Over the weekend, Elon Musk took to his X platform to survey his followers on whether federal employees should be required to send his team an email with a list of five things they accomplished that week. With over 70% of respondents voting in favor, Musk followed through, and federal employees received an email from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) requesting their weekly list of accomplishments by 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday.

The email, which was sent to millions of federal employees, sparked widespread criticism and resistance online. Many took to social media platforms like Reddit, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky to call on each other to spam the provided email address with nonsense, a tactic often employed in online resistance to controversial forms or email addresses.

This phenomenon is not new; it has been seen in various instances, such as when an anti-trans "snitch form" in Missouri was taken offline after receiving a flood of emails containing the script of the "Bee Movie," a recurring internet joke. Similarly, a Texas state inbox tracking gender marker changes on driver's licenses and an anti-trans bathroom complaint form in Utah were also targeted.

In 2020, Dallas police requested that people send them videos of illegal activity taking place during protests following the police killing of George Floyd; instead, fans of Korean superstars like BTS spammed the police department's app with nonsensical fancam videos. This tactic has been employed by detractors of President Donald Trump since the first week of his term, when his administration set up dedicated email accounts requesting that employees report noncompliance with the president's executive orders to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

The OPM, a longstanding government agency, has been at the center of controversy recently. In January, federal employees received an email from the OPM's HR email address, testing whether it could be used to contact all government workers in one email blast. This move sparked a class-action lawsuit from two whistleblowers who claim it violates federal privacy law to create this brand-new email server without following established security measures.

The security concerns are not unfounded; in 2015, the OPM was hacked, compromising sensitive data from security clearance background checks for 21.5 million people. This included the Social Security numbers of each of these individuals, as well as biometric data from 1.1 million people. Musk's DOGE team, meanwhile, has been granted unprecedented power and broad access to these government systems with little resistance.

It remains to be seen how effectively DOGE will be deterred by this mass spam campaign. Since ordinary people do not have .gov email addresses, it's possible that Musk's team could just filter their inboxes for government-only email addresses. The inbox could also collapse under the sheer volume of mail it will receive; if Musk's DOGE team is using a physical server, then the amount of data it can contain is finite.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of this online resistance, those who resist Musk's policies are undeterred. As one individual noted, it doesn't take very long to copy and paste the complete script of the "Bee Movie" into an email, making it a relatively simple act of defiance.

The implications of this online backlash are far-reaching, highlighting the tensions between government agencies, private companies, and individual citizens in the digital age. As the use of technology continues to shape our interactions with government and each other, it will be important to monitor the developments in this story and their potential impact on the future of online resistance and civic engagement.