Another Saturday, another #TeslaTakedown

Protest sign featuring the words “DEMOCRACY” in bold blue letters, with “Kings and Oligarchs are not American” in red and blue beneath. Images of Elon Musk and Donald Trump are crossed out with red circles and lines. The sign reads “Not MUSKocracy, Not TRUMPocracy” in bold blue and red text. — My protest sign for the #TeslaTakedown today.

There was another #TeslaTakedown march today. It was a windy, gloomy day; despite that, lots of spirit at the Easton Tesla store. I was expecting the weather would keep people away, but there were about 400 people — 50 or so more than last Saturday.

There were three differences that I noticed. First, there weren't as many families with young children. I would chalk that up to the weather; if it were nicer, there probably would have been more. A week out, next Saturday's weather forecast is slightly cooler but sunny. We'll see what happens then.

The second difference was the increased police presence. They probably were expecting more people, and so had a bigger group there. Most wore pale blue "Columbus Police Dialogue Team" high-vis vests and walked behind us. The only interaction with them that I saw was when a young adult walked along the sidewalk shouting "Trump 2028!" with his phone up recording. As far as I could tell, the Dialogue Team was the only one to engage with this person.

The third difference was the support from the cars driving by...much more supportive with honking and thumbs up. I counted three middle fingers, which is one more than last weekend. Not a bad ratio for an hour-long protest.

I think the construction of my protest sign is improving. I noticed when I got there that I still had too many words in the sign to make it easy to read and understand at a distance. At least this one didn't require a blog post to fully explain.

No one knows how to use a point-and-shoot camera

Protester in front of a Tesla building holds a sign reading, “DEMOCRACY: Kings and Oligarchs are not American. Not MUSKocracy, Not TRUMPocracy,” with images of Elon Musk and Donald Trump crossed out. The person wears a blue jacket, standing against a gray, overcast sky, with bare tree branches framing the scene. — My protest sign at the #TeslaTakedown.

I've had to ask people to take these pictures of me with the protest sign in front of the Tesla store. And everyone says they don't know how to use a camera anymore. Even people my age and older!

I brought an old point-and-shoot camera because it doesn't have any radios in it. One of the guidelines I've read for attending a protest is not to bring devices that can identify you, although I might be the only person following that guidance. If I were a technical Elon-ite, I'd recommend that the Tesla store's WiFi and Bluetooth hotspots capture metadata of every device they encounter. Although both Android and iOS use network address randomization, those are not foolproof for preventing devices from being tracked.

Now, admittedly, I'm not hiding from Elon Goons by posting this on my personal blog. Still, I'm also not going to make it easy for them to automate finding me either.