Social Media: Maybe not as Great as we Think

As I sit here late at night on a Monday, I am reminded once again why I so love being an American.  I have just returned home from a night at the baseball field; by far one of my favorite places.  The first thing I did when I got home was to check my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media applications.  Of course, I had been checking them regularly on my smartphone all night, but what could another check on the ole' computer hurt.  As I begin to write a tweet about something of probably minuscule importance, a thought comes to mind.  I am reminded about an article recently read for class that deals with Twitter and the Iranian revolution in 2009.  After reading this particular article, which deals with the role of Twitter in the 2009 uprising, I am forced to reevaluate my views about social media as a tool for protestors in autocratic regimes (a subject of one of my earlier blog posts).

Ohh and to clarify what thought reminded me of why I was glad to be an American, for tonight it was the fact that I can post a tweet about my baseball game without worrying whether or not the government is going to use it to spy on me.  More importantly, I would be able to post a tweet critical of President Obama without the government being able to use it against me.  This is something we in the United States so often take for granted, yet it is something that not all people in the world enjoy.  But, I digress.

What struck me about this recent article that I read was the fact that repressive regimes, such as the one in Iran, can use Twitter as a weapon against their own people.  This article explained how the government was using Twitter to track the people posting anti-gvoernmemt messages and then tracking them down.  This is something I had not even though about in the past.  In fact, in my last blog post I railed about how important of a tool social media was in these uprisings.  I'm not completely changing my stance on this, I'm simply tailoring my position.

Do I think Twitter and Facebook are indispensable sites for protestors seeking change in severely repressive regimes? Of course I do.  However, I also think that we must be careful when we push these protestors to post their videos, pictures, or even live updates on these sites.  What we in the United States often fail to realize is that posting a status for some of these people could very easily put their lives in danger.  I think it is shameful for a government, such as Iran, to try to limit the free discussion of their people through violent deterrent tactics.  Further, I think it is completely inappropriate for these regimes to use social media sites as means for hunting down those prostetsors simply seeking to have a free government and to have their voices heard.

So, whats the point of this random rambling?  The point is that we often want to look at all the good the internet has done in the world and ignore the bad that it has created.  Heck, I'm as guilty of this as anyone.  I regularly tout the internet as a great resource and tool, especially for protestors.  However, as we see with Iran in 2009, a repressive government can also us the internet to hunt down and harm their own people.  Before we just expect protestors in other countries to tweet about their every action, we need to consider the consequences they face for doing so.  The right we have to freely tweet in the United States is a lot greater than we realize.  I think we all take rights like these for granted.  Maybe its time we start being thankful that we, in the United States, can use the internet freely as we please, without fear of the government hunting us down.

I will now step down from my soap box.  Sorry for the long post.

The Power of the Internet

Well, it appears as though the United Nations may finally be getting its act together.  In a world that is supposedly defined by its shift toward idealism (the belief that the sovereignty of individual states is declining and the prominence of intergovernmental organizations is rising), the U.N. has been woefully slow in its action regarding Syria.  Now, all the blame cannot be put squarely on the U.N., it is safe to say that China and Russia hold a large portion of the blame because of their veto of the cease-fire that was proposed a long time ago.  Nonetheless, U.N. observers are heading to Syria this week to monitor a cease-fire agreement that has been reached between the government and the rebels.  But, there is one problem with the agreement.  The problem is that the government continues to fire on its citizens.  As a cease-fire agreement would suggest, firing is supposed to cease.  However, the Syrian government has not ceased.  They continue to massacre their citizens and the end doesn't seem to be in sight.  In all honesty, I think the U.N. observers are in for a rude awakening.  Despite my rant about the lack of U.N. progress, the real point of this article has to do with the internet.

Much is always made about how the internet impacts voting in the United States.  Internet voting, internet campaigning, and the like have been studied to determine how these new found ways of voting and campaigning increase voter participation.  However, the role of the internet in foreign countries, and especially in revolts such as the one in Syria, cannot be overstated.  The internet basically started the Arab Spring movement.  Because of the medium protestors had in the internet, they were able to get their ideas out to a watching world.  Further, in Syria, because the government has severely restricted journalists from entering the country, one of our only windows into the violence has been through Syrian citizens and their willingness to defy the government and post about the conflict on the internet.  Syrians have been killed because of their desire to make their cause known to the world.  The internet, and social media sites in particular, have given these long oppressed people a voice.  These people see the internet as their window to freedom; their way to show the world the struggles they have faced for decades.

The role the internet has played in these crises and revolts has been remarkable.  While we in the United States study the impact the internet has on voting and the like, these people in other countries are using it as a lifeline.  What to us is an everyday luxury, to these oppressed people is a life ring that is saving them from drowning in oppression.  While the response of the United Nations to the needs of these citizens being killed has been shameful to say the least, at least we are staring to act.  Without the internet, we may never have known the severity of the situation in Syria.  We may never have known the plight of these citizens, who are being killed by their own government.  We may never have known of the hostility of these brutal Middle Eastern dictators.  Our everyday tool for augmenting voter turnout and modernizing campaigns is the last hope of the Syrians.  It is important for us to remember that while we sit on Facebook and gossip about our friends, people in other parts of the world are logging onto Facebook to try to save their own lives.

Article on Syria.