By Eduardo Navas

A peaceful revolution against a regime that had been in power for 29 years sounds impossible until one evaluates the events that led to the fleeing of former President Hosni Mubarak out of Egypt on Friday, February 11. The Egyptian people were able to organize with the use of social media; it was Facebook that rose to the occasion. Needless to say that what happened in Egypt is undoubtedly of historical importance.

Protestors in Alexandria on January 25 hold up an image of Khalid SaidAbout a year ago Wael Ghonim, a thirty-something Google executive decided to create a Facebook group “We Are All Khalid Said,” named after a young man who was killed by the Egyptian police. The Facebook group reached hundreds of thousands, and Ghonim used it to educate people about their rights as citizens. More recently, a youth group known as April 6 was inspired by the events in Tunisia; along with supporters of Mohamed ElBaradei (a nobel prize winner who is active in revitalizing the politics of Egypt), with whom Ghonim also collaborates, they decided to turn the Police Day Protest (which previously was linked to British suppression), scheduled for January 25, into something much bigger. Ghonim announced the event on Facebook, and about 100,000 people signed up. The rest, needless to say, is history—Tahrir Square was filled with thousands of people, and they never left until Mubarak stepped down from office.

Wael GhonimThe use of Ghonim’s Facebook group proved to be crucial in what has been called a leaderless revolution. And unlike the reality that may appear on the news at first glance, it took great effort and organization with the use of social media to bring people together. This historical moment leads me to revisit some of my views on social media. The main reason being that with Tunisia and Egypt successfully taking to the streets, it appears that social media is being celebrated as an amazing resource for radical social change. It is true that social media is a great tool when it is appropriated for real life causes, but this positive aspect should be celebrated with the understanding that the interests of Facebook and Twitter as private endeavors, is mainly in data-mining the information that flows through their networks. In order to make sure that more progressive action takes place in the future with the use of social media, a reflection on their mission is necessary. I will focus mainly on Twitter, as it is the power of micro-blogging which has been of concern for me.

Before Egypt and Tunisia, there was Iran

Beginning on June 13, 2009, people in Iran used Twitter to communicate the development of their protest against the election of now Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In this case Twitter became a primary news source outside of Iran. CNN, Reuters and other news networks were dependent on Twitter to learn what was taking place inside the country. While the protests went on for days, the presidential elections were not recalled. Nevertheless, Twitter proved to be useful as a great tool for people to organize and communicate fast in order to express their disagreement collectively, and gain support for their cause beyond their locality.