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Behind the mask: Why the new US campus protestors cover their faces
Semafor ^ | Apr 23, 2024 | David Weigel

Posted on 04/27/2024 11:50:18 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican

The first thing you see are the masks — the N-95s, the surgical masks, the patterned cloth masks, the bandanas — which largely vanished from American life over the last two years but are a defining feature of America’s swelling left-wing protest culture.

Faculty members at New York University link arms to protect a “Gaza solidarity encampment,” most of them wearing face masks. Activists block travel across the Golden Gate Bridge, all of them in masks. Members of the March on DNC 2024 coalition show up to their Chicago press conference in face masks, removing them only when it’s their turn to speak.

Nearly one year after the official end of the federal COVID-19 emergency declaration, the regular use of face masks for non-immunocompromised people has faded from American life. Outdoor masking, mandated in many states during the peak of the pandemic, became even rarer after a 2022 CDC advisory scaled it back.

But that gradual return to barefaced life never reached left-leaning protests, where face masks are widely used and encouraged.

Part of the reason, say organizers, remains an attempt to make a point about exposure to COVID-19 and other health risks, which some in the left-wing protest movements believe remain dire. And part is the threat of a different kind of exposure — from being captured by facial recognition technology or becoming doxxed (their personal information being shared online) by counter-protesters.

(Excerpt) Read more at semafor.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: domesticenemies; education; israel; masks
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To: Jamestown1630

Uh huh! But don’t tell them.


21 posted on 04/27/2024 12:07:59 PM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: Jamestown1630

Afraid from getting deported. Make it easy on them — shoot them first then float them to Mexico.
That nothing is done about these muzzies is because the US is trying to appease them as they have ever since 9/11/2001. No need to say “Death to America”, because it already occurred.


22 posted on 04/27/2024 12:12:19 PM PDT by 353FMG
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To: MinorityRepublican

It’s not about covid it’s about avoiding facial recognition software.


23 posted on 04/27/2024 12:14:27 PM PDT by jimwatx
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Throw on some sunglasses and a hoodie.


24 posted on 04/27/2024 12:16:33 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (“There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach,” said one woman)
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To: MinorityRepublican

No jurisdiction should have laws against wearing a mask at a protest.


25 posted on 04/27/2024 12:20:32 PM PDT by Round Earther
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To: MinorityRepublican

“— from being captured by facial recognition technology or becoming doxxed (their personal information being shared online) by counter-protesters.“

That’s cute that they think that. The truth is, the part of their face that is exposed is more than enough, not to mention all of the times during the day they are guaranteed to lower their mask for a few minutes of respite. Yeah, they’re going to get docs, yeah they’re not gonna get that cool job.


26 posted on 04/27/2024 12:22:09 PM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: MinorityRepublican

I’m old enough to remember when it was a crime to wear a mask at a protest.


27 posted on 04/27/2024 12:22:55 PM PDT by vikingd00d (chown -R us ~you/base)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Exactly. Like AI couldn’t do that in a nanosecond… Those kids are fooling themselves if they think they can’t be identified.


28 posted on 04/27/2024 12:23:19 PM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Exactly. Like AI couldn’t do that in a nanosecond… Those kids are fooling themselves if they think they can’t be identified.


29 posted on 04/27/2024 12:24:00 PM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: MinorityRepublican

Yup.

I don’t agree with these kids. They are misled idiots, or better put, useful idiots.

The Palestinians simply have a very good grasp of how to use the media to their advantage, are not facing massive censorship like the Russians, and have some big actors that sort of back them up (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Jordan - Arab and Muslim media which is prolific).

The Arabs / Muslims know how to play the victim card well and were doing this aready in the 1990s. Sometimes they go over the top and get caught: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salam_Daher

***But, I do understand why today you do not want to have your face visible or cell phone on you if you engage in any sort of protest.***


30 posted on 04/27/2024 12:24:49 PM PDT by Red6
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To: MinorityRepublican

Artificial intelligence, or 4Chan could box them all in a matter of hours. Remember when that Shia Leboeuf put up our anti-Trump flag on a fixed camera? The camera could see nothing but the flag in the sky. Literally not a thing except sky. And it took them about a day to identify where the flag was posted.


31 posted on 04/27/2024 12:26:03 PM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: vikingd00d
Still is, down south, because of the Klan.

There is some sweet footage from a BLM protest at Auburn where state troopers are pulling kids wearing masks and cuffing them up, over their silly bleating protests.

32 posted on 04/27/2024 12:26:28 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (“There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach,” said one woman)
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To: PGR88

“Nor has it reached the criminal elements. Masking to hide identity has become NORMALIZED.”

After the mask fad had passed I noticed a sign on my bank’s entrance saying ‘No masks.’ It was from before covid when it wasn’t legal to wear a mask anywhere you wanted.

It’s not surprising looters and leftist protesters kept it in fashion. Like a badge of expression that also helps them avoid being accountable.


33 posted on 04/27/2024 12:31:17 PM PDT by bluescape
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To: MinorityRepublican

Cowardice. They fear being identified and eventually criticized or punished.

Stinking cowards, all.


34 posted on 04/27/2024 12:31:42 PM PDT by dadgum (Enough!)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Leaving your iPhone at home won’t establish that you were at home. Say you normally answer texts and phone calls throughout the day, and occasionally pick it up to check something online. You think you’re covered.

So you meet up with your Palestinian hitsquad, burn the police cars, Rob the bank, sing we shall overcome… then rush back home.

It would be child’s play for an investigator or an intelligence agent to look at the daily activity of your phone for the last three months, and then see that one day with no activity whatsoever. No text, no checking the email, no phone call answered or placed, no movement of the phone whatsoever inside the house. Leaving your phone won’t even establish that you were innocent. Think about it.


35 posted on 04/27/2024 12:32:00 PM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: MinorityRepublican

Not to mention the myriad of surveillance cams that watched you leave your house, watched you go down the street, followed you from intersection to intersection across town, saw you park and go to the protest… And then return home.

And then of course, is Gorgon stare.


36 posted on 04/27/2024 12:33:37 PM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: MinorityRepublican

Criminals have been wearing masks for centuries.


37 posted on 04/27/2024 12:34:46 PM PDT by gitmo (If your biography doesn't match your theology, what good is it?)
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To: Trailerpark Badass

The problem with the hoodie and sunglasses, is that nobody wears them all day long. If you watch someone long enough, they reveal themselves. And then of course, the Unabomber… That was his garb.


38 posted on 04/27/2024 12:36:05 PM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: bluescape

During Covid, a business in our neighborhood suffered so much shoplifting/robbery, they put a sign on the door saying nobody wearing a mask would be allowed in.


39 posted on 04/27/2024 12:36:07 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: MinorityRepublican

A million patriots show up with baseball bats, then we can see them run like the sniveling little rat cowards they are.


40 posted on 04/27/2024 12:41:14 PM PDT by Bullish (...And just like that, I was off the ping list.)
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