assignment #4: twitter revolution.

 
I would like to start with a quotation from one of the articles I read:
"While rioters took to the underground paths of BlackBerry Messenger to organize, the highly spreadable mediums of Twitter and Facebook have shown to be the perfect platforms for mobilizing cleanup organizers and followers in the early aftermath of the rioting." Erica Swallow, writing for Mashable

I think this is a huge problem with with the way we think of both real and technological revolutions. From the beginning of her article, Swallow differentiates between the evils of BlackBerry Messenger which organized the riots and the goodness of Twitter and Facebook which are helping to rebuild London. Yay! Now, I’m on #teamiPhone, but was once the proud owner of a BlackBerry phone that I had to constantly defend to outsiders. This paragraph just reinforces how writers want to antiquate certain platforms while championing others, a confusion of the tool and the results of using the tool. BBM is old and led to an unsuccessful riot. Twitter is new(er) and is making the world a better place. Stale idea, Swallow. Stale.

The arguments made recently have had to do with Twitter’s involvement in many recent “revolutions” and uprisings, especially in the Middle Eastern and Arabic countries. At the start of these revolutions, many wanted to attribute them to social media, namely Twitter and Facebook. Quickly, many realize this argument was weak sauce.
In his essay “Iran: Downside to the ‘Twitter Revolution’”,  Evgeny Morozov argues that the celebration of Twitter revolutions is misplaced. Using an argument that has stayed with me for quite some time he notes that many “in-touch” bloggers and tweeters were bilingual (Farsi and English), but often existing in the Iranian diaspora, not in Iran. If you are trying to succeed in revolution, why write in a language foreign to many in your country? In this case, it seems that many of these bloggers were citizen journalists, not organizing revolutionaries, but shedding light on them to the Western world.


“Thus, to blame Andrew Sullivan for first dreaming up the “Twitter Revolution,” we have to blame a bevy of English-speaking Iranian bloggers who had shaped his opinion (many of them from the Iranian diaspora, with strong pro-Western feelings—why else blog in English?), as well as Farsi-speaking bloggers in Tehran who had shaped the opinion of the English-speaking Iranians, and so forth. Factor in various political biases, and it becomes clear that what Andrew Sullivan is “seeing” might be radically different from what is actually happening.” Morozov

Like many others, I agree that Twitter was a tool, an important one, but still just one of the tools used by revolutionaries to organize. Twitter did not cause the revolution: Just as we have seen revolutions in the past without Twitter, without the telephone, without the printing press... technologies are used by revolutionaries, but revolution occurs because of social factors. Undoubtedly, Twitter played an useful role and was used by the actors in the shaping of these revolutions.
When you look at a country like Syria, which is experiencing the aftermath of revolution, with many still trying to resist state force, you can see the extent to which social media can affect change. In recent months, opposition groups and Syrian individuals have been posting online videos to the internet, blogging, tweeting, and otherwise trying to raise attention about issues, but ultimately, what has it done? Several UN meetings have been held leading to little action. Bashar Al-Assad has continued his assault on Syrian citizens, his own people. They are still dying. Even with cease-fire resolutions from the UN and Arab League alike, the violence has continued. Social media has not been the great crusader now. No one is parading the phrase “Twitter Revolution” when speaking of Syria. It takes more than a platform. It takes people.




By the way, perused over some articles to find an interesting link if anyone is interested: Wikistrat. I’m in love with their tagline “Massively Multiplayer Online Consultancy.” Who is the nerd who created this! We need to exchange numbers and photos. I found the link in this article discussing Kony 2012. I think the same concepts above apply here. People’s actions make for a revolution, for great change. Social media platforms are just another tool to make it happen.
Also want to point out that these social media platforms have quickly changed their tune in regards to allowing all-out protest and commentary. Twitter recently enacted a policy to censor certain tweets that may not be in line with a country's laws. Meaning that if someone insults a Head of State and that act is against the law, their tweet is liable to be censored. If someone calls for a meeting and assembly is illegal, NO TWEET. Just a censored out space informing viewers of the removed tweet.
That's just another topic to think about when deciding whether social media is the end all be all of revolutions. Clearly, they want to make money. It's not about overthrowing governments for the likes of Twitter, Google, and Facebook. In the end, it's about compliance. The antithesis to revolution.