When it comes to digital security, Robert Gamboa tries to watch his back, but it’s tough. It’s not just that he’s a public health officer who deals with highly sensitive data at work. He’s also a social activist, perennially under siege.
A few months ago, he was the target of avowed white nationalists bent on disrupting a high-profile anti-Trump rally he staged in West Hollywood.
They waged a Twitter attack, directing sympathizers to his Facebook page and posting cartoon gifs of Pepe the Frog in Nazi drag, which he tried to ignore. Robert felt safe enough. The WeHo Sheriff would be at the rally and his online accounts were, to his way of thinking, inviolable, secured by a maze of letters, numbers, special characters and case combinations.
Yet there he was the day of the rally, logged out of Facebook involuntarily, just as he was poised to live-post and liaise with print, online and TV reporters.