While Facebook may have helped organise the protests that led up to Egypt's revolution, its real importance had to do with costs, writes Arne Klau* In spring 1989, Turkish economist Timur Kuran wrote a widely noticed academic article, Sparks and Prairie Fires -- A Theory of Unanticipated Political Revolution, using economic tools to explain political revolutions. The revolutions Kuran considered were those in France (1789), Russia (1917) and Iran (1979), not knowing that his paper subject would attract additional interest through the revolutions in Eastern Europe in that very same year. One of the main assumptions of Kuran's paper was the distinction between the private opinion individuals have and their publicly expressed opinion. In other words: people may conceal their true opinion about the political regime they live in. Why should they? Basically, because their behaviour comes at a cost. Expressing dissatisfaction with a government, particularly in unfree societies, may be punished with anything from social pressure over prison to torture, which is well known. On the other hand, concealing one's true opinion brings with it long-time psychological costs as a result of being dishonest. Individuals will minimise the costs of their behaviour. Under a repressive, but stable regime, most people will find it prudent to remain outwardly loyal to the existing order. Their silence makes society appear stable, even though it may find itself in the throes of revolution. Now assume there is a slight surge in the size of the open opposition, triggered by outside events or by more vocal protests of those few who have never hidden their criticism. This is when sparks can turn into a prairie fire: more and more individuals reach their boiling points, publicly express their dissatisfaction, and jump on the revolutionary bandwagon, accompanied by a sudden and massive shift in collective sentiment. This can bring the system to collapse, also because an increasing number of people believe it will do so. Kuran's approach also explains convincingly why all these revolutions seem so logical in hindsight, while usually, when they were happening, they even took political experts by surprise. Now enter Facebook and Egypt -- but where and how? Many have underlined the importance of social media as mobilisation mechanisms and coordinating tools; some have even talked about a Facebook revolution. While social media may have had their merits in organising the protests, I believe that their true importance lies somewhere else. Again, it has to do with costs. Both Facebook and Twitter allowed Egyptians to communicate, at very low costs, their disappointment with the government. This also included the mild opposition strategies of many of Egypt's more than five million Facebook users, such as changing profile photos into an Egyptian flag or a picture of an illuminated Tahrir Square. The costs of these strategies are low, in particular when compared to the old, non-Facebook world, where open disagreement usually involved physically attending a public protest at the risk of being arrested or beaten up. As a result, more and more individuals will express their dissatisfaction simply because others are doing so. Furthermore, social media allow individuals more easily to find out about the true preferences of others. Seeing an increasing number of others change their profile photos, discuss the events or even express open criticism made it much easier to gauge the effective level of dissatisfaction in pre-revolution Egypt. This lowered the barrier for many to finally protest publicly; this is also what got the ball rolling. Facebook paved the way for Tahrir Square. Leaders in China, Saudi Arabia and other countries that suppress civil liberties know all too well why they maintain tight controls on social media. * The writer is adjunct professor of economics at the American University in Cairo.
