Should You RSVP to a Protest?

Weighing the pros and quantifying the risks

Oct 10, 2025

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Hi, I’m Melissa Ryan, a longtime reader of FWIW and author of Ctrl Alt Right Delete, a sister newsletter under the COURIER banner. I’m the founder and CEO of Inviolable, a platform that helps organizations anticipate threats, respond effectively when they occur, and rebuild stronger. I previously served as a digital organizer, working with organizations such as EMILY’s List and Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, and currently chair the board of directors for Netroots Nation.

Today, I’m excited to discuss a question I frequently receive from my own readers, and one that has been debated repeatedly online: Should you RSVP to a protest?

Digital ad spending, by the numbers:

FWIW, U.S. political advertisers spent about $12.8 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:

Perhaps most notable this week is the fact that this list is dominated by left-leaning campaigns and organizations for the first time since the middle of June. Whether this holds and becomes a trend as we get closer to Election Day remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, political advertisers spent nearly $7.4 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:

The conversation around Prop 50 has been dominant on YouTube and Google for several weeks. A striking change amid reports that California Republicans are losing hope that they’ll be able to defeat the ballot measure: last week, their anti-Prop 50 initiative took the top spot with $1.06M in ad spend, but they scaled back to just a quarter of that this week.

On X (formerly Twitter), political advertisers in the U.S. have spent around $8.1 million on ads in 2025. According to X’s political ad disclosure, here are the top spenders year to date:

…and lastly, on Snapchat, political advertisers in the U.S. have spent around $1.7 million on ads in 2025. Here are the top spenders year to date:

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Should You RSVP to a Protest?

On October 18, just over a week from today, millions of Americans will take to the streets in defiance of the Trump Administration for No Kings Day. Hundreds of events are planned all across the US. The first No Kings Day protest was attended by an estimated 4-6 million people across more than 2,100 local events. Those of us who plan to attend the second No Kings Day are encouraged to RSVP and share our name and email address with organizers, and multiple national and local advocacy groups are all helping to build crowds for the protest. I’ve counted more than 10 emails and texts in my inbox this week alone.

Meanwhile, there’s a growing conversation around how to protest safely and protect ourselves and one another when we choose to attend these events, particularly for those who identify as being part of a marginalized community. Imani Gandy, Co-Chief Content Officer at Rewire News, has frequently said that registering to attend protests isn’t a safe activity, particularly for protesters from marginalized communities, an argument she’s received both praise for and pushback on from other activists on Bluesky.

One question I often get from my own readers and followers is whether RSVPing for events like No Kings is a security risk, mainly because there’s a growing chorus of voices online telling people not to do so. In this age of surveillance culture, there’s obviously risk involved in sharing your personal information because the federal government might be able to access that data through subpoenas or because you don’t trust organizations to safeguard it appropriately.

Given how Trump and his administration routinely harass and threaten marginalized communities and political opponents, it’s something we all need to think through and decide for ourselves. When I asked Thorin Klosowski, Security and Privacy Activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, about how folks can protect themselves when participating in protests, he suggested checking out EFF’s surveillance self-defense guide for attending a protest. A No Kings Day spokesperson also directed me to an ACLU protest safety training being held virtually on Wednesday, October 15, at 7 PM ET/ 4 PM PT.

It’s an interesting question to me. I understand why organizations collect the information. To mobilize people, you need to be able to communicate with them, and the easiest way to do that is directly through emails and text messages. Theoretically, these are lists of engaged supporters who want and need to receive the information, and are giving their permission to be contacted. They also often become donors, providing the funds needed for these groups to operate and organize events like No Kings. According to the 2025 M+R Benchmarks study, nonprofits saw their email list sizes increase by 3% in 2024 and raised $58 for every 1,000 emails sent, raising an average of $2.63 per subscriber.

However, when it comes to digital mobilization, much of the trust between organizations and members has also been broken, and the same M+R study notes that both list growth and donations are down from previous years. Anyone who has ever signed up for a political email list is now routinely bombarded with fundraising emails and text messages from lists they signed up for -- and lists they didn’t. Scam PACs raise money shamelessly from these lists, and the fundraising industry hasn’t been responsive to complaints from donors and advocates about the onslaught. I was a digital strategist for more than a decade and have a high tolerance for email and text messages, but even I get angry every time I receive a continual stream of text messages from candidates I’ve never heard of as quarterly fundraising deadlines approach.

Screenshot from the author's phone on September 30, 2025. It's a stream of text messages from political campaigns asking for money. All sent at 12:41 PM.

So I understand why people are wary. Is it safe to RSVP to a protest? Do the benefits outweigh the risks? These are reasonable questions to ask, and so I posed them to a couple of experts whom I trust.

Bhavik Lathia, a digital organizer and principal at Fausto, LLC, who has helped campaigns and brands mobilize online over the course of his career, tells me, “The most important thing is: we keep each other safe. In the modern data environment, the chance that your email address, phone number, or other personally identifiable information ends up in the hands of unsavory actors is non-zero—regardless of where you’re signing up. If Trump goons legally force Indivisible to hand over protest registration data, the more of us that are signed up for “No Kings” protests, the better it is for all of us. They have neither the resources nor the mandate to come after all of us. Especially since free speech and protest are protected by the First Amendment. We keep each other safe.”

EFF’s Klosowski offers that, “The risks here are mostly theoretical – law enforcement could ask to see those lists, bad actors could take these lists and make them public, which could cause issues for some people, but the lists are likely packed with email addresses and aren’t a guarantee that someone actually went to a protest. Still, I would recommend considering setting up a second email not attached to your name or primary email address for this sort of thing, just to compartmentalize your email a little.”

A No Kings spokesperson assured me that “the coalition is doing everything possible to ensure the safety and security of everyone who attends any No Kings event, including on our next day of action,” adding that “No one is ever required to RSVP to attend a No Kings event. We ask for RSVPs to provide critical information specifically to event attendees, should anything change at the last minute, and to connect attendees with the many great resources within the No Kings coalition to help attendees peacefully push back against the Trump administration even beyond attending a No Kings event.”

Since I know that many of FWIW’s readers work in the digital space, I also asked what organizations can do to protect their members’ data and privacy.

Lathia told me that “I really like the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s approach. In their privacy policy, they make it clear that if the government legally compels them to share user data, they will 1) give their users a heads up, or 2) ‘object to requests for access to information about users of our site that we believe to be improper.’ They make it clear that they are going to fight illegal and improper attempts by the government to get access to their user data. That’s very good, and more organizations should follow suit.”

Personally, I will continue to RSVP for events I plan to attend. At this point, my email address is all over the Internet, and I have no expectation of privacy there. I also think that if the Trump Administration decides to come after me, my RSVPs wouldn’t change much or give them much to work with, especially since I post pictures of myself at protests after the fact. For many of us, the benefits of real-time and relevant communication from organizers likely outweigh the risks, if not the frustration of sharing our personal information. However, as we consider our safety and security in the age of Trump, it makes sense to ask the question as part of a broader examination of our personal threat model. And, understandably, that answer won’t be the same for everyone.

Whether you choose to RSVP for an event or not, I hope to see you out there on No Kings Day for what might just be the biggest day of protest and defiance in American history.

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