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The danger in privatizing our publics

Nearly a year ago, I published a paper (and much shorter, accompanying op-ed and later, a talk) on how Facebook and other social media sites are becoming the new public sphere, despite their being privately-owned spaces. Just a few months later, their popularity exploded as the real-life revolts in Tunisia and Egypt were echoed on […]

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Why Gordon Crovitz is Horribly Wrong

In today’s Wall Street Journal lies a ludicrous opinion piece by one L. Gordon Crovitz, in which Crovitz argues that it’s simply no big deal for BART or the UK to shut down cell networks, or Twitter, or hey, why not the Internet, because those things can be used for bad stuff. The title of […]

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Can a Tweet Prevent a Massacre?

I just published a post over on Global Voices with the same headline, specifically quoting Syrian opposition and their supporters, who have been attempting to trend the #RamadanMassacre hashtag today. In looking for tweets using the hashtag, I came across one from Andy Carvin that got me thinking. Can Twitter prevent a massacre? I know […]