February 2012
2 posts
1 tag
November 2011
1 post
6 tags
Liberationtech: How the Next Generation Diaspora*... →
After leaving Diaspora*, Liberation Technology’s Yosem Companys discusses what would be necessary to create an alternative social network for human rights defenders, issue advocates and other who must be concerned with security. The huge challenge that any new online space has to overcome, of course, is competing with Facebook’s network effect. Here’s liberationtech:
An online...
September 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Too Many Messages and Only One Facebook Page:...
This post draws from over 30 in-depth, semi structured interviews conducted with coordinators of and participants in the Egyptian revolution between March and August 2011 that I did in collaboration with the engine room. It was originally published on Technosociology.org
By late July, Egyptian protesters in Cairo had been camped out in Tahrir Square for nearly 3 weeks. Though the mood was jovial,...
4 tags
Training South Asia's Youngest Civil Society...
A version of this was also published at The Huffington Post
This summer, frustration towards pervasive corruption in India reached a tipping point when hunger striker Anna Hazare mobilized thousands. While an awakening of the world’s largest pluralistic democracy should perhaps not come as a huge surprise, is something also brewing in neighboring Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the rest of...
July 2011
1 post
2 tags
Technology and Human Rights
Here’s a good write-up of my panel at the Personal Democracy Forum this June, written by The Reboot’s Emma Gardner, who was in the audience (thanks for joining Emma, although why anyone went to our panel over Cory Doctorow’s is a mystery ;). She writes:
In a globalized world, technology originally designed to solve a particular problem for a subset of people in the US (say,...
May 2011
1 post
2 tags
Sustain a Social Movement After Initial Successes
At Mashable, I just posted some tips for keeping supporters engaged around a campaign or cause, in the context of recent and ongoing pro-democracy campaigns in the Middle East and North Africa. Here’s an excerpt:
Egyptians’ effective use of Facebook has given life to a slew of hopeful pages and groups throughout the region. This makes sense: Facebook, if combined with the right message,...
April 2011
1 post
3 tags
How Can Tech-Enhanced Social Movements Keep Going?
As someone who looks closely at the role of new technologies in movement building, it’s been interesting, and often disheartening, to see how youth movements that are harnessing technology more than ever also face challenges in reconstituting themselves after initial big successes. The characteristics of a networked social movement are as advantageous for mobilization as they are hurdles for...
March 2011
1 post
3 tags
Lessons Learned from the Arab Spring
At the South by Southwest conference in Austin, TX last week, I spoke about lessons learned for activists from the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Here’s an excerpt from my write up of the talk, posted at Movements.org:
SXSW Interactive is over, and I’m happy to report that while the topic of technology’s role in social movements was was a popular one, I never...