Facebook and Twitter are just Revolutionaries Go

After reading the article on Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go by Evgeny Morozov, few issues caught my attention and I would like to discuss and give my opinions on it.

First of all, I highly doubt that Facebook and twitter actually had a lot of influence on Tunisia and Tahrir Squares. The reason to my judgment is because most Tunisians and Egyptians do not have that kind of access in their countries to carry out such activities. Therefore, I personally think that it more has something to do with the popular movements that have already been growing in both countries for a period of time and it have become a part of their culture. This is a typical kind of scenario where individuals are blamed for the fall of something in particular, however, people neglected the fact that the public or others play might or could have play an part too.

This article had opened the aura of social media’s self enhancement. In the framework of huge confusion, protest and violence are considered common. This is when once information was difficult to obtain and required a lot of time and man work on a 24/7 stand by and always ready basis. However, some of these useful information were being used in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. The fact that it weren’t the tweeters or the retweeters who forced their government out, but they were the activists, the citizens who took the action. Furthermore, some people combined the two roles together, but one thing must always keep in mind, no technology or applications can replace people power.

Also, I think the evolvement of technologies are not the real cause of the world revolutions, in fact, they are just simply tools as the author had mentioned. However, 20 years ago, an upcoming country like Egypt could have been restrained and overturned by the government in just a few days of time and the rulers back then would have been free to speak out on the stories of happenings to the medias and press right after the event. Unfortunately, as Mubarak realized, that is impossible to do so when you have uncountable number of mobile phones, cameras, computers and other high tech devices around happily recording every detail of what’s going on the whole world and people are being informed in just seconds.

Facebook Twitter in some sense may have helped in organizing the protests and all, but these are simply nothing more than being tools itself. The foundation reasons are pure and easy to understand. Each country will have their own different problems and circumstances. It is all depending on the will and desire of what extend the particular country is willing to go on about something and how capable they are in order to maintain the situation. It would be better if they can resolve the problem within without getting help from the outside world. As much as moral support is good enough.

Facebook and Twitter are just a medium for communication and organizations. We must not mix and confuse the meaning between the medium and the message. What they provide is only instant communication. There isn’t much prove or evidence telling that social media is the final step of serious decision makings. For example, some people only knows and understand that Facebook is where you play SimCity to kill time when you are bored and Twitter is another where people go and see what their friends are up to, or a particular celebrity they like are doing too. Indeed technology plays an important part in people’s lives, but personally I do not think it is really as big or as important as how some people would like to make it as. At the end of the day, it will be all about people being themselves of who they are and how they interpret things and technology is just another tool at our disposal as we like.