[Many thanks to Dan Glazebrook for producing a review that gets to very the heart of this book, such that reading his review is an education in itself. This was reproduced from the UK's Ceasefire Magazine.] Books | Review | Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa by Maximilian Forte In his Ceasefire […]
The album’s first track begins with a voice bearing clear pronunciation, tonal and inflectional marks of my stereotypic twenty-something, northern USan, college-educated, working class, urban, black male. “Hello? “Hello? “Can you hear me? Is anybody in there? “I have no way of knowing if you can hear me.” Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau Albert Einstein: “I […]
A video that in many ways corresponds with what I argued in "America's Iranian Twitter Revolution," the video below in part shows how the use of social media to make falsified versions of Libyan reality can go viral--radioactive--producing an intellectually toxic swarm of passive repeaters. Critical questions are like static, they interrupt the clarity of the message: dictator vs. revolutionaries, support the people, implement a no-fly zone right now. But this is so patronizing, it denies "agency"--just like the agency of the consumer who must decide and then boldly act on which colour iPod™ to buy. Have a look at The Guardian's "Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media: Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda."...Also check "‘Post-Qaddafi Libya’: on the Globalist Road," "Who are the Libyan Freedom Fighters and Their Patrons?" "US-trained [and U.S.-based] economist, Libyan rebels’ new finance minister," and "New Libyan rebel leader spent much of past 20 years in suburban Virginia."....
In this report, first two maps of social media penetration in the Middle East and North Africa, in relation to ongoing revolts; then, a long overdue catalogue of anthropologists writing online about the revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa; then a series of opposing items, those dealing with rejections of any foreign military intervention in Libya (a position best articulated by Fidel Castro), followed by statements by what would otherwise be willing interventionists, in the U.S. government, who find multiple problems with imposing a no-flight-zone, and then those articles and statements that strongly favour intervention, and the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P); finally, we end with notes on empire at work in Afghanistan.
Some Background for Those Not Familiar with Twitter It’s not a few times that Twitter has been accused of engaging in censorship-like practices, or in caving in to governmental and political interests. In the narrow range of subjects which I follow via Twitter, we saw incidences of this concerning with the so-called Twitter Revolution in […]
Starting next month, I will be joining Al Jazeera as the author of a series of monthly columns, beginning with articles on issues raised here, dealing with soft power, social media, digital activism, and almost certainly something about the Minerva Research Initiative and the Human Terrain System. I am very thankful to Al Jazeera’s editors […]
April 25, 2013 by Maximilian Forte
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