The year 2010 firmly established the role of social networks and the Internet as mobilisation and news transmission tools. In 2010 alone, 250 million Internet users joined Facebook and by the end of the year, the social network had 600 million members. In September that year, 175 million people were Twitter users – 100 million more than in the previous year. The Western media had praised the Internet and its “liberator” role during the 2009 Iranian revolution. According to The New York Times, the demonstrators “shot tweets” back at bullets. However, Twitter was then used mainly by the diaspora. “The Net Delusion,” a theory advanced by Evgeny Morozov, an Internet expert, casts doubt on the Internet's role as a democratisation tool. Although the Internet is certainly used by dissidents, it is also used by the authorities to relay regime propaganda and enforce a police state. The Internet remains above all a tool used for the better or the worse. In the most closed countries, it creates a space of freedom which would not otherwise exist. Its potential to disseminate news irritates dictators and eludes traditional censorship methods. Some regimes use it – mainly on Facebook and Twitter – to monitor dissidents and infiltrate their networks. Nonetheless, the terms “Twitter Revolution” and “Facebook Revolution” have become watchwords with the events that rocked the Arab world in late 2010 and early 2011. The “online” movements were coupled with “offline” demonstrations, hastening the fall of dictators. The Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings turned out to be, first and foremost, human revolutions facilitated by the Internet and social networks. Facebook and Twitter served as sound boxes, amplifying the demonstrators' frustrations and demands. They also made it possible for the rest of the world to follow the events as they unfolded, despite censorship. The role of cell phones also proved crucial. Citizen journalists kept file-sharing websites supplied with photos and videos, and fed images to streaming websites. The Tunisian authorities had imposed a media blackout on what was going on in Sidi Bouzid. Since the so-called “traditional” media had failed to cover the protest movements that were rocking the country, at least at their beginning in December, their role as news sources and vectors was taken over by social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and news websites like Nawaat.org. Facebook in particular acted as a platform on which Internet users posted comments, photos and videos. The Bambuser streaming site also had its moment of glory. Everyone was able to track the events as they happened. The online calls for demonstrations spread to other countries: Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Syria, Iraq, Morocco, and even China and Vietnam, etc. **The above is a press release from Reporters Without Borders. Read the full story here. BM
