Conspiracy theories about agents provocateurs circulate whenever protesters do things—good or bad—that exceed expectations.

Such rumors can obscure the more obvious things that are taking place.

They also serve to distract us from our own agency—from what we can do.

A thread.

The chief danger of spreading speculation about provocateurs is that it will endanger those who take greater risks, because others (liberals, reactionaries, or people with good intentions) will try to "unmask" them as cops—and consequently expose them to more danger from cops.

This is not to say that people never do bad things in the streets. In addition to police undercovers, people with reactionary politics or individual grudges or bad judgment can do terrible things we would only expect from police, like burning down Black-owned businesses.

Rather than speculating when we have no information available (or only tweets from unverified sources) about who is working for the police, it's better to focus on the consequences of the actions themselves, and have the necessarily political conversations about risks and goals.

Rumors that ascribe all significant actions to the state are second cousin to conspiracy theories that evil puppeteers like George Soros are behind all protest activity.

They're disempowering and usually circulate the most among people who lack on-the-ground access to events.