Syria Opinion: "There Are Many Others Who Await Homs' Fate"

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The images from Homs are intense, the stories gripping, and the scale and veracity of the violence there is disturbing. But remember when seeing these images and hearing these stories that Homs is just one city, and there are many others that resemble what Homs looked like only two months ago. There are many other areas that are awaiting Homs' fate.

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The Real Net Effect: Andy Carvin & the Power of Twitter

Many readers who follow EAWorldview (@EANewsFeed) on Twitter are likely to know the name Andy Carvin (@acarvin). Carvin, the senior social media strategist at NPR and an established foreign policy journalist, has spent the last year Tweeting the revolutions and uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

And few would dispute Andy's prowess on the social media platform. In 2011, The Daily Dot said that no one had done more to transform Twitter than Carvin and the hacking group Anonymous. The Columbia Journalism Review even asked, "Is This the World’s Best Twitter Account?" Carvin has been called a "living, breathing real-time verification system," and has often spoke about the power, and sometimes the pitfalls, of using social media to spread the news.

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The Real Net Effect: Egypt, Dissent, and the #FreeMona Perfect Storm (Tufekci)

Mona Eltahawy After Her ReleaseLast Thursday I woke to the news that Egyptian security forces had detained and beaten the journalist Mona Eltahawy. She was released hours later, with a broken left arm and broken right wrist. In the interim, a vocal campaign had arisen on Twitter, #FreeMona.

Later, I watched Zeynap Tufekci engaged in debate about activism, social movements, and the Internet with Evgeny Morozov,  who repeated his standard line that claims of activism's effect via the Web are usually shallow and misguided.

Invoking both analysis and specific cases --- Morozov's general claims often cover up a lack of knowledge or even interest in the reality of events --- Tufekci effectively, if politely, took Morozov apart while putting out a thoughtful examination of what Web-based activism might achieve.

Among the cases that Tufekci considered was the fresh episode of Mona Eltahawy, and by Friday, she was posting a reflection and examination on her blog Technosociology.

One more thought --- after Eltahawy's release but before I read Tufekci's article, I posted the story from Bahrain, "How Activist Zainab Alkhawaja Defied the Police...And Escaped Arrest". In her Twitter narrative, Alkhawaja paid tribute to the power of social media, "I have to thank loads of people, many of them on Twitter. It seems the news got out fast & thats why the orders of arrest were changed".

But she also added this important caveat, "I also feel sad, that my brothers & sisters, the other protesters, who I would die for, are not protected the way I am".

Tufekci's article....

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Live Audio From Hama: Shelling Continues for Second Night

An intense video, posted by a man who claims to be a resident of Hama. We have no way of verifying this report, but we do know that NPR's Andy Carvin believes it is genuine. Gunshots, chanting, and loud noises can be heard in the distance, and sometimes the violence is too close to call. In several points of the audio, a bullet snap can be heard, as if the bullets are passing very closely.

The narrator prays, speaks about his disdain for the Assad regime, and the Assad's disregard for human rights. The narrator is both defiant and scared, mournful and hopeful, prayerful and weak. It's a moving narrative, and regardless of one's understanding of Arabic, it is worth the listen.

UPDATE 2017 GMT: The live stream appears to have ended a little less than an hour ago. The video was updating in 15-35 minutes segments, and the archive can be found here.

This is the video that immediately precedes the previous video:

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