"Music festival": The internet's protest code word
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No, there is not a "music festival" coming to the streets of Washington, D.C. — but that's what social media users want apps' algorithms to think.
Why it matters: Amid President Trump's federal crackdown in the nation's capital, internet users are tailoring their language as they organize and encourage resistance.
- They're talking about protests online, but they're calling them "music festivals" in an attempt to use more algorithm-friendly phrases, fearing videos could be censored.
- TikTok's standards stress civility and ban threats, hate speech, significantly harmful misinformation and extremely violent content — but they do not prohibit communications about protests.
Still, many users have shared details for upcoming "festivals" in the district and beyond amid the president's takeover — with some even harnessing their own musical talents to share their message.
- Democratic content creator Johnny Palmadessa told his followers in a recent TikTok post that he was heading to D.C. for the "music festivals" in the aftermath of Trump's takeover. His caption, "Don't you love music?" was accompanied by the hashtags "music," "dance" and "musicfestival."
- Similar language has appeared on other platforms, including Instagram and X.
State of play: Protests have sprung up throughout the city.
- On Wednesday night, a group of demonstrators chanting, "Go home, fascists," rallied against local and federal law enforcement authorities at a police checkpoint in Northwest Washington, The Washington Post reported.
- And a group of around 150, per The New York Times' count, gathered near the White House Monday, the same day the president announced his plan to federalize D.C.'s police force and deploy the National Guard.
Context: With "algospeak," users have crafted a lexicon of phrases and euphemisms with the aim of sidestepping content moderation systems. In 21st-century social media speak, to "kill" has become to "unalive," "sex" is often communicated as "seggs" and pornography is a simple emoji, 🌽.
- Recently, users have also used more innocent language to discuss the presence of immigration enforcement, such as through phrases like "cute winter boots," Axios' Sabrina Moreno reported.
- There's no evidence talk of D.C. protests is being silenced — but references to "music festivals" are still taking off.
Between the lines: Adam Aleksic, the author of "Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language," told Axios there's a long history of people using "evasive speech" because they fear content is being censored online for political purposes — even when it isn't.
- Aleksic told Axios that language works within the boundaries of a medium's gatekeepers. Today, "the algorithm" is a new gatekeeper of those bounds.
- "People have to reroute their speech around what they think is algorithmically friendly or algorithmically safe," he said, adding users are "performing for the algorithmic idea of what will work, both in terms of what will go viral and in terms of what can even be published on the platform."
- And talk of music festivals, he said, is a clear example of tongue-in-cheek "algospeak" that appeals to a sense of subversion — and establishes an "in-group of people" who understand the phrase.
Zoom out: The code word isn't exclusive to D.C. TikTokers have highlighted Los Angeles' "music festival" against immigration enforcement raids and are showing resisters where to rock with "performers" at "festivals" in cities across the country.
- And with more protests set for this weekend over Trump's redistricting push, the music shows no sign of stopping.
Go deeper: National Guard to ramp up in D.C. as feds move to round-the-clock patrols
