We all know about the revolutions that are taking place in the Arab countries a few months. Tunisia in December and January, Egypt in January and February and as of a few days ago Libya…
This topic got my attention when I heard yesterday morning in the news that Libya cut off the Internet network in the country. I also heard a month ago about the Egypt revolution.
I was wondering why? The first thing I thought was they did it because the government wanted to control the news that the foreign countries can get, by allowing just one or two TV channels to give the news about the situation. So, I looked on the Internet and that was not the reason or not the main one…
Those revolutions are actually started through the social media network. In their autocratic governments, the population was not used to express its feelings toward them. However, they did it through social media tools like Facebook or Twitter. According to, CNN the marches for the Egypt revolution started thanks to Facebook messages.
These last months, I got on my Facebook page so many “Facebook friends” status protesting for the Revolution and against Ben Ali (Ex Tunisia president)… So the protests were all over the web and all over the world.
This proliferation of rebellions against Arab governments has caused those revolutions and is still causing more. It is like a snow ball which does not stop and is getting bigger. Through the internet, the population of Arab countries gets to talk to each other and see what is happening in the neighboring countries. So the anger they have against their political leader is getting stronger as they see that in the other countries they are fighting for more liberty and for a new government and that seems to be working…
We can see these protests on all social media tools; the most popular are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. If you type into YouTube “Arab revolutions”, you will see a lot of videos appear. When you type more precise words you get to see how many home videos are made, people with their phones recorded all the scenes of the events in Tahrir Square, Egypt for example.
I will conclude on this topic by saying that social media network can be used in so many positive ways but also a few bad. I am not saying that asking for more liberty is bad, but I am saying that those revolutions are causing the death of thousands of people, so the consequences can be very negative.
On the other hand, the example of YouTube shows us, once again, that social media is good for us because we can see what is really happening over there and not being manipulated by journalists and/or governments.
Finally, these news events prove that we are in a new era where social media tools are essential and used as an everyday tool all over the world.
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I agree that social media is changing the way current events are portrayed and received in today's society. With anything, people will abuse it. Some countries have banned the use of Twitter and Facebook as a way to protest their dislike for their country's government decisions. In order to get around that, I saw on Good Morning America where in one country a group of citizens used a well known dating website and had codes so they knew they were discussing governmental protests and could avoid getting in trouble from the government. I personally would not be as aware of the uprisings across the Atlantic Ocean if it wasn't for social media. My time to watch the news is limited to 5 minutes in the morning as I'm walking in and out of my room getting ready. Social media allows citizens to get their opinion out and possibly have it heard by those who have a voice in the political system.
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