The role of Social Media in Egypt, Original post #1

The recent unrest in Egypt has caught attention of the international community. Latest updates on daily protests in Egypt are reported on all major news channels, newspapers, and articles. Protests last month have brought the 29-year regime of Hosni Mubarak to a precipice. Hundreds and thousands of people gathered to demand the president to step down. In response, Mubarak quickly ordered his government to resign but did not agree to step down. With the freedom granted by the Internet today, young people in Egypt were able to use social media to report and publish first-hand images and videos.

Read more about the situation on New York Times

Twitter and other social media platform have been flooded with images, information and videos about the current situation in Egypt. Egypt-related tweets showed the intensity and urgency of the ongoing political crisis. Through social media, people around the world were able to get immediate information, well before the official news statement and broadcast. Over the past few days, thousands and millions of families who have friends or family members in Egypt were digging through the Internet, trying to find bits and pieces of what was happening there. This is a Youtube video shot by a local. 

Very soon, the information was out of the government’s control because everyone was able to broadcast his or her own stories. On Friday, the government shut down the Internet and was able to block most communicative messages by cutting off Internet and mobile services. 

Although majority of people in Egypt are not able to access the Internet, some journalists with satellite phones are able to report violent protests immediately. Social media intelligence in various countries tried alternative ways to help Egyptians connect online, so that they can continue to provide news, video clips, and images. Some offered a dial-up connection. Google has also launched a voice-to-Twitter service to assist Egyptian twitter users to journalize the crisis.

By searching for the key word “Egypt”, or “Yeman”, Twitter was able to analyze: 

With Web 2.0, the new school communication is through “Social Media”, they have become essential ingredients for democratic change. What is the role of the Media in political crisis like this one? According to the CNN, 

Some say Egypt is violating modern human rights by cutting access to the Internet and to mobile phone networks. Others say the fact that protests have continued despite these digital barricades reveals a massive hole in the argument that social media spawns modern revolutions.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told Al-Jazeera that internet access is a modern human right

Dave Pell, writing on the blog Tweetage Wasteland, says the internet isn't essential for revolution -- but it sure helps

At the blog TechCrunch, Alexia Tsotsis writes that Twitter is turning people into individual news networks

In The New Yorker,Nicholas Thompson, a social media expert, writes that the internet can benefit both sides of a conflict

Harvard's Jillian York writes the Tunisia protests would have happened with or without Twitter and Facebook -- but we might not have heard about it

Internet access is "fundamental" to the protests in Egypt, writes Khadija Sharife on the Huffington Post

Read details on what people think about the role of social media


Perhaps social media did not trigger people in Egypt to protest and fight for their freedom all of a sudden. However, it does provide a medium for people in different parts of the world to interact and share information immediately. With the situation in Egypt, people from the outside were interested in understanding the situation through personal stories by local people, and social media was able to help in such terms. As Jillian York suggested, "protests would have happened with or without Twitter and Facebook, but we might not have heard of it."