Tunisia: The First Social Media Revolution Essay example

“Social media platforms held the promise of being more egalitarian and democratic than mass media in a sense that all users could equally participate and contribute content” (Dijck & Poell, 6). This explains a basic purpose of social media that remains consistent with the democratic values of freedom that the U.S. is founded upon by providing citizens with a platform where they are free to speak their mind. What makes this even more interesting is the ability for people to share their opinions on a stage that has relatively no geographical boundaries. Rather than restricting the spread of individuals’ beliefs, social networking sites help spread messages and information to anyone, faster than was previously possible. According to Dijck and Poell, “social media platforms seldom deal with ‘natural’ geographically or demographically delineated audiences; instead, they expedite connections between individuals, partly allowing the formation of strategic alliances or communities through users’ initiative” (Dijck & Poell, 8). Social networking sites are naturally designed to increase connectivity and interactions among individuals with common interests or beliefs. The idea of connectivity has significantly influenced the way in which protests are held in America and around the world.

Gladwell sends a very strong message about how social media cannot cause a major revolution in society; likewise, Baron is sending across the same message. Revolutions continue even after the internet is shut down. As crowds gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Baron describes how they “continued to grow during the five days that the Mubarak government shut down the internet” (330). The crowds increased in size without the help of social media. Somehow, word got out and people came to support the cause. Also, Baron brings into realization that Americans are too involved in the world of social media. Americans fail to realize all of the news that they are missing because they “can’t seem to survive without the constant stimulus of digital multitasking” (Baron 330). American citizens are too busy tweeting about what they ate for breakfast to worry about the hungry that is going on overseas. They depend on social networking to tell them the news rather that picking up a newspaper and reading about what is going on in their country or maybe even overseas in a different country.

Almost a year ago, Egypt broke into civil unrest when protesters flooded Tahrir Square, demanding the end of Hosnia Mubarak’s regime. Although Mubarak stepped down within two weeks, Egypt is worse off today than it was last January. The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), which played a vital role in the January revolution, has now become a violent and oppressive force. On the twenty-ninth of December 2011, the SCAF raided seventeen Egyptian, German, and US run NGOs in search of proof of illegal foreign funding.1 In a statement (A/HRC/18/NGO/77) submitted by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), and the Center for Egyptian Women’s

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 documentary #chicagoGirl shows the integral role the internet, particularly social networking sites, have played in mobilizing activists in the middle east. The film follows Alaa Basatneh and her role in coordinating protests and supporting the revolution from across the world via social media. Basatneh was born in Syria but her family moved to Chicago to escape the oppressive regime. She and her family got out far before many others could. She began living a normal teenage life; frequenting the mall, hanging out with friends, and casual social media usage. As news trickled out of Syria Basatneh new she needed to do something but felt too far away to make an impact. She soon realized her role in fighting the horrific conditions created in by President Assad was through social media.

Although problems with the inappropriate use of social networks are not new, in recent years, it has been observed by many authorities how the internet allows any actor to perform information operations with amazing ease and effectiveness. Indeed, several countries and individuals are using online multichannel platforms and social networks like Instagram, Snapchat Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, the mentioned sites allows any actor to collect an enormous amount of information on their potential adversaries and influence public opinion through propaganda and counter-propaganda activities. The armed forces of several countries, including the United States want to take action on the issue, this has caused a domino effect that not only touches us

4. The communication in social media energized the current movements. Why such communication is the alarming fact for the corrupted administrations or governments?

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.

On the 17th of December 2010 a young street vendor from Tunisia, frustrated, set himself on fire, and died a few weeks later as an infliction of this self-immolation. Mohamed Bouazizi became a symbol of freedom, and his later death was dubbed as part of a group of "heroic martyrs of a new Middle Eastern revolution."1 These young men and women, whose pictures and names became national icons, were from all over the Arab world. They were all after the same thing; an end to the suppressive evil that they have witnessed throughout most of their lives and to many their entire lives.

December 10, 2010, a Tunisian produce seller sets himself on fire in protest of the government’s extreme repression while under the leadership of the country’s former President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. The prolonged frustrations lead Tunisia into revolution, provoking the already corrupt and violent security forces to counteract in bloodshed. Still, and utilizing the Internet and social media, the revolutionaries reached out to global communities to depict the horror, in hope for help. Consequently and with success, Tunisians’ gained the sympathy they were seeking, while also inspiring the Arab Spring to ignite, a mass of revolutions across Arab nations.

The 2011 uprising in Egypt was in many ways a traditional brick-and-mortar revolution, but with a cyber-twist to it: based on their statistical analysis of a large body of tweets related to the 2011 uprising in Egypt, Starbird and Palen (2012) observed that activists used Twitter as an important tool to share ideas and information with like-minded people, because Twitter allows a high number of activists interact using its retweet and other mechanisms. In this case, Twitter was used among participants and supporters of a traditional mass movement to bypass government controlled

A revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests (both violent and non-violent), riots, and civil wars in the Arab World that began on 18 December 2010, later gained the heading “The Arab spring”. The Arab spring began by a twenty six year old boy named Mohammed Bouazizi was getting ready to sell fruits and vegetables in a rural town of Sidi Bouzid Tunisia. Bouazizi was the primary supporter for his widowed mother and six of his siblings. The entire incident originated when the police officer asked bouazizi to hand over his wooden cart, he refused the police women allegedly slapped him after being publicly humiliated bouazizi marched in front of a government building and set himself on fire. The Jasmine revolution in Tunisia, the shock wave swept across the country which threatened the stability of this oil-rich region with repercussion felt internationally. After the world witnessed what happened in Tunisia, it caused a spilled over into most of the Arab countries. Such as Egypt, Libya Syria and Yemen. Aim of this paper is to show that the current situation corollary of decades of failed policies, exacerbated by an unsolicited foreign intervention. The extensive consequences, I will argue, require cautious attention and careful management from international communities as well as the Arab human rights committee. This paper seeks to explore the profound causes that prompted the so called “Arab awakening” and the covert hidden agenda behind the sudden pro democratic

Contemporary social movements such as Arab Spring and Kony 2012 use the Internet and social media as potential tools towards change. But why are some more successful than others. This paper argues that when news outlets see the potential for change, they “premediate” (Richard Grusin) its possibilities, and make that change ever more possible in their coverage. On the other hand, extant stories that are more reactionary do not get the same amount of new exposure, and remain static. In other words, our media - not just social media, but news organizations - play a great role in shaping current events. I will compare and contrast the unfolding of the Arab Spring story, and how little changed regarding Kony 2012, as cases in point.