Tahrir Tweeting: A revolutionary force?

On the 6 June 2010, Khaled Said was dragged from an internet cafe in Alexandria and beaten to death by Egyptian police. An anonymous Facebook group was set up to spread the news of Said's murder and was ‘liked’ by nearly 600,000 people. Many have heralded this outburst of Egyptian online dissent as the key to the later protests in Tahrir Square, providing a platform for a disparate and disgruntled people to rally against Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship.

The toppling of President Mubarak is certainly a sign of the resurgent power of popular activism, but has the media focused too heavily on the role of technology in a fight which was won by people on the ground as well as online?

According to Facebook statistics analysts SocialBakers, only 7 per cent of Egypt’s total population are registered on Facebook, and even among those with internet access only 31 per cent are signed up. Writing for the BBC, Anne Alexander was quick to point out that the 2-day technology blackout engineered by the Egyptian authorities did nothing to quell the unrest, and that the opposition movement had existed on the ground for years before it ever went digital.

Human relationships, trust and debate are still central to protest movements. But Dr Hugo Gorringe, a sociologist at the University of Edinburgh, argues that the internet is nonetheless having a tangible effect on activism, albeit only when connected to events happening on the ground. The biggest impact of the blogosphere, he argues, has been organisational. This was clear last year in the student protests: the decentralised, flexible nature of social networking meant that activism flourished outside of the traditional protest hierarchies like the NUS.

Furthermore, the internet commands a far greater audience than traditional methods of pamphleteering: more than half of 24-44 year olds regularly post content to blogs and discussion sites. The speed and immediacy of information sharing is also having a major effect, seen most recently in the development of the anti-kettling technology Sukey. the app, developed by students in London, enables activists to dodge police cordons and kettles using continually-updated smart maps of protests, enabling highly flexible and responsive activism. Dr Gorringe claims, however, that it is this combination of people on the ground and online which unlocks the potential of the internet in activism.

Yet many argue that this online activism is merely an easy option; a marketing deception rather than a real motor for political change. Those fighting the more pessimisitic corner even claim that 'clicktivism' is ruining activism, prompting a move away from ideologically-driven protests towards mindless petition-signing and number-counting. Evgeny Morozov, a contributing editor for Foreign Affairs, also warns that we should not slip into ‘cyber-utopianism’; that the internet may be a liberatory tool, but equally in the wrong hands it can fulfil repressive and authoritarian remits.

It is worrying to note that the internet is as much at the hands of tech-savvy dictators as it is pro-democracy activists. This is something the Egyptian protesters, whose online activity was subject to constant monitoring by the state, were careful to note; often using Facebook and Twitter tactically, as diversionary measures rather than communications tools. The fact also remains that no matter how strong an online community or an offline drive for change, the use of direct violence by the state may still be a much more powerful force, as seen in the Tiananmen Square protests. 

Despite this, there is still cause for optimism. Stella Creasy, a Labour MP, argues that the aim must be to bring together the mass benefits of online activism with a real sense of political efficacy. She claims that a disconnect has emerged between political channels and the will of the people, a point amply demonstrated by the fact that 37 per cent of people who did not vote in the last election were members of community or campaign groups online.

Clearly new social media and technology are having an impact on activism, but it is far from a direct or utopian path from internet access to revolution. Perhaps the most prescient message here comes from the website of campaign group UKUncut: "Spread the word online - and then get off the internet and talk to people in real life."