Forums → WEPR → What do you think of the world around us?

Really? Well, not really. Please tell me, how many people in these poor nations have computer access? How can those few people with internet access who are willing to protest actually use said social interactions without being noticed by the government? After all, it is difficult to say "Revolution @ 8! Bring yr sign! W R Going to location X!" on a social network and not get noticed in real life...So...What did social networking do again?

Eg: The first domino was Tunisia where the underlying source of the uprising lay in government corruption, inequality, censorship and joblessness (even among the well educated youth). The protests began in December 2010 with a college-educated street vendorâs (Mohamed Bouaziziâs) self-immolation in the coastal town of Sidi Bouzid in despair at the corruption and joblessness. He died from the burns, but his protest, despite Tunisiaâs strict web censorship laws, was rapidly fanned by online Internet tools.

âBecause the protests came together largely through informal online networks, their success has also raised questions about whether a new opposition movement has formed that could challenge whatever new government takes shape.

Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, a close ally from the presidentâs hometown, announced on state television that he was taking power as interim president. But that step violated the Tunisian Constitution, which provides for a succession by the head of Parliament, something that Mr. Ghannouchi tried to gloss over by describing Mr. Ben Ali as âtemporarilyâ unable to serve.

Yet by late Friday night [1/7/11], Tunisian Facebook pages previously emblazoned with the revoltâs slogan, âBen Ali, Out,â had made way for the name of the interim president. âGhannouchi Out,â they declaredâ¦. And the protesters relied heavily on social media Web sites like Facebook and Twitter to circulate videos of each demonstration and issue calls for the next one.

Or Egypt perhaps.

While exact numbers of protesters could not be estimated, a flood of internet photographs and videos showed a massive presence in Cairo, Alexandria, and other Egyptian cities. These protests lasted 18 days and Internet-savvy protesters used Twitpic, Facebook and YouTube to disseminate videos and photographs and called on Egyptians to protest. Protesters provided minute-by-minute tweets concerning where to assemble in an effort to outwit police.

âMore than 90,000 people signed up on a Facebook page for the Tuesday [Jan. 25] protests, framed by the organizers as a stand against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment. But the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptâs most powerful opposition movement, said it would not officially participate, though some of its members joined the protesters in Cairo.â (NY Times, âBroad Protests Across Egypt Focus Fury on Mubarakâ, 1/25/11)

Social media wasn't the cause of such movements but it did play a sweeping role in facilitating it.

If you want to let the matter drop quietly now that we have shown that your catty allegations are refuted, I'm sure the rest would oblige.

Where did you get that from? A link would have been easier, yes?

Admittedly, Tunisia has one of the highest computer ownerships rates in the continent, and it would be possible that social media played a small part in it's revaluation. However the amount of people who actually use computers in the way you described are still rather small, and it is still the equivalent to yelling out what you are planning to do.

How many people in these poor countries have internet access? How is it effective to state on an open sever where and when you are meeting?

Catty and refuted? You linked me to a blog post. Instead of answering my questions, you linked me to a blog. I searched for the statistics myself, but most of them are blogs and the such saying things like "OH! LOOK AT HOW MUCH WE ALL HELPED THESE POOR PEOPLE!". Ill get back to you after I can find something worthwhile to post.

Ah, here is one.

This link shows some of the things I have been saying, like that using social media to spread information is basically like yelling what your doing, who you are doing it with, and on and on. Many bloggers where locked out of their accounts, as well as tracked down and arrested in real life. And it was easy to do, as well as finding who they where connected to.

It also says that any use social media could have would be as communication, basically. And an ineffective means of communication at that.

Iran would also be a perfect example of how ineffective it was, with the same situation of people who protested on blogs being attacked and targeted, with having an extremely small amount of of people actually having internet access, and all the other things I have been saying. Not to mention posting fake tweets, which is not exactly difficult to do...

Now please, explain to me, why would social media help?

You will no doubt find the links yourself for these.

Events in Tunis last month were the latest spark for protest in many Arab countries, most importantly Egypt , following similar upheavals in the past â" notably Iranâs 2009 âTwitter Revolution,â so named for the use of the popular micro-blogging service in organizing anti-government demonstrations. Mindful of the Iran precedent, one of the first things the authorities in Egypt did last week -- alongside deploying riot police and the army on the streets -- was to disable Internet and mobile phone communications in a futile effort to nip the unrest in the bud.

This time however, and for the first time on such a scale, technology-minded protesters quickly began devising methods for circumventing the obstacles to Internet and mobile communications erected by the Egyptian government and finding new routes to social sites like Facebook, Twitter and others. Social network user âstatus updatesâ such as this one â" public guidance for the protesters -- began cropping up on sites: âOUR DSL IS STILL WORKING IN EGYPT USING DIAL UP 0777 7776 or 07777 666 Share with every one asap #Egypt #25Ja.â
Such messages were transmitted, providing instructions on how to dial up a phone number to connect to the Internet and bypass government controls. When domestic Internet connections were completely shut down, such updates were sent from Egyptians living abroad or from other Arab social network users living outside the country who support the protesters in Egypt, helping independent media get the news out on television and newspapers.


As for them organizing rallies:

Facebook has an Event feature, which members can use to create an event, post it to their pages, and invite other people. According to an article in Newsweek, protesters used this popular feature to post Events and invite fellow citizens to join mass demonstrations. They'd schedule demonstrations on Fridays after prayers. Friday is a day off for most Egyptians and a day when mosques are heavily attended, and the government officials had a tough time determining whether people milling about on the streets were legitimately going to prayers or fomenting rebellion. The protesters capitalized on the fact that Fridays were a normal day for Egyptians to gather, and they organized the protests as Facebook Events held on Fridays. Young people shared the Events, and viral marketing, or spontaneous sharing, of the events spread throughout Facebook until tens of thousands of people joined the protests that were seen on television worldwide.

This link shows some of the things I have been saying, like that using social media to spread information is basically like yelling what your doing, who you are doing it with, and on and on. Many bloggers where locked out of their accounts, as well as tracked down and arrested in real life. And it was easy to do, as well as finding who they where connected to.

It also says that any use social media could have would be as communication, basically. And an ineffective means of communication at that.

Iran would also be a perfect example of how ineffective it was, with the same situation of people who protested on blogs being attacked and targeted, with having an extremely small amount of of people actually having internet access, and all the other things I have been saying. Not to mention posting fake tweets, which is not exactly difficult to do...

It seems that the whole topic shifted.

Is the topic now on terrorism now?

No it's on social media.

Can't link on my phone. Social media as a tool is not "rather small", 90,000 people in such a short Spanish of time is phenomenal and shows he explosion of popular sentiment against decadent regimes.

Africa alone has 140 million Internet users; with 40 million FB users.

The Middle East has a penetration rate of 35% compared to leas than 5 a decade ago.

This translates to more than 70 million Internet users. 10% of Africa's land mass is Internet accessible.

1) This was a response to your earlier posts unfairly attacking Forger. It was quite obvious.

2) Blog post does answer your question, which was how many people have access to Internet which affected such movements.

3) Blog information and sources came from reliable newspaper reports if you looked carefully.

4) Many of the protestors used not just computers but their phones. Egypt's Internet penetration rose from a mere 1% in 2000 to 24% in 2009.

5) The Egyptians pretty much remained connected via other ways of getting online; such as dialing up international numbers. There were many groups that sprung up just to maintain this connection, such as We Rebuild.

You will no doubt find the links yourself for these.

Events in Tunis last month were the latest spark for protest in many Arab countries, most importantly Egypt , following similar upheavals in the past �" notably Iranâs 2009 âTwitter Revolution,â so named for the use of the popular micro-blogging service in organizing anti-government demonstrations. Mindful of the Iran precedent, one of the first things the authorities in Egypt did last week -- alongside deploying riot police and the army on the streets -- was to disable Internet and mobile phone communications in a futile effort to nip the unrest in the bud.

This time however, and for the first time on such a scale, technology-minded protesters quickly began devising methods for circumventing the obstacles to Internet and mobile communications erected by the Egyptian government and finding new routes to social sites like Facebook, Twitter and others. Social network user âstatus updatesâ such as this one �" public guidance for the protesters -- began cropping up on sites: âOUR DSL IS STILL WORKING IN EGYPT USING DIAL UP 0777 7776 or 07777 666 Share with every one asap #Egypt #25Ja.â
Such messages were transmitted, providing instructions on how to dial up a phone number to connect to the Internet and bypass government controls. When domestic Internet connections were completely shut down, such updates were sent from Egyptians living abroad or from other Arab social network users living outside the country who support the protesters in Egypt, helping independent media get the news out on television and newspapers.

Facebook has an Event feature, which members can use to create an event, post it to their pages, and invite other people. According to an article in Newsweek, protesters used this popular feature to post Events and invite fellow citizens to join mass demonstrations. They'd schedule demonstrations on Fridays after prayers. Friday is a day off for most Egyptians and a day when mosques are heavily attended, and the government officials had a tough time determining whether people milling about on the streets were legitimately going to prayers or fomenting rebellion. The protesters capitalized on the fact that Fridays were a normal day for Egyptians to gather, and they organized the protests as Facebook Events held on Fridays. Young people shared the Events, and viral marketing, or spontaneous sharing, of the events spread throughout Facebook until tens of thousands of people joined the protests that were seen on television worldwide.

1) A simple and efficient way to gather people.

2) The governments have never been able to crackdown on all protestors.

3) The sudden explosion of popular sentiment giving rise to more tangible protests has brought down Ben Ali and Mubarak. You don't get more tangible then that.

I don't think you read your own article. After all it stated this:

As for Iran, yes it was ultimately ineffectual, no one could have expected a solidly entrenched regime initiating reforms in suh a short period. But it did show the power of social media in spurring the populace and it did act as a role model for the AS.

It seems that the whole topic shifted.

Is the topic now on terrorism now?

Ah yes, since apparently years of oppression didn't do it. It was not the poverty, the lack of jobs, the censorship. It was a random kid who set himself on fire. Really, giving social media credit for this kind of takes away from the fact these people had actual reasons for doing this...

And the second largest population in the world, with a billion people. What is that, .0000001%? I just hit random numbers and assumed it was close. Unless that was a typo of some kind?

Just a notice, your tying is off for the moment, isn't it? Spanish of time, leas than a decade...

Anyway, five decades ago there was no internet. So there is that. A decade is a long Spanish of time, after all...

That is sad if you think that is a high number. Ten percent of a population is nothing, definitely not a revelation, and that is a best case if every computer was used for this purpose.

Since I was of course serious about him wanting child labor back.

Not really. The Tunisiaia whatever thing doesn't even give numbers, and the Egypt is pure speculation.

1. Assuming that was true, you posted a quote and I found the link myself. How would that help, if I had not found the link?

2. The links are either to Facebook, Twitter (Unreliable sources, sometimes not even sources and just used on the words) and the NY times. And the links it did give where mostly for news.

Either way, that is still a small part of the population, and not enough for a revolution to be done totally on twitter, and that is assuming that all or most of the people are in on it. Imagine trying to organize something when you can only talk to 1/4 of the people participating.

So the small original number gut a lot smaller but had a few people stay connected. Great.

i think the most of the world around us is plagued by humans who know nothing real, every public school in the world feeds innocent children lies about the world, it reminds me of rats in a testing lab being experimented on.

i think the most of the world around us is plagued by humans who know nothing real, every public school in the world feeds innocent children lies about the world, it reminds me of rats in a testing lab being experimented on.

What I think of the world around us? Marvelous and ever changing, with old problems and challanges coming at us in new meduims/ forms.

As for the technologoical debate, I think the advancement of technology can indeed be abused and used for the wrong. But when has it not been abused? Technology, regardless of the time, era or how advanced a population is in technology, will find ways to corrupt, misuse or abuse their technology. It's just how we humans are. And it's a good thing too, being filthy is fun.
And if the advancement of technology is tied to us, its like greed. Need as well as greed will take us to the stars, resources will be consumed, and while it should be a focus that we find ways to sustation our rate of consumption, greed in general is part of our common pulse. Whether it's greed for new technology, knowledge or wealth.

Of course there was a thread jacking...

In relation to the original topic, it isn't what you read that should be a massive point, but the fact that you are understanding what you read. If an eight year old reads Chaucer or Shakespeare, it would make no difference because odds are they wouldn't have understood a word of it. However you let them read Harry Potter and suddenly they're processing what they're reading, they're making connections, no it's not filled with hidden symbolism and it doesn't require deep thought to see the true story, but it sets a foundation.

Now to the current topic, about social media apparently, consider that Africa is by all accounts the poorest and most underdeveloped continent, if fourteen percent of the population is such a place has access to not only a computer but to internet, that is a rather significant achievement, on top of that forty million have access to social networking, meaning this isn't access they retain only in a particular circumstance but are able to rely on it for entertainment purposes for long periods of time. All circumstances considered this is not a small or insignificant number, but a marker of how quickly technology is reforming the world.