Social media for revolt

By Our Special Correspondent

This is how revolution in Egypt is believed to have started: Last June two policemen arrested Khaled Said, a 28-year-old businessman, in Alexandria. He was beaten and killed as he reportedly had a video evidence of police corruption. Within five days of his death, an anonymous guy created a Face-book page---We Are All Khaled Said. He posted cell phone photos from the morgue of Said’s mutilated and battered face and head. YouTube videos had contrasting images--- Said’s smiling and Said’s beaten and battered face. The murder gnawed people and the Face book page eventually became a rallying point for Hosni Mubarak’s ouster. It nearly garnered about more than 4, 75000 users.

Wael Ghonim, 30, head of Google marketing operations in the Middle East, is said to be the ‘admin’ behind the Face book page. His arrest and highly publicized release. And emotional interviews on TV where he broke down made this anonymous ‘admin’ on the Face book page We Are All Khaled Said a hero for Egyptians. It has never been in doubt as how effective social media is. But with revolution in Egypt it has notched up some tremendous gains. Social media helped the cause of the protesters.

In the bygone era, there were instances of people going on horses to spread the news of impending news of war. The news mobilized villages and town people, and prepared them to meet the threats. Later on, letters and telegrams played this role.

With social media networks, the reach has grown unimaginably. The reach is instantaneous, far-reaching and global. A Face book page can create a global community. On Twitter, it is one hell of updates #Egypt. Streams of messages keep pouring in, in 140, characters.

“Social media broke the back of information back of information monopoly particularly for the regimes that control information and use it to remain in power,” says Lokanathan, a techie.

The protests in Egypt are being telecast live, Face booked, You Tubed and tweeted in real time. However, it is not all due to social media because, as everybody knows, there were revolutions before.

“It would be an exaggeration to say this revolution is social media based,” he says, adding: “Revolutions were there before, but now the participants, the protesters have the scope to beam their messages in real time. And keep the thing right in front of you all the time.”

Social media reinforce the message “we, the people,” better than any constitution possibly can. It is for the people, by the people.

Social media has made it possible to engage the audience to its core. As the protests continue relentlessly towards something unknown and unpredictable, you feel the anger, hear the crowds, experience gut-churning confusion; you notice the regime’s menace that hovers around Tahrir square in Cairo. “This is great,” says Satwik, an engineering student, who thought until now that social media is all about girls photos, relationships and similar stuff. “I never thought that this mode could be used like this, real time videos of people there.”

His friend Naveen chips in: “We are into social networking sites primarily to see pictures. Until now, it was all about silly things like navel-gazing. But now I feel it is entirely on a different level. I mean how they spread the messages across the world.”

Now, protests feel tangible and visceral. They are no longer happening in distant backwaters. They are damn real, playing out in your living rooms, on cell phones, on blackberries, on tweets, on online chats. Due to social media, Egyptian revolution is personal, communal and viral.