Social Media the causes for uprising in Egypt?

It all started with Tunisia and things began similarly, thousands began taking to the streets to protest poverty, rampant unemployment, government corruption and autocratic governance of President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for 30 years. (Deeb. S.E 2011)

These were the first protests on such a large scale in Egypt since the 1970s., the protests demanding that President Hosni Mubarak step down were a catalyst for years or decades of repressed anger at mistreatment at the hands of the state and country where social media play an important role towards the even which started on 25th January 2011 and right before social media was commercialised, people were afraid to go against the authorities with possible prosecution. This is when social media such Facebook and twitter began to get popular throughout the globe when people across the globe is connected through their personal computer only with internet connectivity is compulsory. It all begins when people around Egypt started to interacting with this sites and it made possible where almost 80 million of the population is more connected to each ever as before. (Boyd.E.B 2011)

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, cell phones and even cable news outlets are putting a tremendous amount of power right into the hands of the people. And don't think for a second that the rest of the Arab world isn't watching what is happening when information that is allocated on the world wide web in tremendous amount. For starters, these communication tools allow ordinary citizens to plan, organize and accelerate protests in a way that was unthinkable just a few years ago. They can spread the word about mass protests, ensuring more people will show up. In turn, the sheer size of some of these protests makes it close to impossible for officials to stop them. (Cafferty.J 2011)

Just imagine the world with the innovation of social media back when it was during the 1960s or 1970s, what could possibly happen when the assassination of Martin Luther King took place? People might even stand up and democracy will go into a very next level where freedom of speech is no longer able to be restrict by several governmental organisations and suppression of truth because the people is sick with the lies made by the news media and the conspiracy involved, the truth and justice is what people want and widely expected more uprising against the government especially the rest of the middle east nation will have something to be worried on if such regime existed in those country soon enough that we would expected it to begin.

References:

Deeb.S.E 2011, Egypt’s uprising unites society in rage, for many, protests were catalyst for years or decades repressed anger at government, Mideast N. Africa on msnbc.com, viewed 7 June 2011, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41334041/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/egypts-uprising-unites-society-rage/.

BOYD E.B. 2011, How Social Media Accelerated the Uprising in Egypt, Fast Company, viewed 7 June 2011, <http://www.fastcompany.com/1722492/how-social-media-accelerated-the-uprising-in-egypt>.

Jack C 2011, Social media and Egypt uprising, CNN Politics, viewed 6 June 2011, <http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/31/social-media-egypt-uprising/>.