Occupy Facebook: Social Network for Protesters in the Works

Occupy Wall Street activists are developing a social network called The Global Square for the generation of protesters.

"We don't want to trust Facebook with private messages among activists," developer Ed Knutson told Wired.

Knutson is helping build the network, which will unite members of Occupy movements across the globe. As more of the physical encampments are evicted across the U.S., digital meeting places will be of increased importance, explains a November RoarMag blog post.

"In addition to the local squares, we now need a global square where people of all nations can come together as equals to participate in the coordination of collective actions and the formulation of common goals and aspirations. For this reason, we call upon the revolutionary whizkids of the world to unite and assist in the development of a new online platform – The Global Square – that combines the communicative functions of the existing social networks with the political functions of the assemblies to provide crucial new tools for the development of our global movement."

The Global Square will include an interactive map of uprisings around the world, an easy search option to find movements near you, a Facebook-style news feed, calendars, debate forums, collaboration space, messaging and more. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, Wired reports that to become a member, you will need a sponsor to ensure you are trustworthy. The site is expected to launch in January.

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This is not the first tech innovation we've seen spurred by the Occupy movement. OWS broadcaster Tim Pool is creating new reporting techniques, hackathons have united programmers and the Free Network Foundation brought free Wi-Fi to Zuccotti Park.

Established social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, are considered to have been at the center of revolutions across the world this year. However, members of the Occupy movement fear these networks would turn over private messages, when confronted by authorities.

In January, ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak shut off the country's Internet in fear of the power of social networks. Last week, a Massachusetts district attorney subpoenaed Twitter for private messages from the @OccupyBoston Twitter account.

Do you think The Global Square is filling a void for activists, or are the existing mainstream networks sufficient? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr, The Whistling Monkey