If you were scrolling through TikTok or Reddit in the summer of 2025, you might have felt a serious case of FOMO. Posts from Los Angeles, Portland, and D.C. were buzzing about a “24-hour music festival“. 1 But the vibe was weird. There were no flashy headliner announcements or ticket links—just urgent, sometimes cryptic, invitations to “rave, dance, yell, and make your voices heard“.
So, what was going on? Was LA hosting the world’s most chaotic, poorly promoted rave?
Not exactly. The “LA Music Festival” was a code word, a piece of digital slang known as “algospeak,” used by activists to organize and report on massive, ongoing protests against ICE and the Trump administration’s immigration policies. They believed platforms like TikTok were censoring them, so they got creative. 1
This is the real story of the “LA Music Festival”—a movement that fought for visibility on two fronts: one on the streets against federal agents, and another online against algorithms that seemed determined to make them disappear.
Why “Music Festival”? A Crash Course in Algospeak
When you’re trying to get the word out about a protest, words like “protest,” “riot,” or “ICE” can be risky. Activists believed these terms were getting their posts “shadowbanned“—a sneaky form of censorship where your content is hidden from search results and the all-important “For You” page without you ever getting a notification.
As one Reddit user explained it, “the algorithms are censoring any protest information, so organizers and participants are now referring to the protests as ‘music festivals‘”.
This tactic wasn’t just happening in LA. The same coded language popped up in Portland, where people posted about the “constant ‘Music Festival’ protest in front of the ICE building“. In D.C., activists used the term to warn about the federal government mobilizing the National Guard against civilians. It was a nationwide strategy for a movement fighting to be seen.
But the code had a downside. While it helped organizers communicate, it left a lot of people confused. “Thank you!!! I was looking everywhere for a f—ing explanation!! Lol,” one person commented on Reddit. The very trick that kept the movement alive online also risked hiding it from the wider public. 2
What Was Actually Happening on the Streets of LA
Behind the “music festival” code was a city in turmoil. The situation exploded on June 6, 2025, when federal agents from ICE, the FBI, and HSI conducted aggressive raids across Los Angeles, including in the Fashion District and at a Westlake Home Depot. At least 45 people were detained, and the public response was immediate.
Protesters clashed with agents in riot gear, and the LAPD deployed tear gas and flash-bang grenades to disperse crowds gathered outside the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center. TikTok videos from that day show armored vehicles on LA streets, with one user commenting, “I never imagined a dictatorship could arise here in the United States“. 3
The situation escalated dramatically when the Trump administration, against the wishes of California’s governor and LA’s mayor, deployed thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of U.S. Marines to the city. Downtown LA was put under a strict curfew as protests grew, with some demonstrators blocking freeways and Waymo driverless cars being set on fire.
But the movement didn’t back down. It evolved into a sustained, 24/7 occupation outside the detention center, which became the symbolic heart of the resistance. Organizers on Reddit called for supplies like water and chairs, noting that even drivers honking in support helped “hype us up” and showed solidarity with the detainees inside. On August 12, a coalition of unions and community groups organized a “Community Stoppage,” calling for a city-wide boycott of major retailers they said were complicit in the raids. 4
Artists Join the Fight: “Destroy American Fascism”
The raw energy on the streets drew a massive response from the arts and entertainment world. Rage Against the Machine guitarist and longtime activist Tom Morello became a fixture at the protests. He was spotted in Boyle Heights and Downtown LA holding a “Defend LA” sign and wearing a shirt that read “Destroy American Fascism”. Morello also organized a “DEFEND LA” benefit concert featuring artists like B Real of Cypress Hill and Pussy Riot to raise money for immigrant rights groups.
Other musicians got caught in the middle of the chaos. Finneas O’Connell, Billie Eilish’s brother, reported being tear-gassed by the National Guard at a peaceful protest. British DJ Cloonee postponed a two-day event, saying “now is not the time for celebrating” while the Latino community was “hurting so deeply”.
Latinx artists spoke out forcefully. Pop star Becky G paid tribute to her immigrant grandparents on Instagram, declaring, “The people being attacked today are not ‘illegal aliens,’ they are human beings with RIGHTS… an attack on them is an attack on OUR DEMOCRACY”. The legendary band Maná posted a video of support, while acts like Junior H and Fuerza Regida pledged to donate a portion of their sales to help families with legal fees.
The support was widespread, with actors like Mark Ruffalo, Eva Longoria, and Pedro Pascal, and media personality Kim Kardashian all using their platforms to condemn the raids as “inhumane” and “un-American”.
The Digital Blackout: Real Censorship or Bad Luck?
Activists weren’t just being paranoid about censorship. While it’s nearly impossible for a regular user to prove they’ve been shadowbanned, the collective experience was undeniable. This wasn’t the first time, either. During the 2020 George Floyd protests, Black Lives Matter activists reported their videos getting zero views, an issue TikTok later blamed on a “glitch“.
TikTok has a documented history of censoring politically sensitive topics. Leaked documents have shown past instructions to moderators to suppress videos about Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, and the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. A former executive even alleged that the Chinese Communist Party used a “superuser” credential to access the data of Hong Kong protesters. While the company says these policies are outdated, this history made activists deeply distrustful. 5
Compounding the problem was a feeling that mainstream media wasn’t telling the full story. While major outlets like The Guardian and CBS News did cover the events, their focus was often on moments of peak conflict, not the day-to-day reality of the 24/7 vigil. The information war was also clouded by a flood of disinformation, with old videos of burning police cars from 2020 being passed off as current events. 6
The Actual Music Festival
As if things weren’t confusing enough, there actually was a massive music festival happening in LA. The Hard Summer music festival at SoFi Stadium was generating thousands of noise complaints from residents miles away who said the bass was literally vibrating their walls.
This created the perfect storm of confusion. Anyone searching “LA music festival” was flooded with a mix of coded protest videos and legitimate news articles about Inglewood’s noise problem. This accidental camouflage made it even harder for the uninformed to figure out what was really going on, effectively burying the activists’ message under a sea of techno beats. 7
The story of the “LA Music Festival” is a masterclass in modern protest. It shows how activism now happens on two battlefields at once: the physical and the digital. It’s a story about a movement that, faced with federal troops on the ground and opaque algorithms online, invented a new language to make sure its voice could not be silenced.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/50501/comments/1mmh97j/large_ice_protest_with_little_to_no_media/ ↩︎
- https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1mo5zh0/whats_the_deal_with_the_music_festivals_happening/ ↩︎
- https://www.tiktok.com/@latimes/video/7513018491805371679 ↩︎
- https://lapublicpress.org/2025/08/24-hour-community-stoppage-over-immigration-raids/ ↩︎
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-how-tiktok-censors-videos-that-do-not-please-beijing ↩︎
- https://www.aila.org/daily-immigration-news-clips-august-13-2025 ↩︎
- https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/1eomx2h/inglewood_bans_concerts_at_sofi_plaza_following/ ↩︎
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