Egypt and Social Media: “Revolution 2.0” Roundup

The Twitterverse, Facebookverse, etc. blew up after Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would, in fact, step down from power. What role did social media play in the making of history in Egypt?

A quote from Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who launched the Facebook page said to have sparked the original protest, has been making the rounds online: “If you want to liberate a country, give them the Internet.”

Ghonim called the events in Egypt “Revolution 2.0” and plans to write a book with the same name about the role of social media in political demonstrations.

Nonetheless, people (even within the same publication) are debating the extent to which the Internet and social media played a role. Here’s a round-up of some of the coverage.

• Malcolm Gladwell, who in a New Yorker article heard ‘round the world last fall, famously asserted that social media can’t create the strong ties of real social activism, reiterated his position early in the month, stating, “People with a grievance will always find ways to communicate with each other. How they choose to do it is less interesting, in the end, than why they were driven to do it in the first place.”

• However, before being detained by security forces, Wael Ghonim tweeted, “@Gladwell, #Jan25 proved you wrong. Revolution can be a #Facebook event that is liked, shared & tweeted. “

• One TechCrunch writer says don’t overstate the importance of social media. “Twitter and Facebook are indeed useful tools,” the piece says, “but they are not tools of revolution—at least no more than Paul Revere’s horse was.” People are the real killer app, says the writer. If the revolution had happened five years ago, we would be championing the role of mobile phones.

• However, anotherTechCrunch piece (illustrated by a fantastic photo) asserts that the revolution was about the Internet as a whole. Pulling together cell phones, home phones, Facebook, and other methods like Google and Twitter’s collaborative phone-to-twitter application Speak2Tweet “essentially created the largest flashmob ever, with around 8 million protestors in the streets in Cario today…”

• A post from communications firm Edelman Digital points out something that I’ve been thinking—if the Internet didn’t matter, then why did the Egyptian government shut it off?

• Social media didn’t cause the revolution, but sped it up, says a Wired article, which quotes one expert as saying “social media have become the pamphlets of the 21st century.”

• Mashable says that from the beginning, the revolution was “propelled” by the use of social media. Their piece discusses the various tools involved, including Al Jazeera employing YouTube to make its coverage available to U.S. audiences.

• A CNet writer asserts we shouldn’t call this a social media revolution, but social media did make the revolution happen in an international public forum. That empowered those with feet on the ground and increased the pressure on the regime, the piece says. The earlier uprising in Tunisia helped create early attention on Egypt and made people want to see a satisfying conclusion to what they’d been watching from the beginning.

• In an earlier piece, the same writer said calling the revolution a social media one isn’t the right way to look at things. “If a dictator is overthrown or a government ousted, it would be notable if Facebook or Twitter weren’t used,” she writes. That’s because social media has just become an integral part of our communication. “Besides, if you’re keeping a scorecard for social media, you might want to note that, 600 million Facebook users later, it’s already won.”

• NYU journalism teacher and media expert Jay Rosen takes on the slew of “Twitter can’t topple dictators” pieces with a thoughtful post calling for actual facts. He writes about one, “ranting about the absuridty of maximalist claims, the author takes a pass on the really hard and really interesting question: how does the Internet affect the balance of forces in a contest between the state and people fed up with the state?”

What do I think? Always one to see shades of grey, I think they’re  probably all right. Yes, social media probably helped. Yes, it probably wasn’t the only thing. My instinct is that the revolution could’ve happened without the tools—but the tools certainly made it a lot easier, and quicker. Like Rosen, though, I will be interested to see how the facts shake out.

A last word: ReadWriteWeb asks, who the hell cares what the tech connection is? “What matters is that we, not just the Egyptians, are now living in a world where difficult things are possible, where beautiful things are doable,” says the piece. “That changes everything.”

What do you think?

For more social media and technology tidbits, follow me on Twitter, @evakl.

Note: This piece has been updated since it was first posted, primarily to add the last bullet point.