Today I do my first public appearance to speak about Adnan’s case and Serial. I’ll be at Stanford Law School, a great pleasure for me, but it’s not the only reason I’m in California right now.
For the past few years I’ve worked in the field of CVE (“Countering Violent Extremism”), which is less sexy, cool or controversial as it may sound (but plenty has to be said about it, which merits future articles and posts). To that end, on Saturday I had the pleasure of attending a unique summit hosted by YouTube that brought together Muslim leaders from around the country, CVE experts, YouTube celebrities, and technical experts to explore creative ways being used by some amazing young Muslim Americans to tell their stories. Its in that telling, if done well enough, that we’ll be able to elevate authentic narratives about the lives everyday Muslims lead, and the kinds of good work they do, to counter the ugly that is online (and IRL). That ugly comes from two major sources: violent extremists who are Muslims, and anti-Muslim bigots. Continue reading