The Revolution Will Be Tweeted

Gil Scott-Heron once wrote a song called “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” More than 40 years later, it may not matter if a revolution is televised or not so long as it is tweeted; and now you can tweet from anywhere.

Smartphone Organizational Skills

In 2009, when Iranians were protesting in the wake of the elections that year, Twitter users around the globe switched their profile locations to represent Tehran, making it harder for Iranian government officials to track down protesters. Many social media enthusiasts used Twitter and Facebook to spread news to the world of the many abuses perpetrated against the protesters by the Iranian government. Statistics say more than half of those helping the protesters did so with their mobile phones.

In light of the most recent Iranian anti-government protests, the U.S. State Department even set up Twitter accounts to encourage opposition. The accounts, @USAdarFarsi and @USAbilAraby, send messages in Farsi. While tweeting, “We want to join in your conversations,” the State Department sent a more expressive message of, “U.S. calls on Iran to allow people to enjoy same universal rights to peacefully assemble, demonstrate as in Cairo,” and it was sent with a cell phone. In fact, most people accessing these accounts and posting are doing so from their mobile phones, as evidenced by the various sign offs such as “sent from my Droid” or “sent with my Blackberry.”

Organizing Political Protests

Official government tweets opposing another sitting government is definitely not the sort of grass roots effort that took place in Egypt, but shows the extent to which social media and mobile phones have changed the political conversation. The power of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter has never been more evident than in the wake of the recent events in Egypt, nor has the power of posting to these social networking sites from a mobile phone.

Beginning with an Egyptian Facebook group known as the “April 6 Youth Movement,” which was started in 2008 to support striking workers, social media became a large part of the opposition movement. Since then, the group has grown to over 70,000 members, many of whom helped organize the recent wave of protests that ended the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak. Realizing how these internet sites were aiding the opposition, Mubarak had Facebook and Twitter blocked and then, a day later, blocked most of Egypt’s ISPs, completely shutting down the Internet days before he left office. Unfortunately, because mobile phones are also connected to the Internet, they too were out of service. Cell phone users couldn’t even make phone calls for at least 24 hours.

Aside from political uses, social networks and mobile phones have aided other less high-minded boycotts. In 2009, Dan Lyons, blogging then as Fake Steve Jobs, created Operation Chokehold. Operation Chokehold was a suggestion, and later claimed to be a joke. It detailed how “Fake Steve Jobs” told iPhone users to overload AT&T’s network on December 18 2009 to show the users’ displeasure with the service. This planned shutdown of AT&T’s network never succeeded on that level, but it did bring out into the open the frustrations of many iPhone users as word of it spread by mobile phone text messages and social status updates to Facebook and Twitter.

The Problems with Mobile & Social Networking Takeovers

From simple boycotts such as this to helping topple an oppressive regime, there is no denying that social media with the help of mobile phones have taken over the internet. Facebook’s 600 million users, only a quarter of which are in the US, and Twitter’s estimated 190 million users make it easier than ever to get messages to the masses.

Considering that more than half of the entire world’s population owns a mobile phone, it is even easier. The problem is, with so many people dependent on social networking and mobile phones, a simple 6-hour Internet shut down can cripple a political movement and empower a dictator. People have become so dependent on the Internet, social networks and mobile phones that without them individual’s lives are easily disrupted and they perhaps forget how the “real world’ operates.