What role did social media playin Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions?

02/03/2010 @Internews Thomas Hémery – themery@gmail.com - http://twitter.com/thomscotch

How are they connected?

“We analyzed 52 million Twitter users, and discovered that only 14,642, or 0.027%, identified themselves as being from Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia. Of these people, 88.1% were from Egypt, 9.5% from Tunisia and 2.13% from Yemen”.Source : Sysomos

80 M inhabitants 75% mobile penetration - 5% smartphone23 M Internet users - 24% of the population5 M Facebook users - 6% penetration rate160.000 blogs

10.7 M inhabitants85% mobile penetration - 13% smartphone 3,6 M Internet users - 34% of the population2 M Facebook users - 16% penetration rateSource : Internet Stats

A few local users powered by global networks

Social media does notcause social movements

“ No one I spoke to in Tunis today mentioned twitter, facebook or wikileaks. It’sall about unemployment,

corruption, oppression ” Ben Wedeman, CNN senior correspondent in Cairo

“ The Tunisian revolution was barely covered by traditional media until Ben Ali fled, but the #tunisia and #sidibouzid hashtags allowed protesters to follow the events for the whole month beforehand. I think that further convinced us of the power each of us has to effect change ”@alya1989262, a 21-year-old Egyptian student who sent thefirst tweet with the #Jan25

Social media doesn’t create social movements

Social movements are echoed & powered by social media

Social media changesthe dynamics of

social movements

“the power of social media : synchronize the behavior of groups quickly, cheaply,

and publicly, in ways unavailable a decade ago" Clay Shirky

• Quickly : affects strategies, distribution of power and attention

• Cheaply : changes the economics of social movements, increases participation

• Publicly : changes/conflicts media agenda, gives new spaces for debate, roots global citizenship, increases transparency demand

Social media has become a condition for local events to

turn into global news

“It's not clear to me that social media played a massive role in organizing protests but I do

think it played a critical role in helping expose those protests to a global audience, particularly in Tunisia, where the media

environment was so constrained." Ethan Zuckerman, Global Voice co-founder

Social media has local and global impact

Local impact of social media

Grassroots mobilization

Organize the protests

Counter rumor or propaganda tool

Helped people analyze government statements

Facebook played the role of community organizing platformThe We Are All Khaled Said page (885 000 fans) first called for the Jan. 25 protests that sparked the uprising, playing a major role in breaking the barrier of fear that had kept Egyptians in their homes.

Citizens used social media to identify and alert one another about the positions of snipers, police and looters.

When there were concerns about water being poisoned, people sharing information on Facebook helped to counter that falsehood.

When government went on TV, people went online to analyze what president said and to form a consensus on whether the positions met their requirements.

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

“I was thinking about Egypt. And I couldn’t turn it off.”

“ The story is on the opposite side of the world. I can’t smell the tear gas. I can’t hear the sound of Molotov Cocktails exploding in Tahrir Square. I don’t know a single person with any direct involvement with what’s going on in Cairo.But the story is on my television, in my Twitter stream, on my Facebook page, spilling out of my iPhone, everywhere. My screens are a mass of particles with a gravitational

force that’s pulling in minute by minute updates on a story from across the world to the front of my mind.“ Dave Pell +

“Egyptians actively supported the Tunisian Revolution as any Tunisian national did: they launched DDoS attacks, they've been demonstrating for Sidibouzid, they shared information, they provided technical support… etc. And now Tunisians are doing the

same for Egyptians. It's really a new citizenship. Egyptians are de facto Tunisian citizens.“ Slim Amamou +

Global citizenship, care & solidarity

Global impact of social media

Solidarity

“And I'm followed by a number of journalists, both in Egypt and outside of it, and some of the protesters as well. In many cases,

they actively assist me, translating content from Arabic, tracking down documents or videos for me, helping me verify rumors, etc. So some of them have become part of my curation

process.“ Andy Carvin, NPR Senior Strategist +

“International Supporters: How can we help“

#optunisia #opegypt#oplybia

Social mediasets new rules

New demands & rights :Internet and social media have become a condition for civil society expression and organization

New tools :open new battlefields

New fears :Double edged nature of internet and social media

Social media opensnew possibilities

Mobilization

Raise awareness

Control & infowars

Representation/identity

Globalization

Data and analytics

Facilitate mobilization and protests organizationHave become a fundamental infrastructure for social movements

Amplify the voices of a fewAllow civil society to set the agendaProvide sources and witnesses to mediaHost conversation and debates

Are more difficult to control thantraditional mediaOpens new battlefields, building new opportunities & risks

Dismissed the idea of an islamic driven revolution

Give traces and metrics to measure/study social movements

Globalize local movementsBuild global citizenship

"Mr. President, Tunisians are setting themselves on fire“ 12 649 members

“Jan25, Jour de la Révolution sur la torture, la pauvreté, la corruption et le

chômage“ 60 561 members

“Tunisie“ 630 582 members

“Autoriser Wael Ghonim à parler au nom des rebelles d’Egypte“ 287 439 members

Facebook

“We are all Khaled Said“ 98 577 members +

Links between Gene Sharp (the best weapon against violent repression is non-violent protest), Serbian activists, a google executive, Tunisian and Egyptian protesters and Muslim brotherhood + +

“April 6th youth movement“ 100 605 membres +

“Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas”

A 2 years pan arab activist movementTrained by Srdja Popovic, the leader of Otpor! Otpor is a non violent student organization that participate in Slobodan Milosevic overthrow

Twitter

“Twitter is an information-distribution network, not that different from the telephone or email or text messaging, except that it is real-time and massively distributed — a message posted by a Tunisian blogger can be re-published thousands of times and transmitted halfway around the world in the blink of an eye. That is a very powerful thing, in part

because the more rapidly the news is distributed, the more it can create a sense of momentum, helping a revolution to “go viral”“ +

#Sidibouzid #Jan25 #Feb17 #Egypt #Tahrir #Tunisie #Cairo

“We use Twitter to campaign and spread the word about protests/stands- hashtags are invaluable in that respect, and to share news quickly and efficiently, with our own 140-char

commentary on them, and subsequently have conversations with random people/complete strangers. But most importantly, it allows us to share on the ground info like police brutality, things to watch out for, activists getting arrested“

Questions and analytics about twitter’s function +

Social media and media

“Egyptian says, facebook used to set the date, twitter used to share logistics, youtube to show the world, all to connect “

@JaredCohen - head of Google ideas

Social media autonomous zone

Social media vs. media

“Tunisia is so rarely covered by any mainstream media, and yet for several weeks I saw twitter and FB lighting up with one protest after

another.“Andy Carvin, NPR Senior Strategist +

Media are controlled by the rulers.Social media are controlled by the governed.

“Amateurs video footage are posted on Nawaat or Takriz, they are tweeted and RT, they are published on large facebook fan pages, they end on Al Jazeera and appear in international media articles ”

Benjamin Barthe, journaliste @lemonde

Social media provides stories/witnesses to journalists

Social media fuels the media

On the day Moubarak resigned, social networks brought more traffic on Al Jazeera’s website than search engine. Source :

Techrunch

Source : http://trends.google.com

Media fuels social media

“ On twitter #sidibouzid #tunisie #tunisia and #tunes became trending

hashtags when international media started covering the events (on jan the 14th, 2/3 weeks after the first uprisings) “

Source : http://trendistic.com/

Produce/Document/Witness

Distribute/SynchronizeIdentify/Check/SourceDebate/Measure

Globalize/Legitimize

States and InternationalInstitutionstake position and pressures

Voice messages to tweets

Text messages to web based mapping applications

Landline communication

Transmission from satellite television to radio

Satellite news broadcast of tweets

Speak2Tweet Platform

Ushahidi & Google maps

Al Jazeera’s broadcast of Tweets on satellite news made it possible for the information feedback loop to continue

French ISP FDN set up a dial up 56k connection during internet black-out

Al-Arabiya satellite news fed its content to a radio, and as the satellite news was broadcast via radio

Al Jazeera consistently publicized hotline numbers for Google’s Speak2Tweet system

Success of cross-platform strategies

Satellite news broadcast of hotline numbers

How does media and journalism changes as you participate in social media

and have constant connection to what’s

happening from people on the scene?

Social media coverage, curationand real time narrative

Andy Carvin +Asteris Masoura + Nawaat 24sur24 +

Sources :Andy Carvin Curating the revolution building a real time news feed about Egypt +

Ethan Zuckerman interviews Andy Carvin +

• Live tweet and live blog• Weave your network with local bloggers and twitterers• Expand your network• Monitor the tweets• Use twitter clients• 400 tweets a day• Use storify to curate

« It wasn't an assignment for work or anything »

Infowar

Shut down the internetDDOS attacksFiltering of websites/pages

Account piracy and stealing private dataHacking and phishing websites

Infiltrate social networksProduce and distribute contents

Government policy

Access

Data collection

Monitoring and influence

1. Tuesday 25 January 2011 - 01:30pm: some mobile lines shutdown including FDEP hotlines, twitter.com and bambuser.com blocked in Egypt.

2.Tuesday 25 January 2011 - 08:0pm: network coverage in Tahrir Square shutdown.

3.Wednesday 26 January 2011: twitter.com & bambuser.com are accessible (10:30pm), facebook.com is blocked and some mobile lines are re-activated.

4.Thursday 27 January 2011 - 09:40pm: short message service (SMS) & internet connection shutdown (except one internet service provider (ISP) where the government moved on the stock exchange and financials process).

5.Friday 28 January 2011: landlines shutdown in some areas in Cairo, satellite internet connection is interrupted and mobile phone calls are re-activated.

6.Monday 31 January 2011 - 11:30pm: last internet service provider in Egypt shutdown.

7.Wednesday 2 February - 2011, 12:30pm: internet connection is re-activated.

8.Sunday 6 February - 12:35 am: SMS re-activated.

Interruption chronology

Cut off the internet & cell phones

= economic suicide

« La censure d'internet a galvanisé la population et l'a forcée à se rendre dans la rue pour obtenir de l'information" Wael Gohnim, head of Google marketing for Africa and Middle-East

90M$

Censorship

Google/Twitter speak to tweetFacebook protecting fan pagesTwitter whitelisting heavy twitterers

DDOS attacks on government websitesWriting scripts to counter phishingProviding proxies

Translations, sharing experiences

Civil society reactions

Corporate

Anonymous

Crowdsourcing

Afterwards

Among most discussed topics on We are all Khalel Said page :

• Please, suggest your recommendations, ideas, guidance or advice for Our New Egypt! : 145 publications • The new Egyptian Constitution : 33 publications • Suggestions for projects to help Egypt progress and Improve : 29 publications

A wiki for the collaborative writing of a new Egyptian constitution +

And then, aren’t social media a better place for protest than construction?

Like tear gas, tools allowing to control the internet are

built & sold by western countries

"Si les États-Unis et d’autres gouvernements occidentaux veulent soutenir la liberté sur Internet, ils devraient commencer par interdire l’exportation de produitsde censure et d’autres logiciels de filtrage vers

nos pays."

Sami Ben Gharbia

There is not a street revolution on one side and an internet and social media revolution on the other side.

There is not a social media ecosystem on one side and a traditional media landscape on the other side.

lesson #1

lesson #2