How to blur people’s faces in protest photos — and why you should do it

With mass protests taking place across the United States and abroad, social media safety is more important than ever.

Enormous crowds of people are gathering in cities around the country to protest racism and police brutality in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week. Photos and videos of these protests serve the very important purpose of documenting these actions as well as exposing police mistreatment of protestors. Posting them publicly, however, comes with its own risks.

For the safety of those involved, if you’re going to take photos at protests, you should consider blurring or pixelating the faces of those protesting before sharing them with the world. 

Thankfully, there are some easy ways to make this happen.

Why you should blur photos

In a word: Retaliation. It’s no secret that the federal government likes to surveil anti-racism protests through social media. The Intercept and Vice both reported on government monitoring of protest movements through social media after the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, respectively.

Buzzfeed News reported Tuesday that the DEA has been granted authority to collect intelligence on protestors during this current wave of uprisings, too. This is all to say that anyone who shows up to