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Facebook Responds

I’ve been writing about Facebook woes for nearly four months, so imagine my surprise yesterday when I received an e-mail from a Facebook staffer in response to my blog posts. Since I don’t have said staffer’s express permission to use his name or post his e-mail in its entirety, I will instead post the most [...]

27.07.2010

11 Comments

Facebook: “No Palestinian Pages”

As of July 26 at 8:17 DST, I can now create pages with the word “Palestinian” in them. Congrats–all of your contact messages to Facebook clearly worked. Note: I had no idea this post was going to get as much attention as it did.  Regardless, readers, I am not implying some vast Facebook conspiracy against [...]

25.07.2010

38 Comments

Is Vaseline’s Skin-Lightening App Racist?

When I read danah boyd’s post on Vaseline’s skin lightening Facebook app, I was a bit disappointed; her post touched on all of the important issues surrounding the concept of skin lightening, but then landed on the premise that the debate around them, and more specifically the Vaseline app, are taking place primarily in (presumably [...]

23.07.2010

3 Comments

Facebook will reinstate your content, but only if you’re Sarah Palin

At an event a few weeks ago I had the chance to publicly ask Adam Conner of Facebook why, if their service is offered in 70+ languages, their terms of service are only available in 7 and, with that in mind, how they feel they can accurately apply their TOS to people who use the [...]

22.07.2010

No Comments

Israeli Court Calls Lying for Sex Rape

For those stumbling upon this story months later, there is new evidence that suggests that this was in fact a forcible rape, not a “rape of deception”.  At the same time, it is unlikely that the Kashur will be re-tried; thus, we may never know what transpired. I think it is important to consider the [...]

22.07.2010

7 Comments

(Talk) Vivek Wadhwa: “Entrepreneurship: where are all the women and minorities?”

Today’s Berkman luncheon hosted Vivek Wadhwa, a “a senior research associate with the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, an executive in residence/adjunct professor at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and a visiting scholar at the School of Information at University of California at Berkeley.” Wadhwa’s talk centered around entrepreneurship, [...]

20.07.2010

No Comments

Why I Don’t Understand America: The Illustrated Edition

Could someone please explain to me why American Muslims–a great number of whom live in New York–should be concerned with the feelings of an Alaskan when it comes to an Islamic community center (not a mosque, a community center) being built in Manhattan? I don’t understand why Cordoba House is a problem, I don’t understand [...]

18.07.2010

9 Comments

5 Writers You Should Read

This is one of those half-brained ideas I came up with yesterday while doing some googling for good articles on the niqaab ban.  There are people I love to read–many of them are listed to the right, in my blogroll–but there are some people I think ought to be read by everyone (or, at least [...]

16.07.2010

4 Comments

Proud Niqaabis

It is practically a truism that women who wear the niqaab (face veil) are forced to do so. The first image that comes to mind for many people of my generation when hearing “burqa” is that of blue-clad Afghan women, forced to cover from head to toe by the oppressive Taliban. While it is absolutely [...]

15.07.2010

8 Comments

On the ‘Burqa Ban’

Today, France banned the burqa.  Let’s be clear about what that means…France has banned not only the oppressive Afghan burqa, but also any form of facial covering, usually referred to as niqaab or the “face veil.”  While traditional in various places from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, the niqaab is considered by most–but not all–to be [...]

13.07.2010

22 Comments

Dear Journalists, (Yes, France24, I’m talking to you). If you would like to interview me for an article, you can do so easily.  My e-mail is listed on the contact page of this blog.  My phone number is listed in numerous places (or you can just–gasp!–ask me for it).  No need to quote my blog, [...]

12.07.2010

No Comments

Shame on the American Media

And just like that, with one brief tweet, @OctaviaNasrCNN is no longer…That is, because of her tweet mourning the death of Lebanese religious leader Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Nasr has now been pushed out (fired? It’s not yet clear) from CNN.  The tweet? Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah… One [...]

07.07.2010

13 Comments

More Facebook Deactivations

Call this my quarterly (or thereabouts) post on the issue. Since I began tracking instances of Facebook deactivating user accounts and deleting content from existing profiles and groups, I’ve found that the practice has not waned at all; if anything, it has increased. I first wrote about this in April, when I reported on Moroccan [...]

06.07.2010

8 Comments

On Patriotism and Nationalism

On the celebration of my country’s independence from Britain (I don’t say “birthday,” there were people here before us), I always find myself frustrated, and sometimes torn.  Torn between being sourpuss and sitting at home, refusing to celebrate a day that I find disingenuous, and going out with my friends, many of whom feel similarly [...]

05.07.2010

27 Comments