'Twitter Revolutions'

Australian journalist Peter Beaumont, in one of his articles, asked “Can social networking overthrow a government?” Apparently, unfolding events in the Middle East and North African nations of Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, Moldova, Iran and Libya have all “found their way on to the internet through social media sites. And it’s not just images.” It is the outcome of this social media employment by the citizens which reaps speculations.

Indeed, the events which led to these revolutions, whether for the overthrow of a government or for protesting Presidential election results, gave birth to the concept of ‘Twitter Revolutions’ and to the question of whether these events can be considered as such. Well, as one blogger put it, “‘Twitter Revolution’ is more catchy than an ‘E-mail Revolution’. But I shall not digress.

The point is that the contribution of Internet to these uprisings cannot be denied. The extent of this contribution, however, cannot be given a similarly concrete position. My personal position is that social media of course deserves credit, but this recognition cannot be monopolized by ICT since people power equally proves to be a major force. We can actually cut the debate on what caused what, and simply acknowledge that these revolutionary occurrences in these countries are products of a partnership between ICT-People Power.

Beaumont himself impliedly provided for the answer by stating in his article that the phenomena is best summed up through an encounter he had with a group of young Tunisians during a demonstration when he arrived at Tunis:

"I asked them what they were photographing with their phones.

“Ourselves. Our revolution. We put it on Facebook,” one replied laughing, as if it were a stupid question.

“It’s how we tell the world what’s happening.”"

- Phebean Belle A. Ramos, entry #15

Image Source: http://joscard.com/blog/page/3/

See this link for Beaumont's article: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/can-social-networking-overthrow-a-government-20110225-1b7u6.html

Stop ICT If You Can

The world, especially the technology community, was taken aback when Egypt shut down its Internet and mobile phone access barely a week ago. An evident concern was the country’s capability to promptly recover after it resolved to cut its most critical link on world communication and commerce.

Egypt justified its move by citing widespread civil unrest. Apparently, the Egyptian government chose to wipe itself off the world’s online maps over considering its vast potential loss in terms of credibility with the Internet community and the world economy.

The end was yet to justify the means.

But these speculations need to soon enough move over because Egypt is back online, with net access quickly returning to normal. Connectivity has been recently restored including 3G mobile networks and BlackBerry services. Facebook and Twitter are now also available and the four major Egyptian internet service providers are back in business.

It is of note that even before the government ordered the reinstatement of Internet and mobile phone access, alternative services came forth, offering digital information to propagate, most famous of which is speak2tweet by Google, Twitter and SayNow. This allowed Twitter updates to be dictated by voicemail messages, effectively bypassing Internet closure through telephone calls.

And even if it is still unclear to what extent the offline period will prove to have affected the Egyptian economy, one thing was made clear--technology still found its way around the authoritarian blockade.

Indeed, ICT has become invincible.

Image Source: http://www.fanoos.com/technology/internet_in_egypt_cut_off_down_disrupted.html

News Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12346929; http://www.slashgear.com/egypt-back-online-internet-3g-blackberry-reported-working-02129921/; http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-01-29/business/27090014_1_internet-access-egyptian-people-facebook-and-twitter  

- Phebean Belle A. Ramos, entry #11