received basic information about gathering places, actions within the framework of the rally and reported detentions. If the activity in other social media was around the dissemination of information about the protests and the corresponding agitation, then Telegram channels also served as a means of communication of the protesters.

In addition, such platforms as FBK and OVD-Info played an important role in the digital space of protests. The first organization assumed the role of organizing rallies: setting dates, places, times and tactics of protests, covered the main agenda. OVD-Info was also engaged in raising funds for hiring lawyers for detainees and covering actions committed against activists by law enforcement agencies.

So, based on the national scenarios of protest digitalization presented above, it is possible to summarize the listed characteristics and proceed to the second stage of comparative analysis (Table 2). Table 2.

The main features of national scenarios of digitalization of political protest

Table 2. The key features of national scenarios of political protest digitalization

Based on the analysis, we can draw the following conclusions:

1.        In each of the considered cases of political protests organized and supported by digital technologies, a number of common features can be identified:

· These protests are unfolding around large-scale events affecting the spheres of life of the majority of the population. Due to the public outcry arising from the use of digital tools, even local discontent becomes nationwide and results in a whole wave of protests across the country, which are met with a harsh reaction from government representatives.

Instagram Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube are the most common digital platforms, but Telegram messenger is growing in popularity in many cases.

·      The presented digital tools and technologies are used by the protesters mainly to mobilize and coordinate protests, as well as to discuss and gather opinions on the strategies used. In addition, a wide range of forms of digital activism were practiced during the organization of protests, among which crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, hashtag activism and hacktivism stand out.

·      In the presented cases, there is a tendency of gradual decentralization in protest management: instead of specific political leaders, we see communities self-organizing through digital technologies.

· Despite various restrictions in the use of digital tools, blocking is most often used to limit the dissemination of unwanted information.

·      Among the participants of the protests, a request for anonymity is noticeable in order to complicate the process of tracking the identities of the protesters and their proposed initiatives, as well as to avoid blockages.

·        On the one hand, these protests in almost all cases demonstrate some kind of effectiveness, which indicates the inability of the authorities to respond instantly to citizens' requests. On the other hand, in most cases, with the rigid reaction of the political system, only part of the requirements were fulfilled, which explains the prolonged nature of the protests: they all last from several weeks to several years, not limited to single actions.

2.        The high level of digital consumption allowed the protesters in Hong Kong to demonstrate a wide range of tactics and digital technologies used, which made it possible to achieve effective coordination of actions, so the incomparably successful practices of protest activity in Hong Kong were borrowed to varying degrees by activists from other countries.

3. Despite the initial relatively low level of digital consumption in Belarus, the nationwide protests of 2020-2021 marked a turning point in the use of digital tools: for example, the Telegram messenger, allowing activists to spread an alternative agenda and contributing to the politicization of citizens, during the protest activity has become not only the main tool for mobilizing and coordinating protests, but also a full-fledged source of information.

4.        The protests in France were marked by a relatively shorter duration, as well as a smaller number of detainees, which indicates a greater flexibility of the political system in the exercise of political rights and civil liberties.

5.        An important feature of the protests in the United States was the fact that the key role in limiting the use of digital technologies by protesters was played by the largest media platforms, and not by public authorities, which indicates the increasing influence of corporations on the modern political process.

6. Although the initially depoliticized TikTok platform was used by protesters in most cases one way or another, it was in Russia that its sharp politicization took place: TikTok became one of the key tools for forming a protest agenda on the Web.

ConclusionThe research we have presented indicates a significant change in the role of digital technologies in organizing and supporting political protests around the world:

they have an increasing influence on the dissemination of information, minimizing communication costs, which increases the speed of mobilization of protests and improves their coordination. The variety of technologies used allows activists to form an alternative information agenda and involve large masses of people in the protest due to the availability of disseminated information.

The harsh reaction of the authorities to protest activity, manifested in the use of a power resource to suppress it and in the restrictions imposed on the use of digital tools promoting an alternative agenda, not only does not contribute to building a constructive dialogue between the state and civil society, but also harms any attempts to find it. Therefore, in our opinion, the most successful way out of this situation should be measures to solve the problem situation at the initial stages of its development.

The network nature of the organization of modern protests, which do not imply a structural hierarchy and clearly defined leadership, determines the trend towards decentralized protest management. Decentralization of leadership, represented through collective decision-making by self–organizing Internet communities, forms trusting relationships between protest participants and their special identity, which, on the one hand, contributes to the cohesion and organization of protesters, and on the other hand, may create additional difficulties in finding a way to an effective public dialogue between public authorities and civil society.

Large media corporations in modern conditions acquire the status of independent political actors ^[26], exerting a real influence on public policy, which in the near future may lead to an aggravation of issues about the accountability of platforms (platform accountability) and conflicts related to the regulation of the digital space. In modern conditions, against the background of the growing impact of media corporations on political processes, when protesters are subject to deanonymization, as well as blocking due to content moderation by large media platforms, tools that allow anonymizing online activity (Telegram) are gradually coming to the fore, contributing to both the physical security of users and the confidentiality of their data. The request for anonymity in order to minimize restrictions on the use of digital tools created by the state and media corporations may also become a new serious challenge for public authorities in the future, since they will be unable to respond in a timely manner to anonymously organized protest activity, which may lead to unforeseen changes in political systems.