Bin Laden’s Invisible Children
Narrative is a crucial element for any war, whether on Bin Laden in Afghanistan or on Joseph Kony in Uganda. Generally this narrative, to settle public debate and drive broad sentiment towards a single goal, is one-sided and oversimplified. An opposing narrative is difficult to craft because it must either be complex, therefore hard to … Continue reading
Senator Gillibrand is a Dangerous Pirate
Stifling the economy, trampling private property and straight thievery are the Senator’s current activities, at least according to the legislation she’s trying to pass. The PROTECT IP legislation being discussed in the Senate that she’s a co-sponsor of in theory seeks to prevent online piracy, but does little to stop intellectual property theft and in … Continue reading
This Can Get Mark Zuckerberg Arrested
Mark Zuckerberg faces 15 brutal years in a Thai prison. According to the Computer Crimes Act of Thailand, a website owner is responsible for anything written on their site, not just the actual author of the content. So if anyone posts anything on Facebook that is considered illegal in Thailand, Zuckerberg could be held responsible. … Continue reading
Iraq: A Digital Dissenter
In today’s podcast, Mark talks with young Iraqi digital media activist Hayder Hamzoz. They discuss current conditions of repression in Iraq for new media political activism. Hamzoz runs the blog Iraqi Streets 4 Change, which documents peaceful public dissent in order to push the Iraqi government to expedite democratic reforms. He also works on Salam … Continue reading
Killing Code Can Kill People
How do you effectively document human rights atrocities and not get caught? This is an extremely difficult problem, one that takes experience, ingenuity, and, often unfortunately, trial and error. The consequences can be devastating, but new technologies expand the options for creative people who are trying to make a difference in their societies to be … Continue reading
New tactics in Authoritarianism
Dictators are often ruthless, charismatic and extremely intelligent. They also have the resources to Be extremely sophisticated. If not showy. In modern times, it’s hard for dictators to operate in the ways that they used to. Their citizens having mobile phone cameras and an audience of the world, its just not as easy to have … Continue reading
Notes on Wikileaks
I recently met Julian Assange. My conversation with him helped to shine a light on for Wikileaks’ internal processes, just as Raffi Khatchadourian’s brilliant piece in the New Yorker and Julian’s TED talk also helped to do. Julian’s point, which I agree with, is often that newspapers are failing because of bad journalism. How many … Continue reading
Presenting at ITP Social Activism using Mobile Technology class
Back in May I had the pleasure of exploring The Future, also known as NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program Spring Show 2009. Last night I had the pleasure of actually molding it by guest lecturing Nathan Freitas’ Social Activism using Mobile Technology class at ITP with my colleague Emily Jacobi. The topic of our class was … Continue reading
Mobiles Hidden in Monks’ Robes
My colleague Emily wrote an article about our experiences during the Saffron Uprising and the creation of Digital Democracy. It was published by MobileActive: On Sept. 26, the protests were still going strong. It was 11 am, and Aung Aung Ye was juggling two computers and a mobile phone from his office in Thailand. That … Continue reading
Open Video Conference – Day 2
Day 2 started yet again without any coffee, but with a hilarious presentation by Jonathan Zittrain of the Berkman Center pretending to be Clay Shirky of ITP. Clay was delayed on a flight, so Jonathan took over with a talk titled “Here Comes Everybody.” He did a great job of pumping energy into the conference … Continue reading
6 to cut, 4 to sharpen 