To-do lists, clear goals: How Telegram is driving protests in Belarus

Every day, like clockwork, to-do lists for those protesting against Belarus’ authoritarian leader appear in the popular Telegram app.

They lay out goals, give times and locations of rallies with business-like precision, and offer spirited encouragement.
 

“Today will be one more important day in the fight for our freedom. Tectonic shifts are happening on all fronts, so it's important not to slow down,” a message in one of Telegram's so-called channels read Tuesday.
 

“Morning. Expanding the strike … 11:00. Supporting the Kupala (theater) ... 19:00. Gathering at the Independence Square.” The app has become an indispensable tool in coordinating the mass protests that have rocked Belarus since August 9, when poll officials announced President Alexander Lukashenko had won a landslide victory to extend his 26-year rule in a vote widely seen as rigged.
 

Peaceful protesters who poured into the streets of the capital, Minsk, and other cities were met with stun grenades, rubber bullets and beatings from police.
 

The opposition candidate left for Lithuania — under duress, her campaign said — and authorities shut off the internet, leaving Belarusians with almost no access to independent online news outlets or social media and protesters without a leader.
 

That’s where Telegram — which often remains available despite internet outages, touts the security of messages shared in the app and has been used in other protest movements — came in. Some of its channels helped scattered rallies to mature into well-coordinated action.
 

The people who run the channels, which used to offer political news, now post updates, videos and photos of the unfolding turmoil sent in from users, locations of heavy police presence, contacts of human rights activists, and outright calls for new demonstrations — something Belarusian opposition leaders have refrained from doing publicly themselves. Tens of thousands of people all across the country have responded to those calls. In a matter of days, the channels — NEXTA, NEXTA Live and Belarus of the Brain are the most popular — have become the main method for facilitating the protests, said Franak Viacorka, a Belarusian analyst and non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.