Revolution, social media, cyber protest - Online disappointment

[FarCenter]

Young Tunisian bloggers who promoted and recorded the events of the Arab Spring now find that, without a common enemy, the social media are just a cacophony of divided and conflicting views

by Smain Laacher and Cédric Terzi

...
That December, they received and posted images of the police shooting at young demonstrators. They felt an extraordinary surge of national solidarity, which drove them on to the streets and kept them up all night at their computers, posting images of protests and police brutality.

With hindsight, this was the moment when a community united, and then crumbled. Ben Ali’s departure was celebrated in a surge of national unity but it also marked the return of divisions. Without their common enemy, the bloggers became political rivals. Relations were undermined by infighting, suspicion and defamation: “We don’t know who is our enemy any more,” said A Tunisian Girl (6), who has a big media profile in the West. “We are divided now. Some bloggers stand by each other, others don’t.” Hamadi Kaloutcha is also disillusioned: “Since 14 January 2011, there is such a hubbub on the internet that we can’t think clearly any more. It is difficult to make ourselves heard for infighting.” Social networks have had a huge influx of new members, including many who spread false information and tamper with videos and photographs. The result is cacophony.

Enthusiasm among media commentators for the role of social media in the Tunisian revolution has overshadowed the experience of the activists. Their helplessness and confusion should be heeded, even though it contradicts what the world has come to believe. Western governments, media and researchers who consider the bloggers to be the legitimate voices of the Tunisian people may not have helped the unity of progressive forces.

http://mondediplo.com/2012/02/15socialmedia

I'm part way though THE NET DELUSION by Evgeny Morozov, which deals with the excessive optimism of those who believe that the internet and social media inherently lead to democratic outcomes. It's a good read.

[FarCenter]

1. Revolution, social media, cyber protest - Live, on the Egyptian street

It’s already the conventional view that new social media inspired and aided the Arab Spring, especially the Egyptian revolution. The reality was a little different

by Navid Hassanpour

http://mondediplo.com/2012/02/14newmedia

[leveymg]

2. Reflects the same overexpectation for transformation of traditional politics in the US

We all imagined that somehow our online activism and netroots support of Obama and the Dems would transform the Party and the presidency. Instead, the apparachiks have merely colonized the.netroots. Power does not willingly allow itself to be democratized.

[FarCenter]

3. Morozov's book has good descriptions of the techniques that authoritarian regimes can use

to spread propaganda, censor sites, and gather intelligence.

[leveymg]

4. Happens here, too. Please post some excerpts. thnx

[FarCenter]

6. From the chapter on "slacktivism" --

The unthinking glorification of digial activism makes its practitioners confuse priorities with capabilities. Getting people onto the streets, which may indeed become easier with modern communication tools, is usually the last stage of a protest movement, in both democracies and autocracies. One cannot start with protests and think of political demands and further steps later on. There are real dangers to substituting strategic and long-term action with spontneous street marches. Angela Davis, a controversial activist in the civil rights movement, knows a thing or two about organizing. Davis, who used to associate with the Black Panthers in the early 1970s, gradually emerged as one of the most talented organizers on the left, having played an important role in the struggle for civil rights. Today she is concerned with the long-term effects of the growing ease of mobilization on the effectiveness of social movements. "It seems to me that mobilization has displaced organization, so that in the contemporary moment, when we think about organizing movements, we thnk about bringing masses of people into the streets," writes Davis in her 2005 book Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisions, and Torture.

The dangers of this development are obvious. The newly gained ability to mobilize may distract us from developing a more effective capacity to organize. As Davis remarks, "it is difficult to encourage people to thnk about protracted struggles, protracted movements that require very careful organizing interventions that don't always depend on our capacity to mobilize demonstrations." Just because you can mobilize a hundred million people on Twitter, in other words, does not mean you should; it may only make it harder to accomplish more strategic objectives at some point in the future. Or as Davis herself puts it: "The Internet is an incredible tool, but it may also encourage us to thnk that we can produce instantaneous movements, movements modeled after fast food delivery."

It seems that Iran's Green Movement may have been much more successful in 2009 had they heeded Davis's advice. While the unique decentralized nature of Internet communications allowed the protesting Iranians to effectively bypass censorship and broadcast information outside of Iran, it also prevented the movement from acting in a strategic thought-out fashion or, at least, speaking with one voice. When the time came to act in unison, thousands of Facebook groups couldn't collect themselves into a coherent whole. Iran's Twitter Revolution may have drowned in its own tweets: There was just too much digital cacophony for anyone to take decisive action and lead the crowds. As one Iranian commentator bitterly remakred on his blog: "A protest movement without a proper relationship with its own leaders is not a movement. It is no more than a blind rebellion in the streets which will vanish sooner than you can imagine." Social media only further added to the confusion, for, while information seemed to be coming from everywhere, it was not obvious that anyone was in control. "Cell phone cameras, Facebook, Twitter ...seem...to be making everything happen much faster. There's no time to argue what it all means--what the protesters want, if they're ready to die. The movement rolls forward, gathering speed, and no one really knows where it's going," writes a young Iranian who participated in the 2009 protests, got arrested, and penned a book about all those experiences under the pseudonym Afsaneh Moqadam.

Just because the Internet allows everyone to lead doesn't mean that nobody should follow. It's not so hard to imagine how any protest movement might be overstretched by the ease of communications. When everyone can send a tweet or a Facebook message, it's safe to assume that they will. That those numerous messages would only increase the communication overload and may slow down everyone who receives them seems to be lost on those touting the virtues of online organizing.

Note: Both Evgeny Morozov and Angela Davis were writing before the Arab Spring and before Occupy Wall Street. I'd be curious whether their views have changed. Morozov is working on another book, so we may find out.

[leveymg]

7. Davisss makes a good point about McMovements and Morozov's

Observation about how Tweets have replaced leaders in mobilization leads to chaos is also a valuable insight. Looks like a book I'll want to read. Thnx!

[tabatha]

5. There is also something that everyone is forgetting.

When there is a common enemy one unites.

Look at DU - all united against Bush. When Obama won, things started getting not so unified.

Also, people who were too scared to voice their opinions under Gaddafi, Ben Ali, etc are not used to being able to do so and keeping it disciplined.