Finding your way in Social Media is extremely difficult. Those in the know remain in the know but sometimes the rest of us get lost in the shuffle. Yesterday morning (10/25) when I started to see twitters about #OccupyOakland being squeezed, taken down, destroyed, whatever. I was more than curious. I lived the Bay Area for nearly 15 years and near Oakland ... so I knew the neighborhood and still have many friends who live there. Yesterday I was just caught up in the "live" aspects as this solitary persons perspective continued to unfold. As I understand it, last night continued to be a little more difficult for everyone but punkboyinsf was not broadcasting.
Yesterday (Tuesday) I followed one of the tweets and found a USTREAM site for punkboyinsf live stream and started following it. I contacted one friend who was already at work in downtown Oakland and was told about four helicopters in the air ... I passed along the USTREAM url which was then passed on to some fellow workers who started watching from home in the Oakland area.
The broadcaster made mention of low battery ... a little later he was off air. When he came back on he apologized that his MOM had called and wanted to know he was safe and would stay safe. This was the way it went ... he continued to provide location information, stressing what he knew and what he did not know (the kind of reporting I like), what he did see and what he was guessing about. He talked with others in the area ... none of this was filtered and just the feelings of those involved. He remarked on all the Bay Area cities who seem to have their police force involved. He tried to engage some officers - no response. It is not that he personally did not have a point of view ... but you honestly know what it is!
I decided this morning (10/26) to give a little more voice to the situation and indirectly guide those of you who may be curious to punkboyinsf ... he has quite a few videos up about OccupyOakland that were being watched when live and now are available on his channel. The thing you should be most interested in is the banner set of pictures for other occupy sites ... it appears under the lead "Occupy Together". You can click on any of those pictures and go to another OCCUPY site and see what is going on "live" and/or look for some.
Take the time and see first hand views ... click the title and go the page and start watching and listening! The video embedded here has over 83000 views. The view count may be telling you that is where the action is and that you might want to be prepared for some unpleasant content. If you get "Service Not Available ..." try later or just try refreshing your browser a few seconds later.
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