Social Media: A Double-Edged Sword

The millennial generation and generation X have always been allowed freedom of speech under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration, which was adopted in 1948 states that:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Today, when I check my Twitter and Facebook feeds I seldom think of the socio-cultural possibilities these new media platforms present because of my right to freedom of speech. Americans have the right to tweet, post, and blog about whatever they believe in whether it is discriminatory or not, the government does not and cannot interfere. However, this right to free posting or even free speech has not been accepted by the whole world. In particular, the governments of the Middle East and North Africa have maintained control over their people for decades through oppression and violence. Now, with the rise of new media the people living in the Middle East and North Africa are able to broadcast their opinions for the whole world, and despite governmental attempts the message of the people can no longer be silenced. While some bloggers, academics, and politicians across the world have expressed concern that the use of social media in these locations has only fueled more terror from the government, others think the opposite. Sociologist Mark Granovetter believes that platforms built on social media activism are “weak ties” because on Twitter and Facebook users often have many followers that they have never met.  Ultimately, Granovetter argues that the distance between social media users allows for power to be exploited through a “diffusion of innovation” meaning that “these ties seldom lead to high-risk activism.” While Granovetter raises an excellent point about the power of social media, others believe that weak ties are beneficial because they often lead to a persons greater understanding because acquaintances provide many innovative ways of thought. Despite the differing opinions it cannot be denied that social media has organized, empowered, and led to high-risk activism in Iran and Egypt, thus indicating that the Internet can stand up to governmental oppression - however double-edged the outcome may be. 

In Malcolm Gladwell’s article Small Change, Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, Gladwell addresses the role of social media in a revolution. He begins with an overview of the book “Here Comes Everybody” written by NYU professor Clay Shirky, which argues that Internet provides “the ease and speed with which a group can be mobilized for the right kind of cause.” Clay proves his point through the story of a man named Evan and his girlfriend Ivanna. Ivanna left her sidekick in a taxicab, and when Evan tried to get the phone back the teenager who had it refused to return the device. Evan was angry, and set up a website with a photo of the teenager and a description of the event and sent it around to all of his friends. The website got linked to MySpace and its degree of popularity allowed the story to be picked up by the local news and the N.Y.P.D was able to return the phone to its rightful owner. Clay argues that Evan would have never gotten the sidekick back without the help of the Internet. While Clay agrees with Granovetter that social media outlets are a series of weak ties, Clay, unlike Granovetter, believes that these ties do effectively allow activists to express and spread their message. Furthermore, Clay argues that these ties “shift our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability.” While Clay’s notion of a shift in strategic energy makes sense, can social media outlets organize anything greater than one man’s quest for a lost phone? Do these weak ties even have the possibility to promote real activism?

The Atlantic article How Governments Deal with Social Media by Alex Howard, like Granovetter, deals with the importance of  the weak ties social media produces. Howard draws attention to Alex J. Ross who is the senior innovation designer for Hilary Clinton. Ross believes that “connection technologies, including social media, tend to devolve power from the nation state and large institutions to individuals and small institutions.” Meaning that the rise of new media has taken power away from large institutions (the government) and given it to the individuals (the protestors). This has certainly been the case in both Egypt and Iran, however, the government has not stopped trying to regain control. In terms of governmental practices, Ross states that governments who do not engage with social media opens themselves up to attacks and uprisings, which was one of the main reasons that citizens of Egypt and Iran were able to rise up: the government wasn’t web 2.0 savvy. Furthermore, with the mainstream media constantly merging with social media, successful governments need to be technologically current as nowadays more people tweet than watch TV. Despite the power of social media Howard draws the conclusion that “under repressive governments and autocracies, social media can act as a tool of oppression as well as freedom.” Recent events in Egypt have proved that while social media has an impact in starting a revolution, it is also extremely dangerous. One story in particular that illustrates the role social media can have on a population is that of Khaled Said. Khaled was a 28-year-old Alexandrian who was brutally beaten and murdered in public by two policemen. The attack was witnessed by many, captured on cell phones and posted on YouTube. A man by the name of Wael Ghonim, who was born in Egypt and had worked as a Google marketing executive was particularly outraged by Khaled’s murder. Ghonim anonymously created a Facebook page to protest the murder and the page soon attracted over 473,000 followers. In Steve Coll’s article The Internet: For Better or For Worse he details that after the creation of the Facebook page Ghonim communicated with people on the ground in Egypt and physical protests ensued. Ghonim was arrested for his actions, but the revolution could not be stopped. A revolution Ghonim believes “started online.”

Protest in Tahrir Square 

The main protest began in late January 2011 in Tahrir Square and spread throughout Cairo. Despite the widespread believe that the power of the Internet started the revolution, others disagree. In the article In Unsettled Times, Media Can Be a Call to Action, or a Distraction, Noam Cohen assesses those who disagree with the idea that the power of the Internet led to the Tahrir Square protest. Cohen draws upon Navid Hassanpour work as his main example. Hassanpour believed that because of the rowdiness social media groups caused during the protests the Egyptian government had just cause to shut down the Internet. Hassanpour believes that the protest got out of hand because “full connectivity in social networks sometimes can hinder collective action”, meaning that while social media is beneficial for organization, using it during real action can created confusion, pandemonium, and a delay of truth. On paper Hassanpour’s point seems to make sense, but in reality, when the government shut down the Internet in Egypt it only fueled more anger.

In Egypt, social media was used to shed light on corruption, but as author of The Net Delusion, Evgeny Morozov points out social media and the Internet are “an arsenal of weapons…far more potent than police baton, surveillance cameras, and handcuffs.” Illustrated best in Steve Coll's article, this was certainly the case during the 2009 Green Movement Uprising in Iran. The outrage that followed the 2009 Iranian elections led to a widespread revolt that was not initially fueled by the citizens of Iran but rather by Iranian exiles abroad. Morozov details that the exiles relied on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to spark internal war. The revolts became so violent that the Iranian government asked that all forms of social media be suspended inside Iran. While the United States urged Twitter and YouTube providers to hold off on doing so, as it gave hope to the protestors, the Iranian government seized as many social media users in Iran as they could find and threw them in jail. According to Morozov, the United States attempted diplomatic act “triggered a worldwide Internet panic and politicized all online activity, painting it in bright revolutionary colors and threatening to tighten online spaces and opportunities that were previously unregulated.” The Green Movement Uprising fueled by Internet providers outside of Iran actually created dangerous unrest. By comparing the use of social media during the protests in Egypt and Iran, Morozov is correct in saying that technology and social media can indeed be used for both good and evil.

Despite the danger social media presents in these countries, as illustrated in Steve Coll’s article, Hillary Clinton believes that Internet freedom is desperately needed in all countries because it has become “the public space of the twenty-first century.”

The clip above is taken from Clinton’s major policy speech (1/21/10) and further illustrates Coll's point in regards to the power of the Internet. Clinton illustrates that since the Internet is “a network that magnifies the power and potential of all others it critical that that is users are assured certain basic freedoms.” However, Clinton does not take into account that while Internet freedom is important, if governments are resistant, the Internet will cause more harm than good. Despite some governments extreme resistance, Clinton is not the only one who believes in the importance of immediate universal Internet freedom. Author of The Master Switch, Tim Wu, agrees with Clinton that the Internet is an extremely powerful and influential medium. Wu draws parallels to the rise of radio, pointing out that when the radio was first introduced people tried to ban and censor it because it connected people like never before. But, the difference between the radio and the Internet is that because the Internet allows for discourse it has changed the democratic process like no other medium. Ultimately, Wu states that, “the individual holds more power than at any time in the past century, and literally in the palm of his hand.”

Social media has presented an interesting and complex dilemma that doesn’t have one correct answer. Banning social media in places of unrest seems to only fuel the unrest further and when social media is used as a way to end injustice the government responds with anger and violence. The main thing is that whether governments like it or not social media has been introduced to the people and their voices can no longer be silenced. In a Paley Center discussion entitled The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change a group of professionals gathered together to discuss the social media revolution. In response to this question, Andrew Rasiej, social entrepreneur and co-founder of techPredient quoted academic Dave Perry, reinforcing the mentality that, “you can ­­­­­­turn off the public Internet but you can’t turn off the Internet public.” Rasiej uses this quote to illustrate his point that “people who use the Internet just think differently.” He points to Egypt specifically in this argument, commenting on the fact that the protestors in Egypt believe that organized minorities are far more powerful than disorganized majorities which is why protestors are attacking anyone who attempts to fill the majority void. Egypt itself is also a perfect example of the double-edge sword that social media presents because while the protestors became organized through the power of the Internet have created a seemingly permanent solution in sight. 

This protests in Egypt have transformed from being solely on the web to now taking place primarily on the ground. One Paley Center commentator in particular wonders why the effects of media have led people to loose faith in larger institutions. I think the people in Egypt and Iran have lost faith in larger institutions because those institutions have been nothing but oppressive to them in the past. The power of social media allows people to join together and become their own institution. In Martha Raddatz’s news broadcast: Social Media Fuels Protests in Iran, Bahrain, and Yemen, she discusses an effect called “cyber wildfire.” Solidarity Demonstrations: organized and uniformed protests in Iran,  have caused “wildfire” due to the protestors persistence in posting photos and videos from each protest. The cyber traffic Solidarity Demonstrations have experienced only further inspires people in Iran and helps them organize more and more protests. Now 90% of Solidarity Demonstration followers on Facebook are located in Iran. Not only are Iranians being inspired to protest by other Iranians, they are being inspired by Egyptians – an effect that would not be possible without the aid of the Internet. In the article Middle East in 2011: Social Media to Take on Government, Firas Al-Atraqchi details the exponential rise social media sites have seen in Egypt and Iran. The Committee Project Journalists (CPJ) states that Iran is the most dangerous place for bloggers and activists who use the media as their main resources. Furthermore, Al-Atraqchi states “the Internet Advertising Bureau estimates that year-on-year growth of Twitter users in the Middle East and Africa surged by 142% to five million.” Meaning that despite the violence, people in the Middle East and North Africa are still joining social media sites to broadcast their messages.

According to Fira Al-Atraqchi, this “constant tug of war between media reformists and the public on the one front and repressive policy-makers and authoritarian figures on the other” that the Middle East and North Africa are experiencing is not one that is going to go away anytime soon. This notion poses a great issue: how are these countries going to prosper, not to mention, survive without a balance between the ideals of the people and the goals of the government? The continuous power struggle in both Egypt and Iran prove that there isn’t a simple answer, and in my mind I do not see a compromise between the people and the government as a possibility. Both sides (protestors and officials) want vastly different outcomes, so one side will have to give into the others demands eventually. If there is one thing I am sure of is that I agree with Mark Pfeifle, former national security advisor, in his belief that Twitter should be nominated for a Noble Peace Prize because “without Twitter the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy.” Without the power and freedom Twitter and others forms of social media have given the people of Iran and Egypt there would not have have been a sword for them to fight with - however double-edged it may be. 

works cited:

Al-Atraqchi, Firas. "Middle East in 2011: Social Media to Take on Governments." The Huffington Post. 31 Dec. 2010. Web. 29 Sept. 2011

Cohen, Noam. "In Unsettled Times, Media Can Be a Call to Action, or a Distraction."The New York Times 28 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.

Coll, Steve. "The Internet: For Better of For Worse." The New Review of Books 7 Apr. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.

Gladwell, Malcolm. "Small Change, Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted." The New Yorker 4 Oct. 2010. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.

Howard, Alex. "How Governments Deal With Social Media." The Atlantic 9 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.

Osnos, Peter. "Social Media’s Impotence During the Turmoil in Libya and Japan." The Atlantic 22 Mar. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2011.

The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change. The Paley Center for Media, 2011. Web.

Social Media Fuels Protests in Iran, Bahrain, and Yemen. Perf. Martha Raddatz. ABC, 2011. Web.