A strange combination of things happened to me this week: I saw The Social Network for the first time and the very next day the protests in Cairo, Egypt escalated to a breaking point. It got me thinking for a couple reasons.
First, my wife and I recently returned from a trip to Cairo in October and we saw just how deplorable the conditions are there. Poverty. Too many people, not enough jobs. Authoritarian rule that smothers public protests. So, I am not surprised by the people’s desire for change.
Then I got to thinking about The Social Network and wondered if that geek from Harvard realized what a powerful tool he was creating at the time. After all, it was his invention (depending on who you believe in the movie) that helped the pro-democracy protesters in Egypt organize and gather against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak. Activists there – and throughout the Arab nations – have used Facebook, Twitter and other social media to rally supporters online, coordinate protests, share tips on how to dodge arrest and deal with tear gas, as well as guidance on what to chant. In fact, one of the driving forces for Egypt’s calls for change was a Facebook group set up by activists enraged by the death of an anti-corruption activist.
Social media has played a remarkable role not only in how Egyptians used it to coordinate the anti-government protests in Cairo, but also in how the world has witnessed, relayed information, and organized around the crisis. Among Egyptian Americans, Facebook has played a big role in organizing solidarity rallies in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities.
It’s called “liberation technology” and it’s powerful. So powerful that the Egyptian government shut down Internet access in the area just hours before the largest planned protests. So powerful that a member of a Facebook group calling for the protests wrote: “This revolution will be called the revolution of the Internet youth. We will take it all the way to the end.”
So, while The Social Network may portray Mark Zuckerberg as an arrogant, ruthless young man who invented Facebook to help his chances with the ladies and allow him to hang out with Harvard’s elite, maybe he wasn’t all that bad. Just ask the thousands fighting for their freedom in Cairo and around the world.
