Weapons of mass mobilisation
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Ashraful Azad and M Mizanur Rahman
Imagine a situation. You captured a video or took a picture of repression by any security forces or anyone else; upload it in youtube or facebook ; give the link in twitter. If the video or picture was worth watching, your friends or followers would 'like' it, commented on it and share it with their friends. The process of sharing would go on network after network. What would happen then? Yeah, your uploaded local or personal content would become truly global within few days. This kind event held when Egyptian police beat and killed Khaled Mohamed Saeed. After the death of this young businessman in June 2010, a facebook group was created titled 'We Are All Khaled Saeed'. Gradually, this group became one important platform to criticise the repression of Egyptian government. Subsequently, it managed to gather 400,000 members. This page called for protest on 25 January and we all know what happened next. Later, it was revealed that Wael Ghonim, Middle East and North African marketing manager at Google, created the group. Another important contribution in social media platform came from April 6 movement led by Aasma Mahfouz. These types of incidents were not seen before. They clearly indicate a new force in politics, the social media. Yes, the use of propaganda during war and peace is not new. We saw waves of information war between socialism and capitalism during cold war. Still, it is happening through media serving particular national or group interests. In this regard, the power of Jewish lobby group often comes to discussion. But, what different here is the messages coming from bottom. You can control a media house but you can not control hundreds of thousands minds mixing and sharing in Facebook or Twitter. The scenes and words of the protests are being spread all over the world in seconds even before the live reporting by any channel. One Egyptian activist tweeted during the protests, 'We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.' A video clip on YouTube shot from the balcony of a flat in Cairo showed protesters out in the streets, a man standing in front of water cannon, daring it to move. Such dramatic scenes transmitted all over the world through social media attracted the global community. According to Al Jazeera 'New media, from WikiLeaks to Facebook, Twitter to YouTube, is persistently challenging the traditional flow of information, and cyber disobedience is exposing powerful governments. Websites are now being treated like hostile territories; whistleblowers and leaders as terrorists, and hackers as insurgents'. An analysis at DAWN regarding the protesters writes, 'In fact they are fighting their war with phones, not guns. Wikileak, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook replace firearms and missiles. Viral spreads across the world are winning sympathies of the people and the governments for the revolutionists. 'Techno-realism' has become an affordable and effective tool as measures of the dictatorial regimes to suppress communication via web meets failure.' We should not forget one thing. The social media are not catalysts for revolution; they are just means or tools. People have real grievances such as unemployment, government repression, lack of social services etc. Social media have become excellent non-violent weapons to fight to attain the demands. Generally the internet and particularly the social media have become a force against governments, especially where freedom to express is not permitted. Governments also do not sit idle. During protests, all Facebook accounts in Tunisia were hacked, and in Egypt internet was shut down in most parts of the country. Fearing the danger of this new weapon; Chinese, Iranian and many governments practice harsh control over internet. Even we saw the shamelessness of the preacher of the freedom of expression US government when Wikileaks made the country nude in front of the world. Chinese government hired a group called '50 Cent Party' for writing pro-government comments in blogs and online forum. Russian government is trying to hire bloggers. US State Department has a Digital Outreach Team which is responsible for spreading US propaganda and fighting anti-US sentiments. It mainly works in Arabic, Persian and Urdu blogosphere. Recently, US military signed a contract with California based company Ntrepid to develop software which would allow manipulating conversations in social media sites. Recent incidents brought the issue of 'Internet Kill Switch'. If it is technologically possible for governments to shut down internet single-handedly, the democratic pro-poor appeal of the new media will be scaled down. Governments may switch off the whole internet system in the name of cyber security. It may be a very important future electoral and legislative issue. Social media has impacted on many parts of our life. There is much debate regarding its social and psychological outcome on users. They have made a virtual world where anyone may find the flavor of gossiping with old school friends staying in different hemisphere. Let's finish with a bitter fact. According to a new survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, one in five American divorces involves the social networking site Facebook. A UK law firm last year showed that 20 per cent of its divorce petitions blamed Facebook flings. A Rev. Cedric Millier in a church of New Jersey urged people to close Facebook accounts as it helps to create illegal relations. Later he was forced to take leave of absence when it is revealed that he himself had been involved with non-Facebook illegal sexual relationships. Like many other things in our life social medium is a tool which may bring peace or problem; it is the human consciousness which will ultimately choose among diversity of options. The writers Ashraful Azad works for research communication and M. Mizanur Rahman is a development researcher. E-mail: mithun@dnet.org.bd, mithunmds07@gmail.com
Imagine a situation. You captured a video or took a picture of repression by any security forces or anyone else; upload it in youtube or facebook ; give the link in twitter. If the video or picture was worth watching, your friends or followers would 'like' it, commented on it and share it with their friends. The process of sharing would go on network after network. What would happen then? Yeah, your uploaded local or personal content would become truly global within few days. This kind event held when Egyptian police beat and killed Khaled Mohamed Saeed. After the death of this young businessman in June 2010, a facebook group was created titled 'We Are All Khaled Saeed'. Gradually, this group became one important platform to criticise the repression of Egyptian government. Subsequently, it managed to gather 400,000 members. This page called for protest on 25 January and we all know what happened next. Later, it was revealed that Wael Ghonim, Middle East and North African marketing manager at Google, created the group. Another important contribution in social media platform came from April 6 movement led by Aasma Mahfouz. These types of incidents were not seen before. They clearly indicate a new force in politics, the social media. Yes, the use of propaganda during war and peace is not new. We saw waves of information war between socialism and capitalism during cold war. Still, it is happening through media serving particular national or group interests. In this regard, the power of Jewish lobby group often comes to discussion. But, what different here is the messages coming from bottom. You can control a media house but you can not control hundreds of thousands minds mixing and sharing in Facebook or Twitter. The scenes and words of the protests are being spread all over the world in seconds even before the live reporting by any channel. One Egyptian activist tweeted during the protests, 'We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.' A video clip on YouTube shot from the balcony of a flat in Cairo showed protesters out in the streets, a man standing in front of water cannon, daring it to move. Such dramatic scenes transmitted all over the world through social media attracted the global community. According to Al Jazeera 'New media, from WikiLeaks to Facebook, Twitter to YouTube, is persistently challenging the traditional flow of information, and cyber disobedience is exposing powerful governments. Websites are now being treated like hostile territories; whistleblowers and leaders as terrorists, and hackers as insurgents'. An analysis at DAWN regarding the protesters writes, 'In fact they are fighting their war with phones, not guns. Wikileak, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook replace firearms and missiles. Viral spreads across the world are winning sympathies of the people and the governments for the revolutionists. 'Techno-realism' has become an affordable and effective tool as measures of the dictatorial regimes to suppress communication via web meets failure.' We should not forget one thing. The social media are not catalysts for revolution; they are just means or tools. People have real grievances such as unemployment, government repression, lack of social services etc. Social media have become excellent non-violent weapons to fight to attain the demands. Generally the internet and particularly the social media have become a force against governments, especially where freedom to express is not permitted. Governments also do not sit idle. During protests, all Facebook accounts in Tunisia were hacked, and in Egypt internet was shut down in most parts of the country. Fearing the danger of this new weapon; Chinese, Iranian and many governments practice harsh control over internet. Even we saw the shamelessness of the preacher of the freedom of expression US government when Wikileaks made the country nude in front of the world. Chinese government hired a group called '50 Cent Party' for writing pro-government comments in blogs and online forum. Russian government is trying to hire bloggers. US State Department has a Digital Outreach Team which is responsible for spreading US propaganda and fighting anti-US sentiments. It mainly works in Arabic, Persian and Urdu blogosphere. Recently, US military signed a contract with California based company Ntrepid to develop software which would allow manipulating conversations in social media sites. Recent incidents brought the issue of 'Internet Kill Switch'. If it is technologically possible for governments to shut down internet single-handedly, the democratic pro-poor appeal of the new media will be scaled down. Governments may switch off the whole internet system in the name of cyber security. It may be a very important future electoral and legislative issue. Social media has impacted on many parts of our life. There is much debate regarding its social and psychological outcome on users. They have made a virtual world where anyone may find the flavor of gossiping with old school friends staying in different hemisphere. Let's finish with a bitter fact. According to a new survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, one in five American divorces involves the social networking site Facebook. A UK law firm last year showed that 20 per cent of its divorce petitions blamed Facebook flings. A Rev. Cedric Millier in a church of New Jersey urged people to close Facebook accounts as it helps to create illegal relations. Later he was forced to take leave of absence when it is revealed that he himself had been involved with non-Facebook illegal sexual relationships. Like many other things in our life social medium is a tool which may bring peace or problem; it is the human consciousness which will ultimately choose among diversity of options. The writers Ashraful Azad works for research communication and M. Mizanur Rahman is a development researcher. E-mail: mithun@dnet.org.bd, mithunmds07@gmail.com