Category Archives: Uncategorized

Internet at Liberty

Last week I presented during the “lightning round” of Google’s Internet at Liberty conference. This meant that I had to turn an extensive study Katy Pearce and I did of internet freedom in Azerbaijan into a five-minute spiel. The full … Continue reading

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Why does Azerbaijan hate the internet?

Katy Pearce and I have a new article on social media in Azerbaijan. For Slate, we discuss how the Azerbaijani government is clamping down on the internet before Eurovision. Instead of censoring the internet outright, they are waging a propaganda … Continue reading

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Interview on digital activism

The Washington University student newspaper did an interview with me about digital activism in light of the Kony 2012 affair. Here are a few excerpts from the article, “Exploring the effects of ‘Slacktivism’”: While Kony 2012 has been deemed one … Continue reading

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Celebrity activism and Kony2012

The website Opinio Juris asked me to write an article about Kony2012 as part of their expert symposium on social activism and international law. So of course I wrote about Justin Bieber: Kony2012 rose and fell on the power of … Continue reading

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Yahoo’s Murder Feed

My new article in the Atlantic is about how Yahoo’s algorithm decided I liked child murder, and what that says about the personalization of online experience: Opponents of the practice fear that filter bubbles prevent users from experiencing viewpoints other … Continue reading

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On Slacktivism

I have a new article for Al Jazeera English on perceptions of “slacktivism” in the Kony2012 and Trayvon Martin campaigns: Slacktivists are the hipsters of the digital world: everybody recognises them but no one claims to be one. The term … Continue reading

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Networked Authoritarianism and Social Media in Azerbaijan

Katy Pearce and I have a new article out in the Journal of Communication called “Networked Authoritarianism and Social Media in Azerbaijan”. We wrote about the reaction to the 2009 “donkey blogger” incident, in which activists Adnan Hajizada and Emin … Continue reading

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Click-through credibility: Kony2012 and Webvybory2012

Like everyone who researches the internet and politics, I’ve been fascinated by the controversy generated by Kony2012. For Al Jazeera, I look at issues of transparency and credibility in online video propaganda, drawing a parallel between Kony2012 and the Russian … Continue reading

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My favorite articles on Kony2012

This list is compiled primarily for my students in my Internet, Politics and Society class at Washington University, but it may be of interest to others following the Kony2012 debate. Below, my picks for the most thought-provoking works on the … Continue reading

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Rethinking Online Activism

In an article for Al Jazeera, I wrote about the closure of a long-running and popular Uzbek web forum, Arbuz, which proved an unlikely breeding ground for political expression: Many have said that we live in an era of journalism … Continue reading

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