The Political Power Of Social Media

- “Arab spring,” Egypt, Libya – young people want what we have, to be able to speak about things: Facebook

As a middle eastern, I did not realize how much Facebook was considered a main role in these uprising and how it was reported here in the U.S. and the west. These uprisings were not just a result of a “Facebook revolution,” but the thousands of people who took to the streets and protested against dictators and demanded change. As someone who lived there, I believe that the political, religious, and economic problems were there already and Facebook was a tool that happened to be accessible to help protesters organize. It certainly was not a main factor in these revolutions. As a matter of fact Facebook was also used and still being used by governments to spread propaganda. In the Syrian conflict Facebook, twitter, and video platforms like YouTube are being used by terrorist groups like ISIS to spread their radical ideology and even reach like-minded people in the west. This was not possible few years ago and is definitely an example of how social media could play a negative role in

The internet is a powerful tool for activists, but can also be utilized by the other side by promoting propaganda and mobilizing their own supporters. Networking sites have revolutionized the way people activists approach revolutions. Moreover, the internet has connected people from across the world and has caused people in the states (like myself) to become invested in a civil war occurring in a part of the world I never knew existed. The internet has empowered and enabled people by connecting like-minded people, providing access to information, broadcasting events, and creating real connections between people. Alone, the internet is not enough to bring down an oppressive, authoritarian state; but when coupled with the power and will of the people, it can create real

Delving deep into the history of how new media has the ability to cause the autocratic ways of governments to run into a stone wall, the infamous incident of how university students of Indonesia leveraged on the power of e-mail to overthrow the then corrupt President Suharto presents itself as an excellent illustration. Through examining more recent cases where the citizens of Tunisia and Egypt have tapped on the power of social media to help upend the existing political order, the potency of new media becomes apparent.

Johan Pouwelse, a professor at Delft University and a technological company founder, has written several articles (Pouwelse) that stress the dangers of filtering the internet. One such article is “Moving Toward a Censorship-free Internet,” which was published in the Internet Engineering Task Force Journal (IETF). In this article, Pouwelse references the Arab Spring, which was a set of revolutions that took place throughout the Arab world in 2011 and 2012 and resulted in overthrows of oppressive governments. In nearly all the affected nations, dissenters used Twitter and Facebook to organize their protests and planned outcries (Heins). These two social media platforms are easily accessible and allow their users to post any information that they please; this served as both a benefit and a drawback during the protests. “During the 2011 Arab Spring,” Pouwelse writes in in his article for the IETF, “Egyptian authorities demanded that telecommunication companies sever their broadband connections and mobile networks—both local and European operators were forced to comply, and, as a result, digital Egypt vanished.” The world stopped receiving tweets from their Egyptian contacts, stopped viewing videos posted to YouTube by Egyptian vloggers. Online entertainment halted, which was a victory for the government. However, this blackout did not put a stop to open criticism, as the Egyptian government intended. The

In our modern world, the spread of violence has increased substantially amongst the years. Terrorism and lack of civility have become a way of life and is radically growing at an alarming rate. Many concerning civilians often ask themselves “ What is causing the rate violence in the world to increase.” Thomas L. Friedman a New York Times Journalist, author of Social Media: Destroyer or Creator? answers this question using the story of “Wael Ghonim, the Egyptian Google employee whose anonymous Facebook page helped launch the Tahrir Square revolution in early 2011.” In the article, Mr.Friedman claims that due to the speed and brevity of social media, rumors that confirm people’s biases are believed and spread among millions allowing for online discussions to quickly descend into a rage of confusion and disorder.

Nowadays, many debates insinuate how social media is pointless and detrimental. Base on my research, I hold a different opinion - social media is not only just snapping photos and watching funny videos, but it also increases the generation of informational content and citizen participation in political discussions. In early 2011, thousands of Syrian, especially youth from labor unions, indented to risk their lives to protest against the authoritarian government. By August 2015, more than 250,000 citizens had been killed in the conflict. Furthermore, there are more than 11 million citizens who had been forced to be loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. Otherwise, they would of been compelled to leave their homes. Referring to Saxon, D.’s case study, Syrian civil war stimulated citizen journalists’ willingness to get evolved in politics (Saxon, 2013). In four-and-a- half years of armed conflict, hot-blooded citizens who were behind the revolutions employed social media as a temporary press, contributing with their documentaries of the revolutions from the inside of the country. In the case of Syrian civil war, the progress in technology and the presence of social media provided opportunities to the citizens; empowering them to speak up about political issues in online platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube (Wall & Zahed, 2014). By examining how and to what degree citizen journalism has reshaped the communication model through social media, it is found that

Kassim, S. (2012). Twitter revolution: How the Arab Spring was helped by social media. Retrieved from http://www.policymic.com/articles/10642/twitter-revolution-how-the-arab-spring-washelped-bysocial-media

Through the 18th and 19th centuries, theorists came to define Civil Society as a network of active voluntary associations and organizations independent of the state that came together for collective action and cooperation, particularly against state abuse of people’s freedoms and rights. A key underlying aspect of this conventional definition is, as is emphasized by Tocqueville- a dense network of associations functioning via face to face interaction on a more or less permanent basis. The 21st century however introduces a new variable in this equation which, some scholars argue, can drastically change the way civil society is theorized to function- Social Media. Social media has emerged as a catalyst in modern day struggles for democracy and

In 2010, Wael Ghonim was an ordinary, young professional living in Dubai. While browsing through his social media content, he randomly stumbled upon a gruesome photograph of a young man who had been beaten to death by the Egyptian Police. That one glance and that one brief moment sculpted Ghonim’s mission in life. Infuriated by the brutality displayed, Ghonim created a Facebook page dedicated to the deceased individual in Egypt. “Today they killed Khaled,” he wrote. “If I don’t act for his sake, tomorrow they will kill me.” It took a few moments for Ghonim to settle on a name for the page, one that would fit the character of an increasingly personalized and politically galvanizing Internet. He finally decided on “Kullena Khaled Said”-“We Are All Khaled Said” (Vargas, 2012). Within minutes, a hundreds of people sharing his emotions and frustration joined the page. That number soon escalated to two hundred and fifty thousand. “We Are All Khaled Said” became a revolutionary chant that brought thousands of Egyptians on the streets of Cairo to host a mass

Never known for being a pillar of peace, the Middle East has always been rife with turmoil. However, in 2011 this turmoil was super-charged, as several nations experienced civil uprising. Citizens of Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, and Oman, mobilized, forming massive protests. Heads of state in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen were stripped of their powers and removed. Even more developed nations like Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Sudan experienced protests, albeit minor during the Arab Spring. (The National.AE, 2011) Objectives in each area varied, but civil liberties violations and economic grievances were primary concerns among protestors. What’s unique about the Arab Spring, is that activities and information was often shared between participants via social media. Cheers and encouragement were also doled out via social media by individuals and groups in other countries. (Kesselman, 2016 page 487)

Movements that do get their start on social media do so because they are aiming to get the word out to as many people as possible, and a lot of times when comes to countries like those included in the Arab spring such as Egypt. Now when it comes to such countries in the Arab world as this; it’s very possible that they feel as if public protesting isn’t enough to get the word out and so in turn they take to the digital work via the internet to get their point across to the international world and by doing so the Arab spring spread like wild fire. Like stated before it all started on Facebook and due to the movement beginning on there, it gave those individuals the confidence to begin with public protesting in the center of Cairo.

The fact that the Egyptian revolution of early 2011 was launched via Facebook is just one of the many extraordinary aspects of the whirlwind movement that effectively ended the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. (Goldstein) It is a fact that the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 lasted just over two weeks but in such a short time it definitely brought about significant historical changes politically, socially, and economically. These 18 days were definitely pivotal in destroying a 30-year-old regime and government corruption. Although the regime was widely accepted by the majority of Egyptians, this revolution proved just how feeble the existing regime really was. Mainly, because of all the economic downturn that Egypt was experiencing due to the heavy corruption that had engulfed the political system of the country under Mubarak’s leadership. This financial depression included: an increase in unemployment, constant rising poverty, social and economic inequality, and a very high debt. This brief yet highly effective revolution was initially described by news clips and reporters as consisting of non-violent actions such as demonstrations, marches, the overtaking of plazas, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and various levels of strikes. But, through social media we saw firsthand in the documentary, “Uprising” by Fredrik Stanton the reality of the do-or-die nature of the protests. After an essentially peaceful start, the freedom fighters had to defend

This essay discusses the impact of Twitter on the public contribution into political social movements. Firstly, I explain the globalization along with global media. Followed by media convergence and how it affects the networked individualism. Basically, I search for Twitter and the relations between online communication and political movements also known as protests. Since there are limited studies on the effects of Twitter on political social movements in Egypt, United States and Turkey, this research aims to fill the gap by exploring the globalization that develops the technology and the increase in public contribution by using social media, especially Twitter during the protests in these countries.

Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben was also ousted as a result of revolts formed from the reports from private citizens. Social media is so powerful; the government of Malawi has shut down news websites and social media networks including Twitter and Facebook to prevent suffering the same fate as other dictatorship based governments. Cameroonian government has banned the use of social media. In Uganda, the government temporarily closed social networks after threatening ISPs with closure. The members of the current “Occupy Wall Street” movements use social media to organize their political movement and gain members. Boudreau’s article suggests “Occupy Wall Street has spread around the country with keyboard-clicking quickness as participants tap into Twitter, Facebook and microblogging site Tumblr to call Americans to the streets to protest what they see as a broken global financial system. What would have taken months to unfold in a different era has occurred in days and hours. The Economist magazine calls it America’s first true social-media uprising”(Broudreau). Revis article states “These citizen journalists fight to create a well-informed public in which media also serves as moral education. This philosophy radically departs from mainstream journalism, an overarching goal of which is to sell its product. Citizen journalism, on the other hand, allows marginalized people to reclaim their voices, to tell their otherwise silenced stories firsthand”