In December 2010, reports began flowing into news agencies of significant events occurring in Tunisia that would ultimately carry across the Middle East over the coming six months. It started with a vegetable seller immolating himself on the steps of a government building. Protests began popping up across the country and by January 2011 the President of Tunisia was forced to flee for his own safety.
Some can compare the protest planning and popups to flash mobs that are planned with harmless abandon and humor. The effect of the protests was regime changes in Egypt and Libya and the civil war in Syria that continues today. From flash mobs to regime change – could anyone have predicted the importance of social media with the creation of My Space, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube?
The Arab Spring was abetted by social media to “spread democratic ideals across borders” and “to put a human face to political oppression”.[1] The study of this affect has continued over the last several years, tracking the initial increase in political conversations on the internet, tweets by opposition leaders, and using first hand evidence of abuse of power during the time leading up to and during the revolutions.
More than seven years later, the viral aspect of stories can both work for an against a movement. This negative exposure has been experienced in the post-Trump world rise of Neo-nazi and facist ideologies in the United States. The social media activists have outed many of the neo-nazi marchers to their communities, making their allegiances to their facist ideologies items of concern at their workplaces and schools. This is not the sharing of democratic ideals but instead the tagging of people for their opinions albeit opinions that promote the oppression of other people and races.
[1] Howard, Philip N. and Duffy, Aiden and Freelon, Deen and Hussain, Muzammil M. and Mari, Will and Maziad, Marwa, Opening Closed Regimes: What Was the Role of Social Media During the Arab Spring? (2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2595096 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2595096