<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Michael Bauwens</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:michelsub2003@yahoo.com">michelsub2003@yahoo.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 7:10 PM<br>Subject: blog update, social revolution part 2<br>To: Michel Bauwens <<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>><br><br><br><a href="http://gigaom.com/2011/01/29/twitter-facebook-egypt-tunisia/" target="_blank">http://gigaom.com/2011/01/29/twitter-facebook-egypt-tunisia/</a><br>
<br>
By Mathew Ingram:<br>
<br>
�" is anyone really arguing that Twitter and Facebook caused the revolutions in<br>
Tunisia or Egypt, or even the earlier public uprisings in Moldova or Iran for<br>
that matter? Maybe cyber-utopians somewhere are doing this, but I haven�t seen<br>
or heard of any. Theargument I have tried to make is simply that they and other<br>
social media tools can be incredibly powerful, both for spreading the word �<br>
which can give moral or emotional support to others in a country, as well as<br>
generating external support � as well as for organizational purposes, thanks to<br>
the power of the network. As Jared Cohen of Google Ideas put it, social media<br>
may not be a cause, but it can be a powerful �accelerant.�Did Twitter or<br>
Facebook cause the Tunisian revolt? No. But they did spread the news, and many<br>
Tunisian revolutionaries gave them a lot of credit for helping with the process.<br>
Did Twitter cause the revolts in Egypt? No. But they did help activists such as<br>
WikiLeaks supporter Jacob Appelbaum (known on Twitter as @ioerror) and others as<br>
they organized the dialup and satellite phone connections that created an ad-hoc<br>
Internet after Egypt turned the real one off � which, of course, it did in large<br>
part to try and prevent demonstrators from using Internet-based tools to foment<br>
unrest. As Cory Doctorow notedin his review of Evgeny Morozov�s book, even if<br>
Twitter and Facebook are just used to replace the process of stapling pieces of<br>
paper to telephone poles and sending out hundreds of emails, they are still a<br>
huge benefit to social activism of all kinds.<br>
But open-network advocate Dave Winer made the key point: it�s the Internet that<br>
is the really powerful tool here, not any of the specific services such as<br>
Twitter and Facebook that run on top of it, which Winer compares to brands like<br>
NBC. They have power because lots of people use them, and � in the case of<br>
Twitter � because they have open protocols so that apps can still access the<br>
network even when the company�s website is taken down by repressive governments<br>
(athough they didn�t mention Egypt or Tunisia by name, Twitter co-founder Biz<br>
Stone and general counsel Alexander Macgillivray wrote a post about the<br>
company�s desire to �keep the information flowing).<br>
In the end, the real weapon is the power of networked communication itself. In<br>
previous revolutions it was the fax, or the pamphlet, or the cellphone � now it<br>
is SMS and Twitter and Facebook. Obviously none of these things cause<br>
revolutions, but to ignore or downplay their growing importance is also a<br>
mistake."<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>� - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
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