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Peng Collective

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The Peng Collective is a group of culture jamming activists based in Berlin.[1] Through actions of tactical media,[2] the Peng Collective wants to inspire other activists and civil society organisations to be more courageous in their campaigning methods. “Let’s learn from our enemies,” one of their members says in an interview. “If you look at the economics of corporations, their state of mind is: ‘let’s look at every possible gray area of laws and use them.’ And NGOs just don’t do that.”[3]

Projects

googlenest

They got international media attention, when they held a presentation called "Your data, our future" in the Name of Google at Europes largest tech conference re:publica in 2014. All presented products where designed to gather more data from the consumers, claiming that this is in their best interest.[4][5] After Google threatened them to take down their parody website,[6] the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) supported them legally:

Unfortunately, Google's skin was not thick enough to withstand this relatively gently ribbing. The company wrote a polite note to the collective, expressing their sincere respect for political commentary—but nonetheless demanding that Peng! revise the site and assign the domain name to Google. Note to Google: polite trademark bullying is still bullying. EFF responded to Google on Peng's behalf, explaining what should be obvious: the site was pure noncommercial political commentary. Trademark owners should not and cannot punish activists simply because they happen to use trademarks in the course of that kind of commentary.

— Corynne Mcsherry in an EFF letter to Google: Parody Is Not Trademark Infringement[7]

Slamshell

Invited as fake persona to a conference of the Oil company Shell, they created an oil spill on stage instead of the expected presentation.[8][9] The evening was a Public Relations event organized by Burson Marsteller in Berlin, where one member of the Collective could enter the stage because he claimed to have created a car that is cleaning the air.

Cooperation with the Yes Men and Pussy Riot

In 2015, the group infiltrated the Cinema for Peace Gala in Berlin with a fake polar bear and The Yes Men to go on stage and insist that divestment from fossil fuels is helping more against climate change than charity projects. Pussy Riot, who was invited as speaker to the charity gala came to support them, when the organizers of the event tried to silence them with security guards.[10][11]

Zero Trollerance

In May 2015, they developed a bot script that scans Twitter for abusive and sexist language. Once detected, plenty of automated Twitter profiles would reply to those tweets with an invitation to a self-help program for trolls to become feminists.[12]

Intelexit

In September 2015, the Peng Collective staged an association named Intelexit helping anyone working for secret services to quit their jobs and transition to civil life, be it for ethical or psychological reasons. A spokesman of the British secret service GCHQ responded to the launch of the association, that GCHQ doesn’t actually do anything illegal or immoral, and that staff can report any concerns they do have to managers or to GCHQ’s own counselors. Furthermore, they responded to the Intelexits critique of their lack of ethical standards that the GCHQ “has several formal lines of accountability and a culture and ethos of high ethical standards among our workforce.” [13]

During the launch of the campaign, they rallied with an advertising trucks and mobile billboards in front of several secret services workplaces around the world like the German BND, the GCHQ Headquarters in the UK, the US military bases in Germany Dagger Complex and Lucius D. Clay Kaserne and the NSA's Headquarters in the USA, Maryland, where they also drove to the employees lunch place Café Joe's[14] They also performed an airborne leaflet operation over the Dagger Complex with a drone advertising for the exit program.[15]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Huffington Post: Shell's Berlin 'Science Slam' Event Reportedly Disrupted By Anti-Drilling Activists
  2. ^ Zara Rahman: Claiming back digital rights through play and subversion
  3. ^ Mobilisation Lab: Google Nest parody pushes limits of NGO tactics
  4. ^ Fast Company: How Activists Fooled The Internet With These Convincing New Google Nest Products
  5. ^ Forbes Magazine: Google Nest Spoof By German Activists Promises Eerie, Data-Driven Future
  6. ^ Business Insider: Google Got A Parody Site That Made Fun Of Its Privacy Policies To Take Everything Down
  7. ^ [1]
  8. ^ Shell's Berlin 'Science Slam' Event Reportedly Disrupted By Anti-Drilling Activists (Huffington Post)
  9. ^ Premium Times Nigeria: Activists prank Shell, hijack “Science Slam” in Berlin
  10. ^ German article about the event in the newspaper taz
  11. ^ Letter of apology to Natalie Portman for hijacking her stage and the video of the evening
  12. ^ Daily Telegraph Article "How do you stop Twitter trolls? Unleash a robot swarm to troll them back"
  13. ^ Wired US article "This New Campaign Wants To Help Surveillance Agents Quit NSA or GCHQ"
  14. ^ Washington Post article "These German artists tried to persuade NSA employees to quit"
  15. ^ The Intercept article "Drone Flies Over NSA Complex in Germany, Dropping Leaflets"
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