Blocas, the movement that uses its social networks as a mobilization tool, continues to grow while the first arrests are already coming, such as the 17-year-old boy detained in Valencia, the creator of “Blocas VLC” and the instigator of looting and looting scheduled for October 31.
Understanding the faceless movement that has already caused serious controversy in Barcelona requires looking beyond the riots (and following the digital trail), but what the police are saying right now is to paralyze their networks of videos, montages and viral messages so that they don’t spill over into the real world in violence.
what happened On Saturday the 24th, around 600 young people gathered in Barcelona’s Plaza de Catalunya. The appointment was at 5 pm. And the violence started around 6:30 pm. There was looting, barricades and burning of furniture. The balance: 23 businesses damaged and 15 police officers injured, and more than 130 arrests, 89 of them juveniles, according to the prosecutor’s office. Of the first 128 people arrested, only two had public disorder records.
How it was set up. It all started on Tiktok. Anonymous accounts with the label Blocus (“blockade” in French) have copied protests from French institutions, albeit in opposite political directions. The demand was, a priori, educational value. A QR code leads to Telegram and WhatsApp groups, and there the instructions vary: black clothing, face coverings, pyrotechnics.
A report by Golden Owl, an open-source intelligence firm in Alicante, analyzed more than 10,000 elements across seven platforms. Chronology of: October 8, a profile called 10th and 11th Sol. It failed, luckily. On the 19th, they reactivated the accounts in Barcelona and set up a one-day meeting on the 24th. A handful of AI-generated symbols, accounts that have been renamed, and the code language displayed when chats are made public. The Blokus-BCN channel went from 690 to 1,376 members in about 20 hours. The network is already operational in 18 locations.
Telegram, CITCO and Act. On Monday the 26th, the general information commissioner of the Mossos asked CITCO to shut down a channel (CITCO relied on the interior). His UNECI unit removed terrorist and extremist propaganda from the internet. This is the first time the Catalan police have used this route.
Telegram shut down Blokus-BCN on Tuesday. Organizers opened Blockus-BCN-2, which surpassed 2,000 members within hours, and that too fell. Then came Blocus 4 Bcn, calling for a “more radical movement” with a video of an alleged leader.
The legal basis is Regulation (EU) 2021/784. Effective from 2022, it allows each state to order a platform to remove terrorist content, or block it across the EU within a maximum of one hour. Spain first used it in April 2023 and issued 134 orders in 2023 and 2024. 65% were against jihadist propaganda.
Terrorism? On paper, the Blocs are not terrorism, and the Mossos assume it is: they ask to stop it in order to incite crime, in a strategy to stop replication. The regulation has no binding mandate, but rather a request. Telegram shut down because it failed to follow its own rules. The judicial route, which allows users to identify or shut down channels, is different: Generalitat asked a judge for permission to shut down the chats.
Madrid, Halloween and a suspicious cancellation. There are two events in Madrid on Saturday the 31st: Puerta del Sol at 5:00 p.m. And at 6:00 pm Plaza de España announced the suspension of the Blocas Madrid account due to police pressure. Police are suspicious and will deploy 200 riot police. Administrators have closed registrations to their groups to prevent intruders. Mossos assume another episode in Barcelona. Golden Owl also schedules Nov. 2 in Terrace and 30 in 12 cities, a day after the 29-N election.
Just the kids? There are several levels. Silvia Catta, chief commissioner of Mossos, said that there is no criminal group behind it, but rather (young) people who respond to a call. Councilor Nuria Perlon spoke of “crime”.
The level it called for was something else, though no great Zionist magnate or creative genius could be traced behind it. Disposable accounts, QR codes and AI posters can be created by any smart teenager. What a boring calendar: rehearsals in Madrid, one day in Barcelona, national replicas. Golden Owl does not identify anyone and warns that there is no proof of foreign address.
assumptions, That should be separated from the event. Extreme rights first. Moncloa points to his environment without ascribing any training. There is context, of course: On October 3, about 400 ultras gathered against the camp in Seoul, and three were arrested while trying to arrive. There are no public links between Blocus and this group.
The extreme left? This is PP’s thesis, which accuses Sanchez of “setting fire” to the streets. As always, Vox blames the government. Another point towards Israel: Minister Pablo Bustindui referred to ACOM, a pro-Israel lobby, as “Netanyahu’s hybrid arm” after his message celebrating the looting. The National Police does not see interference from any country. Perlon, for his part, doesn’t rule anything out.
Right now, all we know is that a network of ephemeral accounts on Instagram, TikTok, and Telegram come and go, with no identified person responsible, and the platforms shut down more slowly than others reopen. And all this within the framework of the 29N pre-campaign. Not everything advertised is real: the police themselves detected a profile with around a hundred followers spreading the 24th poster, so caution is advised. That’s the power of Blokus: nobody knows how much is behind it.
Picture | National Police / Blockas Network
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