Tunisia and the role of social media
I am sure Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey are now beginning to see what genius creations they have truly made. Facebook and Twitter have gone above and beyond what was traditionally known as the social networking giants. They now apparently start revolutions.
At the start of this year Tunisia was thrown into an almost media blackout, having being unable to visit many websites, including YouTube. This wasn't a new idea, Tunisia has had aggressive censorship since 2005, but the ironic thing is that social networking was NOT censored. The revolt to overthrow power had begun.
Foreign Policy magazine wrote in an article that:
"Ben Ali's government tightly controlled all forms of media, online and offline. Reporters were prevented from traveling to cover protests in Sidi Bouzid, and the reports from the official media, characterized events as either vandalism or terrorism." (Zuckerman, 2011)
However, many people had received an alternative view through the social networking site of Facebook. Viewers were beginning to upload videos and pictures to communicate with neighbouring countries. The videos were a symbol for the rest of the world to catch on and eventually Tunisia became a hot topic on the 'Revolutions' page.
Once authorities understood where the information was coming from they started to use "phishing" techniques on activist's Facebook pages and locked people out of their own accounts.
What I do find interesting about this particular topic is that, if the Government had the resources to stop social networking, then why didn't they? Perhaps former President Ben Ali didn't want to miss out on his weekly Facebook chat with the other diplomats.
Whatever the reason, it is clear that social networking as a tool, has opened up many more portals in the conversation of advocacy. And as we learn more and more about the current Arab Spring, we begin to understand just how vital our virtual self can really be.
SOURCES:
Morozov E, 2011, 'Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go', The Guardian, 7 March, accessed 10/10/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopians?INTCMP=SRCH
Zuckerman E, 2011, 'The First Twitter Revolution?', Foreign Policy, 14 January, accessed 16/10/2011, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/14/the_first_twitter_revolution?page=0,0
