To my al-Jazeera readers
If you’re coming to my blog tonight for the first time as a result of my interview on al-Jazeera’s The Stream, you might be wondering: ‘What the heck is going on here?’ I recognize that mine is an odd corner of cyberspace, brimming with Baha’i metaphysics, re-discovered family, Averroistic philosophy, post-9/11 transhumanist reflections, deaths of loved ones, alternate history, explorations of Islam and the West, wandering Belgium’s inner world, and so on.
Maybe you’ll find some or all of this really interesting, but just in case you don’t, please allow me to direct your attention to what is more likely to meet your fancy both here and on neweurasia:
- Turkmenet shines during Abadan explosion by neweurasia‘s Annasoltan and edited by me. This is the post that led to tonight’s interview.
- As the Turkmenet slowly blossoms, is a new strategy in order? also by Annasoltan and edited by me: concerns the rise of social media in Turkmenistan, one of the world’s most closed societies, and a possible new method for communicating new ideas to the repressed populations. The well-known Afghanistan blogger Joshua Foust wrote an enthusiastic response.
- Facebook group plots the overthrow of Turkmen government also by Annasoltan and edited by me. The title says it all, but the story merited deeper intellectual exploration, which I tried to provide in the following two posts here on this blog:
- Did I just kill a revolution? and Social leaking / social whistleblowing explores the ethics and theory behind the Facebook group story. The latter post is for me particularly interesting, as what I tried to do therein was re-conceptualize the journalistic use of social media-generated data as a form of open-source intelligence (OSINT) or digital whistleblowing.
- Speaking of digital whistleblowing, Working the WikiLeaks Beat is an index of all the work, from reporting to commentary, that I’ve done on WikiLeaks, which has attracted quite some attention (not all of which has been positive).
- And speaking of social media as a form of OSINT, Wiki-Orwellianism explores the flipside of this, i.e., as a new way for intelligence agencies to manipulate and oppress populations. I offer up some alternative history from East Germany as a thought experiment. This post attracted the BBC, which wanted me as a talking head for one of their shows. Alas, I was in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan at the time and far from an Internet connection.
- Finally, I was previously on The Stream concerning my book project, CyberChaikhana: Digital Conversations from Central Asia.
And, of course, I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@schwartztronica).
12 July, 2011 at 12:41
I like your odd corner of cyberspace. Please post links to where we can read or watch your al-jazeera piece for those of us who are in an inconvenient timezone.
12 July, 2011 at 14:34
Hey bro, thanks! You can check it out 20.30h GMT @ http://english.aljazeera.net/watchnow
13 July, 2011 at 18:58
Chris you should have added that anyone using that link will then have to click on ” live stream”
27 July, 2011 at 09:30
I am writing a thesis with the hope that it will be applied to better the world we live in. This thesis is on Public Trust in the Media, WikiLeaks, and the Government and need to know what your opinions are. The online survey is anonymous, multiple choice and will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Please follow the link: http://www.kwiksurveys.com/?s=ILLLML_9669e09d. Would be great if you would encourage others to do the survey also.