The failure of the Green Revolution in Iran to dislodge the regime continues to spark a bonfire of Twitter-hating. The latest prominent figure to throw logs on the blaze is the essayist Malcolm Gladwell, in The New Yorker. The piece merits an essay-length response, but I will confine myself to three brief points. 1. Gladwell [...]

In the current issue of the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell applies his network critique to digital activism and takes the skeptic’s side (article link). I encourage you to read the original article, which is thought-provoking. However, I have some questions about the absolute distinctions he draws between online and offline activism. Gladwell draws an absolute [...]

This past week Google hosted the first Internet at Liberty Conference in Budapest on “the promise and peril of online free expression”.  The event brought together some of the smartest commentators and practitioners working on this issue around the world.  Two of the participants, Jillian York and Leila Nachawati Rego, were kind enough to liveblog [...]

Though the title is a bit silly, “Blogs and Bullets: New Media in Contentious Politics” (PDF), published by the United States Institute of Peace, is the best analysis I’ve read so far on digital activism research.  It takes a broad view, correctly diagnosing the current state of the field and making astute recommendations about methodology [...]

I wanted to piggy-back onto Mary’s response to Sami’s article, particularly as someone whose research was financed by an arm of the U.S. government and who has engaged directly with many of the sentiments expressed by Sami and his commenters. The debate about U.S. funding is an old one, and one that has never been [...]

Sami Ben Gharbia, the Director of Global Voices Advocacy and creator of the Threatened Voices project, has just written a scathing and important essay about the destructive effect of U.S. government interference in digital activism in the Middle East.  The essay not only challenges the role of U.S. government funding of digital activism activities and [...]

Technology for Transparency is a Global Voices project to map and evaluate technology projects that promote transparency, accountability, and civic engagement around the world.  Recently the project’s co-directors, Rebekah Heacock and Renata Avila, wrote a post about lessons learned from the 37 case studies they’ve published so far.  It’s a commentary not only on tech for transparency, [...]

In the past few days a debate has raged over Haystack, the circumvention tool aimed at helping Iranians evade Internet censorship.  A range of posts that have been written, critiquing the project. The actions of the project’s creators have legitimated these critiques: the project’s founder, Austin Heap, turned off Haystack on Friday in acknowledgment of [...]

A couple of weeks ago, Evgeny Morozov wrote a critical post on Haystack, a circumvention tool created to help users in Iran evade Internet censorship.  While repeatedly stating that he had nothing against the tool’s creator, Austin Heap, the post made several criticisms of the software’s efficacy and Heap’s method of promoting and testing it. [...]

Gaurav Mishra has a very interesting response to my post on the seemingly low level of “bad” activism despite the admitted value-neutral nature of digital technology.  He writes: Even as we celebrate swarm behavior on the social web (and what is digital activism if not “good” swarm behavior), we should remember that self-organized swarms can [...]