The Weapon of the People

Facebook was started by a nineteen-year-old Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg. He was a computer genius and had an innate talent for programming. His goal to create a website that would allow one to, “access information about anyone, and be a means for anyone to share anything that they wanted,” has turned into something that Zuckerberg never dreamed of (3, Kirkpatrick). While Zuckerberg wanted to improve people’s lives socially the extent to which he would eventually do so was never foreseen. Facebook currently has over five hundred million users and is the world’s, “second-most-visited site after Google”  (Kirckpatrick, 1). With the recent conflicts and protests in the Middle East, Facebook has become a means of social media that facilitates mass communication and organization. It has become a catalyst in political change in the Middle East and Senator John McCain has called Mark Zuckerberg, “the most popular man in the Middle East” (Summers). While Facebook has promoted individual empowerment and become a way for young adults and teenagers to stay connect, Middle East governments fear how to control the website because they fail to understand that Facebook is a means for political change not the cause. 

Young adults and teens that want to be future leaders of the world need an education. While schools are not up to standard in Middle East, as schools are over crowded and teachers are not motivated to teach (as they are underpaid), most every young adult and teen is computer literate (Morrison, 3). Facebook is a site for young adults and teens that let them define who they are. They are able to create an identity online and their profile is an extended version of themselves. What groups they join, what videos they upload, and what pictures they are tagged in represent what they stand for as a person. Facebook’s dominance and popularity has grown exponentially. The idea of a participatory culture allow teenagers and young through social media to have affiliations, collaboritvely solve problems, and have a way to express themselves (Jenkins, 11). The bar graph represents the number of Internet users in the Middle East has grown by 1176.8 percent in eight years (Traffic). The Middle East has acquired the largest number of growth of Internet users in the world. As the number of Internet users in the Middle East continues to increase and the Internet becomes an integral part of society, teenagers and young adults have found ways to use these new popular social media methods to influence politics. 

Young adults and teens that have grown up during the age of computers have found ways to use the Internet to their advantage. When a journalist asked a teenager what he was filming in Tunisia he replied, “Ouselves. Our revolution. We put it on Facebook. It’s how we tell the world what is happening” (Beaumont). Every teen and young adult, the future leaders of the world, has a say and opinion through new social media sites like Facebook. No longer is the only to be heard through a newspaper article or on the radio. Every teenager can voice their thoughts and then share it with all of there a thousand Facebook friends. There has been a switch in the way young adults are starting revolutions. Alica Ygarza from Penn Point magezine states, “In the past revolutions were fought with swords and cannons. Unlike those revolutions, the latest in the Middle East are being run by young adults and teens via Facebook” (Ygarza). New voices of opinion can now be heard through the Internet without being a journalist or activist. New developments in social media like Facebook allow not only activists and demonstrators, but virtually anyone with an opinion to become involved with political change.  The idea of individual empowerment is the driving force behind why social media has been able to become so influential (Eltahawy). 

The reason Facebook has become so popular and become so heavily integrated in our culture is because of our need to stay connected. With the development of the Internet and new communication technologies, a new desire to be constantly in touch with everyone we meet has been formed. This desire is what drives Facebook and makes it so popular. In an interview with the Crimson, Zuckerberg said, “the nature of the site is that each user’s experience improves if they can get their friends to join it” (Kirkpatrick, 7). Facebook is used so heavily because everyone that knows everyone uses the website; and the feeling of being left out of something that has become so integrated in our culture drives us to use the social media technologies to the extent of which we do.  The movement away from a solitary culture to a more connected culture is the main reason that Facebook is so effective in starting mass revolts. For example a young man in Egypt states, “I can get two hundred thousand people in the square in two hours” (Summers). Facebook is powerful and the single most efficient and effective website to connect people with each other even around the world.

Facebook is a dominating force and Middle East governments are weary as to how to proceed in controlling such a powerful website. Middle East governments want to work to promote freedom of speech and expression, but they are becoming fearful that the people will soon become more powerful than the government. Lelia Hudson from Al Jazeera states, “The overall effect is the emergence of an interactive and dynamic transnational media infrastructure that is beyond the reach of most Middle East governments” (Hudson). Facebook is an effective tool for the young adults and teenagers, not for governments as demonstrated thus far. Middle East governments have not found a use for the website, but they are becoming fearful because it has been shown that the user of Facebook is the one that wields the power. In Egypt for example, the people that used Facebook to organize their revolution and pressure Hosni Mubarak to step down from power were more influential than the government that did not use social media. In addition, President Obama during the 2008 elections advertised using Facbook where as McCain did not. Obama seemed to relate more to the youth and spread his ideas more rapidly than McCain did, who advertised in more traditional ways (Dalsgaard).

The recent revolt in Egypt and Saudi Arabi demonstrate that people’s opinion matter as they can create political change. The ability for the people of the country to come together and organize in order to influential the stepping down of a president as shown in Egypt exemplify that the use of Facebook and social media is not something the government should take lightly. For example one method the government had to controlling Facebook was to shut down the Internet. Kaled Koubaa, president of the Internet Society in Tunisia, stated, “They wanted to close Facebook down in the first quarter of 2009, but it was very difficult. So many people were using it that it appears that the regime backed off because they thought banning it might actually cause more problems than leaving it” (Beaumont). Shutting down Facebook as shown, is not a viable and effective option, but the government has yet to find an alternative way to control the flow of ideas through Facebook.  As Lelia Hudson from Al Jazeera vividly explains, “trying to kill the Internet and the mobile phone networks is like putting tanks on the street- it is a drastic move that tells everyone how threatened a government feels and is.” Middle East governments have tried to shut down the Internet and changed the passwords to people’s Facebook accounts, but nothing seems to be an effective end to the use of social media. Ethan Zuckerman from the New York Times states, “Authoritarian regimes can not block political Facebook groups without blocking all the ‘American Idol’ fans and cat lovers as well. The government can not simply shut down Facebook, because doing so would alert a large group of people who they can not afford to radicalize” (Zuckerman). The Middle East governments have not come up with an effective way to stop the monster they think Facebook has become. They have to become savvier in their means to shut down the use of Facebook or they have to be ready to accept their actions, for example the killing of citizen by the police that is posted on Facebook for the world to witness. The Middle East governments have yet to understand that turning off the Internet switch fuels more young adults and teenagers to join the fight, instead of making them give up and be defeated (Eltahawy).

The Middle East government fails to understand that their people want change. Citizens of these countries are tired of being oppressed are not going to become complacent, they plan to fight as demonstrated in Egypt. These new social media tools are the citizens’ weapons for this fight and they outnumber the government.  Middle East governments have yet to understand that the best way to stop the uprisings and extensive use of Facebook is to listen to their people and work with them in a democracy. While the Middle East governments might regret educating their youth in becoming computer literate, “the Internet did not invent courage in Egypt. The Internet did not invent activism in Egypt. But what April 6 was trying to do was attract a generation who recognize that they have no future in the country, no political future, no economic future under the Mubarak regime” (Eltahawy).  Facebook was used as tool in this battle and the government has to understand that taking away one tool will just mean the people will find another way to fight. Facebook was a means to organize a revolt, but it did not spur political change that was the drive of the Egyptians. The government has to face their problems with their citizens and understand that Facebook was a weapon in the fight, not the reason with the revolution.

The future of Facebook is unknown. Zuckerberg never predicted it to become this powerful and in six years the site went from being a means to communicate and stay connected with other college students to a means to pressure a president to step down. The Middle East governments are most fearful of how to control Facebook at the rate it is growing. Since they have not succeeded in the future they will try even harder to control the flow of ideas even more in attempt to demonstrate their power over their people (Etling). This will just make the people more upset and fuel their drive to revolt, which the Middle East governments have yet to understand. Facebook leaves power in the hands of the people and has been an important asset in creating political change and might continue to be even more influential in the future. In this battle for control over the Internet it is unsure who will win in the end.

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