Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: A Future Tense Book Event  

In China, online critics write in code to spread the truths their government wants to hide. In Cuba, bloggers band together to get a fellow activist out of jail. And in Russia, a lone blogger launches online campaigns against the country’s most powerful companies—and rises to become the most prominent opposition figure since the fall of the Soviet Union.
 
In Now I Know Who My Comrades Are, Emily Parker—a former State Department policy adviser and Wall Street Journal writer, and currently a Future Tense fellow at the New America Foundation—provides on-the-ground accounts of how social media is transforming lives and challenging governments in China, Russia, and Cuba. This book introduces us to an army of bloggers and tweeters—generals and foot soldiers alike. They refuse to be intimidated by surveillance cameras or citizen informers. Even as they navigate the risks of authoritarian life, they feel free.

On Tuesday, March 4, at 4 p.m., Parker will be at the New America Foundation office in Washington, D.C., to discuss how prominent dissidents and average citizens around the world use the Internet to challenge authority. She’ll be joined by New America President and CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter, who was the director of policy planning at the State Department from 2009-2011. A cocktail reception will follow the conversation. For more information and to RSVP, visit the New America website.