Are You Prepared F0rTwitter, Facebook , You-Tube Blocking in U.S.?

Are You Prepared F0rTwitter, Facebook , You-Tube Blocking in U.S.?

Just Remember That U.S. Government Now Controls the Internet

Arab world shaken by power 0f Twitter , Facebook

By John Timpane -Inquirer Staff Writer – January 27, 2011

When dictat0rZine el-Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia on Jan. 14, it was the first time in history that Twitter, Facebook, , other social media had helped bring down a government.

With Egypt now in its third day 0f Facebook-organized political flash mobs, it may not be the last.

Recent uprisings midwived by Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, , the cable news network Al-Jazeera might not be a "Twitter revolution." But the Middle East has been shaken, , social media have done some 0f the shaking.

"In the Arab world, this has never happened before," says John Entelis, direct0r0f Middle Eastern studies at Fordham University. "A dictat0rhas been deposed by the people. That is an extraordinary first step, even if nothing else comes 0f it. , believe me, the whole Arab world is watching."

Mustapha Tlili, direct0r0f New York University's Center f0rDialogues , himself Tunisian, says: "F0rthe first time, we became a world moral community, thanks to Twitter."

Tlili says dictators in the region's other countries can block social media, but not forever, "so they must deal with the way social media make it easy to flout authority, organize opposition, , appeal to the moral conscience 0f the world."

In Tunisia, nothing happened overnight. Demonstrations had been widespread since December on issues including unemployment, economic conditions, , official corruption.

On Dec. 17, in Sidi Bouzid, deep in the interior, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself aflame in front 0f a government building, in protest after police confiscated his produce stand.

Horrible images 0f his act circulated lightning-fast on the Internet. Protests followed. The world witnessed what Neil Postman wrote in his prescient 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: "Introduce speed-of-light transmission 0f images , you make a cultural revolution."

"Thanks to Twitter, YouTube, , Facebook, images 0f those first protests went around the world instantly, , everyone knew about it," says Tlili. "Even 20 years ago, you could have had those uprisings in the interi0r, few would have known."

Bouazizi's image went out in thousands 0f tweets, e-mails, , Facebook posts. He became an image 0f resistance. About a dozen copycat self-immolations occurred in neighboring countries. A purported last note to his mother appeared on a Facebook page in Bouazizi's name: "I will be traveling my mom, forgive me, Reproach is not helpful, i am lost in my way it is not in my hand, f0rgive me if disobeyed words 0f my mom, blame our times , do not blame me, i am going , not coming back . . ."

Al-Jazeera - drawing indignant criticism from the regime - covered the growing protests. "Al-Jazeera has been very in-your-face covering the uprisings," Entelis says.

David Nassar, chief executive officer 0f Hotspot Digital , a Middle East expert, says, "Here as elsewhere, cable news has been a breath 0f fresh air, a powerful unifying force in the Arab world."

One thing about information: Once it's out, you can't put it back. As Richard Goedkoop, associate profess0r0f communication at La Salle University, puts it, "The sheer multiplicity 0f venues , sources makes it impossible f0rwould-be dictators to get the genie back in the bottle. , once info is out at all, it's easily, infinitely copiable."

Protests punctuated Bouazizi's two weeks in the hospital. He died Jan. 5, , the cycle repeated: Protesters texted , tweeted info , images, organized flash-demonstrations, , warned 0f police activity. Al-Jazeera kept the camera steady, covering Bouazizi's death , funeral, the unrest that followed, , the often violent government response. More repression, more protest, more tweets, more coverage. Within nine days, Ben Ali was gone.

This tech-powered uprising marks a generation gap, in Tunisia , elsewhere in the Arab world.

"This is being driven by youth, , their familiarity with technology is helping them," Nassar says. "There is a divide between them , the older men who hold power."

He says several Arab countries - "Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Algeria, even, increasingly, Syria" - have created an educated middle class that is largely unemployed, leading to social tension.

"You hear them called the 'lost generation,' " Nassar says.

F0rTunisia's young technocrats, says Tlili, "social media are second nature, in a country with a tradition 0f science , scholarship going back to the 16th century, when Spanish Muslims emigrated to Tunisia, bringing with them culture , sophistication."

That sophistication shows in the way protesters use mobile media.

"At one point, young people had transported a man to hospital, , doctors were rushing to save his life," says Tlili. "But people were there with their iPhones , were shouting, 'Wait! We want to share the picture before you clean him up!' "

Response from neighboring dictators was unhappy, to say the least. Protests arose in Jordan, Yemen, , Algeria, where Facebook again played a role. Government responded brutally, , Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika complained about Wikipedia , Facebook. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi appeared in a video - widely seen on Al-Jazeera , YouTube - in which he called the Internet "a great vacuum" that "sucks everything." In Egypt, protests were carefully planned via Facebook, , 30-year ruler Hosni Mubarak finds himself under siege.

Behind the scenes rages a struggle f0rmedia control. Government blocks 0rmuddles Twitter , cell-phone use; tech-savvy protesters find workarounds that get out the message. Facebook pages, Twitter tweets, , YouTube posts appear , are taken down. (Twitter confirmed it had been blocked in Egypt. Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told CNET on Wednesday that Egypt had not blocked Facebook.)

It would be misleading to overstress the impact 0f media. Mona el-Ghobashy, assistant profess0r0f political science at Barnard College, says: "The prospects f0rTunisia-style reform in Egypt are dim. The Egyptian government is well-versed in managing , containing even large-scale protests, , has been doing so f0rdecades."

On the other hand, says Entelis, "notone saw this coming in Tunisia, either. The main thing is, the unthinkable first step has happened."

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