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Spencer Ackerman is an American national security reporter and blogger. This article appeared in Wired magazine's national security blog, Danger Room. In this article, Ackerman describes how in late January, 2011, the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, responded to hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators protesting on the Egyptian streets by shutting off the internet and mobile phone access. The purpose of this was to keep the activists from organising further protests. This move did not work however, and the protesters didn't disperse. They did not have access to Facebook and Twitter, but instead took to the streets and protested in the traditional way. Al Jazeera, and other satellite news networks kept the public worldwide focused on the events. Mubarak then "began a brutal crackdown, with regime loyalists targeting dissidents and foreign journalists alike." (Ackerman, 2011) Despite the crackdown, says Ackerman, "the world still had viral-ready video footage of the truth of Egypt's precarious uprising", some of which can be viewed by clicking on the images in the article. A particular comment by a young female street protestor featured in one of the videos was interesting: "It's not about the internet," she said, "it's about the needs and demands of the Egyptian people". REFERENCE: Ackerman, S (February 4, 2011) Prayers, Protest, Police Brutality: Raw Videos From Egypt's Uprising Wired Retrieved 8th April, 2011 from http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/cairo-protest-videos/?pid=345

References: Ackerman, S. (2011). Prayers, Protest, Police Brutality: Raw Videos From Egypt's Uprising. Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/cairo-protest-videos/?pid=345 Kravets, D. (2011). What's Fueling Mideast Protests? It's More Than Twitter. Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/social-media-oppression/

The spotlight on the Northern Africa has been reignited on 15 April 2011 by release of the letter signed by US, British and French leaders. US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have said in a joint letter that there can be no peace in Libya while Muammar Gaddafi stays in power. They want to put a stop to the terrible horrors at Gaddafi's hands. The joint letter holds out the prospect of reconstruction for Libya with the help of the "UN and its members" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13090646). The 'domino effect' political situation in Northern Africa has been closely watched by the whole world. The Egypt attracted attention not just for its political protests but how the country's Internet and its services were shut down by its government during the protests. This demonstrates a level of power government can have over its people and communication. At the time of revolution the Egypt's dictator Hosni Mubarak messages and intentions were clear to grasp by anyone paying attention to politics: It is me 'Hosni Murabak' who controls the power in this country including the media; shutting down of the Internet and its services will put a stop to a fast communication platform for Egypt's people and connection with rest of the world; Egypt doesn't want any interferences from other countries, this is 'our revolution'; we will sort it out and I will stay in power as long as possible. According to Spencer Ackerman 'Suddenly, a protest movement that used Facebook pages and Twitter hashtags to coordinate and push its message out was back to the old-fashioned methods of street politicking'. However, according to other media coverage the Twitter was found as most powerful tool in network communication during the Egypt's Internet service government shut down. (e.g. Bergstrom, G. (2011). Egypt: The First Twitter

This ABC online article highlights some important aspects about the use of social-media and the role it played organising, coordinating and documenting Egypt's 2011 uprising. Firstly, the initial ban of web services such as Facebook and Twitter was an indication of the Egyptian government recognising the power, connectedness and participatory nature of social-media . In an attempt to silence the demonstrators and to avoid a repeat of the 2009 Iran revolution, Egyptian authorities took it one step further and not only blocked certain web site but completely shut down access to the entire world-wide-web (Stone, 2009). This act alone illustrates the fragility of the Internet, despite its decentralised design. Literally, with the flick of a switch, Internet Service Providers acting on government instructions blocked web access within the country. It can be argued the political protesting in Egypt would occur with our without a social-media influence; however, it is still important to examine the length Egyptian demonstrators went to in order to circumvent the Internet block and continue to take leverage from popular social media services. An example is the use of 'voice-to-tweet' - a cooperative development by Google, Twitter and an online voice provider called SayNow. This innovation allowed Egyptians to call a telephone number and leave a message which would automatically be converted to text, published on Twitter and tagged with #Egypt. This example highlights Twitter and new media being used for collaboration and participation; specifically between citizen activists and journalists around the world. Much like the Internet, news media was also blocked within Egypt and reporters faced the same communication challenges as everybody else, this workaround however was an effective way for Egyptians to stay connected and ensure their stories were continuing to be voiced to the eagerly listening global audience. Stone, B. (June 15, 2009). Social Net

The events that unfolded during the uprising in Egypt are a good example of how flexible and mobile social networks can be in relation to effective communication between members of society. Through the Egyptian government shutting off all Internet connections collaborative efforts were made by both Twitter and Google to still allow information to be distributed throughout the country. As stated above, the speak-to-tweet services were available in which voicemail messages were left and then converted into text messages, which were then posted via twitter (ABC News, 2011). This is a great example of how devices can be implemented and used to adjust to the situation at hand. In one of my previous posts I talked about the United States becoming concerned around social media's effectiveness in relation to social protest, in which they have made plans to impose legislation to create a 'kill switch' to re-create what the Egyptian government previous did, cut all lines of Internet communication in times of political disturbance (Grubb & Moses, 2011). The elements that unfolded in Egypt after the lines of Internet communication were cut is a good example of how other devices can be implemented for information to be distributed amongst society. It is not as simple as cutting off an Internet connection and assume that collaborative communication will cease. Just as the US government has seen the warning signs of the power of social networks, society has also seen the weakness in relying on a national Internet service. 'Mesh' Networks as I previously stated in another post are currently underdevelopment for mobile phones in which there is no central device, instead each node is equipped with radio communications which acts as a relay point to other nodes, placing the pressure off obtaining a connection from a main server (Gedda ,2010).

References: ABC News (2011). Voice tweets sidestep Egypt web ban. Retrieved April 17, 2011 from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/01/3126626.htm Grubb, B; Moses, A. (2011). As Egypt goes offline US gets Internet 'kill switch' bill ready. Retrieved April 17, 2011. From http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/as-egypt-goes-offline-us-gets-internet-kill-switch-bill-ready-20110131-1aah3.html Gedda, R. (2010). Mobile Phone Coverage Expanded Via 'Mesh' Networks. Retrieved April, 17, 2011. from http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/352948/mobile_phone_coverage_expanded_via_mesh_networks/.

[Please Note: This comment is in two parts due to Diigo restrictions on length] Topic: Flash Mobs This TED Talk is important to the topic of flash mobs because it highlights the fact that modern issues of global significance such as obesity, crime, good health, and creativity, are affected by the social connections that we all have. The rise of Internet usage through avenues such as social networks in the form of Facebook and other similar sites has been acknowledged as a vital factor that is also used by flash mobs when organizing their activities. The main point that can be taken into account through this TED Talk, is that if subconscious concepts such as obesity can claim influences from social networking, it should also follow that other more positive concepts such as philanthropy, will also be influenced by connecting with social networks. These social networks have a resilience that survives the test of time so it is of utmost importance to understand what the contributing factors are that sustain them. One important factor that was discovered was the power of emotion. Emotional "stampedes" and "collective existences" can be formed through social networks. They appear in clusters that can be delineated, for example, by "happy patches" and patches with other emotional characteristics. [Continued in the comment below]

Flash mobs utilise digital communications among social networks to mobilise a large group of people to appear in a set location. Many reading about flash mobs highlight the use of Internet communication but there have not been many references that refer to how the social network functions. Nicholas Christakis is a Harvard Professor of Medicine, Health Care Policy, and Sociology at Harvard University and he directs a diverse research group investigating social networks. "His work examines the biological, psychological, sociological, and mathematical rules that govern how we form these social networks, and the rules that govern how they shape our lives" (TED Conferences, 2010). Christakis gives three reason that people cluster but for flash mobs the most relevant is that people can share a common exposure to something (Christakis, 2010)and thus messages are spread to people of like mind, in turn pleading to a large crowd with everybody having a common purpose. Another important aspect to take from this is that networks are constantly changing in composition but the network still persists. Kaulingfreks and Warren would describe this as a rhizome that is "an ubiquitous connection between points in a structure but without a clear defined path…each node passing information to other nodes (2010, p. 221) . Christakis says " It is the ties between people that makes the whole greater than the sum of parts" (2010).For flash mobs and protest movements it is the power of the group that makes all the difference as has been demonstrated in political flash mobs and recent protests in Egypt, Iran and Tunisia. Christakis, N. (2010, February). The hidden influence of social networks TED Talks [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_christakis_the_hidden_influence_of_social_networks.html Kaulingfreks, R., & Warren, S. (2010). SWARM: Flash Mobs, mobile clubbing and the city. Culture and Organization, 16(3), 211 - 227. doi:10.1080/14759551.

After watching this video on networks I started to consider the relevance of the internet informing networks and would the networks form in another way if social media tools were not available. Flash Mobs was organised on the internet and use internet tools to collaborate there next event. Could the same thing be achieved without the internet? My guess is yes it can be achieved without the internet. If we take the Egyptian Revolution and the claims that Facebook and Twitter were responsible for the organisation of the revolution some argue that this was not the case. The main body of the argument is that there been revolutions well before the internet (Rosen, 2011). Supports this argument however still recognises the role that social networks had played in the revolution(Beaumont, 2011). Pickwell, 2011 argues that many crowd gathering s such as revolutions and protest do not utilise the internet or social media to gather crowds. Pickwell claims they under utilise the tools the internet offered them. Considering that social media has a communication roll to play, you may also need to consider other factors used in creating the network. Christakis, 2011 presentation on networks gives you a better understanding as to how networks operate and why the above arguments have some merits. Beaumont, P. (2011). The truth about Twitter, Facebook and the uprisings in the Arab world. Retrieved 15th April 2011, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/25/twitter-facebook-uprisings-arab-libya Christakis, N. (2010). The Hidden Influence of Social Networks. TED Talks. Filmed February 2010. Posted May 2010. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from: http://blog.ted.com/2010/05/10/the_hidden_infl/ Pickwell, J. (2011). Lecture on the anti-war movement and Internet Collaboration and Organisation, net 308 iLectures: Curtin Unversity, Rosen, J. (2011). The "Twitter Can't Topple Dictators" Article. Retrieved 15th April 2011, from http://pressthink.org/2011/02/the-twitter-

Nelson, A. (2011). The limits of the 'Twitter revolution. The Gaurdian  Retrieved 11th April 2011, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/24/digital-media-egypt   

Nelson makes a strong argument suggesting the 2011 Egypt uprising was not necessarily fuelled by social media; instead she links it to years of oppression and dictatorship as the main triggers. On the flipside, many of Nelson's statements need to be challenged. Firstly, she states that only 15,000 Egyptians were tweeting - out of a population of 80 million - throughout the protests. What she fails to mention is that less than 20% of Egyptians actually have Internet access (Internet World Stats, 2011). In addition, many of these users also reside outside of Cairo and may not have directly participated in the demonstrations. Lastly, the Internet and SMS services were shutdown in Egypt two days after the initial January 25th demonstration and this act would drastically reduce numbers as the only way to circumvent the block was through dialup or a voice-to-tweet service. An interesting concept raised in this article is 'slackivism', a term coined to describe the attraction of getting caught up in the euphoria of online activism. The benefits however have little or no impact on society because clicking a 'like' button within a Facebook group is far from participatory and adds very little value to the cause. Instead, Nelson argues that web users need to be better educated in the use and the expectations of crisis-mapping platforms to effectively participate. Sukey , an anti-police kettling web application is a recent example of internet enabled, active participation. Its use during a recent political demonstration in London resulted in successful, non-violent outcome (Kingsley, 2011). This was attributed to activists working together and feeding information from Twitter, Google Maps and news feeds into Sukey to counter the act the police kettling. This example highlights that technical aptitude and active participation are required to effectively coordinate a internet enabled, protest. Internet World Stats - Usage and Population Statistics. (2011

References: Morozov, E. (2009). Moldova's Twitter Revolution. Retrieved April 13, 2011. From http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/07/moldovas_twitter_revolution Nelson, A. (2011). The Limits Of The "Twitter Revolution". Retrieved April, 16 2011. From http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/24/digital-media-egypt

The author of this article, Jody McIntyre, is a journalist and political activist. The article was published in Jody's regular blog for The Independent. This article is not a scholarly article, rather an opinion piece. The source (The Independent) is reliable. McIntyre has also written for The Guardian, the New Statesman, Electronic Intifada and Disability Now. By focusing on recent events south of Yemen, and in particular the 'million person march' in early March 2011, the article highlights how broadcast media is focusing on events in Libya, while ignoring political unrest in other areas. McIntyre relates how Al Jazeera, the Qatari-based news channel, tends to "choose" one uprising at a time to focus on and "leading the gaze of the public" (McIntyre, 2011). McIntyre asks whether "a revolution on the Egyptian model" would have succeeded without the media attention it received. New media sources, and the Internet in particular, have allowed the public "to follow these uprisings in a way that would never have been possible in the past." (McIntyre, 2011) Traditional broadcast media organisations, such as the BBC, "can no longer monopolise our opinions". By viewing Twitter feeds we are "seeing events as they happen, not as they are reported". (McIntyre, 2011) McIntyre highlights an important point - although the public are not "seeing" these events in the traditional sense (via television broadcast), they are "seeing" them unfold through collaborative social media. The public are not just "seeing" events unfold, they are also disseminating the news. McIntyre, J (March 10, 2011) Only some revolutions will be televised The Independent - Independent Blogs. Retrieved April 9, 2011 from http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/03/10/only-some-revolutions-will-be-televised/

A very interesting comment and article Sheila and I agree that the author "...Jody McIntyre, is a journalist and political activist ... This article is not a scholarly article, rather an opinion piece" (McLean, 2011). Jody McIntyre has written a variety of articles on many different topics within the political activist discourse. However, has anything really changed? In 2005, I had hired out the movie Hotel Rwanda that was a new DVD release, without realising that it was "The true-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda" (Hotel Rwanda, 2004). After watching the horrifying scenes, I then searched the Internet for further information. Whilst questioning myself "How did I miss this war in 1994?" A few years later, I was able to determine that it only briefly touched the traditional news broadcast reporting in a world wide scale. I mean who cared that "An estimated 1 million people were killed within a three month period in 1994" (GlobalSecurity, 2011)? I cared, and very strongly. Today, traditional news media is still missing many details of what is happening around the world. Events that do get reported seem, at times, to be glorified to entertain the consumers. Where traditional media fail to inform the public, the certainly is a broader world of informative available from many different sources and for many different reasons. This is where sites such as Avaaz and many others help spread the news about global issues where people-power now has the action over the traditional way of doing too little, too late, due to being uninformed. No one person controls the content published on the Internet. However, there are groups that control what is televised, when it is televised and where. References: GlobalSecurity. (2011). Rwanda Civil War. GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/w

Jody McIntyre highlights the fact about the important role the Internet and Twitter have been playing in the mass information exchange during recent political protesting in Yemen and countries across Northern Africa. An information share and exchange through individual use of the Twitter and the Internet has been providing access to people's information instead to mass information filtered through major media like BBC, Al Jazeera and other. As Jody McIntyre states, the Twitter feeds are representing the events as they happen, not as they are reported. I fully agree with Jody McIntyre, there seems to be a domino effect surrounding the political movements in the Northern Africa. What started in Tunisia has been carried over to its neighborhood. The main difference is the protests are of different ratio and longevity reflecting a deep cultural and political constitution experienced by each particular country. 'Whilst the media continue to focus exclusively on events in Libya, the huge march in the south of Yemen was ignored', writes Jody McIntyre. It is known, the media works in an organized way, placing their correspondents in areas where information or reports are of 'hot topic'. When analyzing the Twitter media where the Twitter usage is based on its availability amongst people and not on strategic positioning of media outlets, it is obvious the Twitter is being a portable and convenient communication tool accessible by those who can afford it, and its affordance was possible in the Northern Africa where third world description is still in existence.

"Sukey apps help protesters avoid police kettles" Sukey is a recently developed online tool for protesters. It is made up of a suite of applications that allow protesters to either submit or access information about police presence on roads or junctions during protests. Sukey can be accessed and updated online from any connected computer and also via mobile phones, meaning that protesters potentially have access to relevant information no matter where they are. There are two flavours of Sukey for mobiles, smart phones with GPS and Internet browsers can use the "Roar" version of Sukey which includes helpful graphics like a compass and an interactive google map (Doctrow 2011). The "Growl" version of the application is suitable for older mobile phones and is basically an SMS update service. Information is gathered by people on site at protests, from specially tagged Twitter comments, from news broadcast footage and geotagged photos from Flickr. Location information can also be submitted via Google Latitude or by SMS. This crowd-sourced information is intended to allow protesters to make informed decisions and hopefully avoid kettling. Kettling is a practice used by police whereby protesters are surrounded and confined, sometimes for hours on end without access to food, shelter or toilet facilities. At present the platform is only available in London, but the developers have plans to release national and international versions. References: Doctrow, C. (2011). Sukey: an anti-kettling app for student demonstrators in London. Retrieved from: http://boingboing.net/2011/01/28/sukey-an-anti-kettli.html Geere, D. (2011). Sukey apps help protesters avoid police kettles. Retrieved from: http

Thank you for sharing Alio. This is the first I have heard of Sukey and after reading Geere's blog post, I can really appreciate its usefulness throughout political demonstrations, in particularly the recent protests in Egypt. After some further research it appears Sukey emerged on January 27, 2011, two days after the initial January 25th 2011, Egypt demonstrations; however, there appears to be no connection between the two. The purpose of Sukey is to improve communications during protests and to counter the act of kettling, a crowd management tactic used by police that involves cornering protestors in a confined space with only one possible - normally guarded - exit (Kingsley, 2011). Sukey facilitates this through the amalgamation of information sources such as; Google Latitude, Geo tagged Flickr photos, Twitter and television news, feeding the content to web enabled phones or for a small fee traditional SMS. Throughout the Egypt uprising, there were many instances of kettling captured on video and submitted to YouTube - as per the below links. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXbRdumboZ0&feature=related. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xWiBCIxjIk&feature=related If available at the time Sukey may have been an advantageous asset to Egyptian activists. It can be argued that the police clashes - which resulted in numerous injuries and 125 deaths - could have been minimized if protestors had access to real-time information indicating police strategies. It is worth mentioning that Sukey would have been effective up to the point the Internet and mobile networks were shut down by Egyptian authorities. Provided there is robust communication infrastructure is in place, Sukey proves to be a powerful participatory tool that has the potential to reduce injuries and fatalities throughout demonstrations. Geere, D. (January 31, 2011). Sukey apps help protesters avoid police kettles: Wired [Blog Post]. Retrieved April 11, 2011, from, http://www.wired.co.uk/

Kravet's Wired online article details the role social-media services such as; Facebook, Twitter and YouTube played in the 2011 Egypt political revolution. The primary focus of his article suggests the uprising was the result of years of oppression and dictatorship, not simply a Twitter or mass media revolution as some have labelled it (Bergstrom, 2009). Kravet does acknowledge the link between technology and modern upheavals by using the example of the fax machine and the role it played informing the world of the Tiananmen Square massacre. At the same time, he still emphasises that social-media and communication systems are used as an effective way of coordinating protests and political gatherings. A quarter of Egyptian citizens have Internet access; therefore, it can be said that social media is a powerful channel activists could utilise - in conjunction with leaflets and spontaneous amalgamation - to effectively facilitate organisation of the masses. Activists also used social media as a way of gauging the scope of their proposed protests by encouraging Facebook users to confirm their attendance. Prior to the Internet being blocked, one particular organiser had 80,000 confirmations for a January 29, 2011 demonstration. After the Egyptian government's initial block of popular, social-networking services (prior to the entire Internet being shutdown in Egypt) protestors took leverage from a variety of technologies such as; web proxies, VPNs and smartphone applications to gain access to Facebook and Twitter. Again this demonstrates the importance these tools play in information sharing and mass collaboration. Bergstrom, G. (2009). Egypt: The First Twitter Revolution? Retrieved, April 4 2011, from http://marketing.about.com/od/crisis_communication/a/egypt-mubarak-power-in-social-media.htm Kravets, D. (January 27, 2011). What's Fueling Mideast Protests? It's More Than Twitter. Retrieved April 5, from http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/

The article is interesting, but i just wanted to touch on the statements that were raised around communication after the Internet had actually been shut off. I was fascinated to read about how society can mobilize and use the resources that are available in times of need. Using third party proxies, organizers were able figure out ways to bypass the Egyptian Internet filters and to be able to once again access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other Internet sites (Osam, 2011). Despite the Internet blackout, landline communication was never blocked; Egyptians found another way to access the Internet through landlines dial-up Internet services and fax services. Egyptians living outside Egypt were receiving faxes through regular landline phones, by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies they could convert the fax image into text contents, and post the contents, news and updates into Facebook, Twitter and different blogs (Sutter, 2011). This convergence in technology just goes to show that these types of situations cannot be simply shut off by closing down all Internet connections within the country. As an indication on how fast online communication services are popping up into the spotlight, Google in the meantime launched a new service called "speak2tweet", which allowed Egyptians to call a regular landline number in Cairo and speak their tweet to an IVR/Voice recognition system. The speak2tweet system would then convert the caller voice message into a text tweet (Osam, 2011). References Osam, M. (2011). The eRevolution. Retrieved, April 13, 2011. From http://www.famousbloggers.net/the-erevolution.html

Sutter, J. (2011). The Faces of Egypt's 'Revolution 2.0'. Retrieved, April 13, 2011. From http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/21/egypt.internet.revolution/index.html