Encrypted app used in campus protest planning deployed for DNC demonstrations

NEW YORK — Pro-Palestinian demonstrators who plan to “shut down” the Democratic National Convention this week are taking cues from New York City, where protests on college campuses were orchestrated with the help of an encrypted messaging network.

Over the spring, student groups and pro-Palestinian organizations used the app Telegram to distribute how-to manuals on occupying buildings and other rally tactics, provide real-time updates on police movements and, in some cases, share explicitly pro-Hamas content.

And there are signs protesters are using the same tactics to plan massive demonstrations at the convention, where organizers hope to pressure Vice President Kamala Harris to take a harder stance against the Israeli government and its military campaign in Gaza.

“Make it great like ‘68,” one group posted to Telegram, referencing large Vietnam War protests at the DNC that year. “Shut down the DNC for Gaza!”

The post, which encouraged demonstrators to show up outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago at 7 p.m. on Aug. 20, was circulated on Resistance News Network, an organization on the radar of experts on extremism.

The channel describes itself as “in the service of our martyrs, prisoners, farmers, resistance, and refugees,” while the Anti Defamation League calls it “a radical antisemitic, anti-Zionist English-language Telegram channel that promotes violence against Israel.”

It had over 166,000 subscribers as of Friday.

The news network is not alone in using Telegram to orchestrate the run-of-show in Chicago.

The activist group Palestine Action US on Monday posted a schedule on Telegram for an entire week of protests, including breakfasts, movie screenings and street rallies. That schedule was then shared on RNN, moments after the channel posted a press release attributed to Hezbollah celebrating a “direct hit” on a Syrian target.

Taken together, the growing conglomerate of Telegram accounts demonstrates the ease with which organizers can share reams of information from a wide variety of sources, and relay vivid accounts. And that provides a potent option for demonstrators at the convention to exploit the preeminent issue cleaving the party.

The RNN account calling for protesters to shut down the convention appears to post almost live updates from fighting in Gaza. It regularly promotes press releases from groups deemed terrorist organizations by the State Department.

And this spring, it was part of a vast network of Telegram accounts that shared information helping student groups launch college campus encampments in Manhattan that eventually spread across the globe.

Over the course of the spring — as pro-Palestinian encampments were erected at Columbia University and across the country — POLITICO pored over hundreds of pages of content on Telegram and Tumblr, another social media platform. The results revealed a complex system where original content was often reposted by other accounts to extend the information’s reach.

Posts included live updates on the movements of police brigades, guides for occupying buildings and historical treatises on the politics of resistance. Taken together, the network provided a rich and readily available source of information to pro-Palestinian demonstrators, beyond what was available to past student movements.

The inclusion of Resistance News Network in that web concerned an expert on extremism.

“RNN is one of the most prominent English-language channels promoting terrorist-designated groups, especially Hamas, Hezbollah, PIJ, and PFLP,” Rita Katz, a veteran of the Israeli military and executive director of Search for International Terrorist Entities Intelligence Group, a company that researches and analyzes terrorists and violent extremists, said in a statement to POLITICO. “RNN serves as a comprehensive clearinghouse for official content from these groups.”

The network, which did not respond to a request for comment, posts new content to its Telegram account at a blistering pace.

Messages have celebrated victories over Israeli military units, mourned the death of Palestinians as martyrs and published press releases from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. All are considered terrorist groups by the U.S. or the European Union .

An Oct. 7 post appearing to be a Hamas press release attributed to Mohammed Deif, the head of the group’s militant wing, read, “Today, whoever has a gun, let him bring it out; it’s its [ sic ] time. Everyone should come out with their trucks, cars, or tools. Today, history opens its most pure and honorable pages.”

There is no public evidence students or other organizers were communicating directly with any of the Middle East militant organizations whose press releases fill the news feed. And Telegram accounts such as Resistance News Network do not need permission to repost content from a public message board like one run by students at Columbia University, which RNN frequently boosted at the height of the protests there. But the association was still alarming to Katz, who reviewed the channel for POLITICO.

“These instances of course don’t reflect the entirety of pro-Palestinian protestors, but they do expose entry points for terrorist messaging — not to mention terrorist venues — into these communities,” Katz said. “Everyone should recognize this as a problem, regardless of where they stand.”

The FBI did not respond to questions about Resistance News Network.

“The FBI is in close contact with state and local law enforcement partners and, as we do in the normal course of business, we will share any information regarding potential threats,” a spokesperson who declined to be named said in a statement.

Students involved with an encampment on the campus of Columbia University disputed that the news network posts had any adverse influence on the actions of protesters.

Layla Saliba, a Palestinian graduate student at Columbia involved in the protests, said Resistance News Network is widely followed in the Palestinian community.“It was a pretty big surprise to see [the network] repost our stuff,” she said. “That doesn’t mean we’re affiliated with any of those organizations or we have any coordination.”

The Columbia account, which had more than 7,600 followers as of May, was moderated by student organizers, two of them told POLITICO and was accessible to anyone willing to provide their phone number. In exchange, followers received frequent updates on happenings inside the campus, which was sealed off to the public, and directions on where to gather for new demonstrations.

On April 26, the Columbia Encampment account shared a post from Resistance News Network about police actions on the campus of Ohio State University. And when New York Police Department officers moved onto campus in two dramatic showdowns April 18 and April 30, the news network shared a stream of posts from the Columbia student group on its own channel.

Some Telegram accounts associated with student movements, such as CUNY and Ohio State University, had even penned guest posts for the news network. And on April 24, a student channel associated with protests at New York University pointed its followers to the channel to keep abreast of military actions in Gaza.

“Eyes on Gaza, eyes on Rafah, eyes on students everywhere,” the post read. “Make sure you’re plugged into [Resistance News Network].”