Back to Democracy and Cyberculture
- Part 1
- Recorded by mobile phone and posted to Facebook
- · Lots of violence
- · BBC commenter going to interview those who captured the images
- · Activist struggle
- · People rarely travel past the tourist locations
- · Sidi Bouzid
- · December 2010- dramatic suicide of fruit seller sent people into revolution
- · Internet tipped balance of power in their favor
- · Were tormented by local officials, called fruit selling a public disorder
- · Were abused and had to pay to get their fruit back
- · Set up his store but didn’t have the money needed to pay the bribes. Policeman took his stuff away
- · Crowd gathered, swore at him, he started crying, other police were kicking him
- · Muhammed headed to town hall to try and lodge a complaint
- · Didn’t work
- · Bought a bottle of fuel and sent himself on fire
- · He was taken to a hospital
- · Word traveled fast, a lot of people found out
- · Hundreds of people gathered at the spot to protest
- · Two of his friends were there. Interview: asking questions to the government
- · Situation heated up, rallied protest
- · They all used their phones to gather support from around the world
- · Confrontation, they were throwing tear gas at them
- · Throwing stones vs. shooting bullets (gov’t)
- · Leader had a police state, media was censored
- · People captured evidence on cameras/phones
- · Police were trying to arrest those filming
- · Tunesia had 2 million Facebook users
- · All got it on Facebook
- · The editors/programmers were not tied to the fruit sellers, were university educated, and they took charge
- · Rigged elections
- · Censorship was no obstacle to youth
- · Bloggers risked detention and torture
- · Tunis was quiet, but revolts broke out in other areas too
- · Part 2
- · Sent a message to the union members to join protest
- · Would post warnings about where policemen were located.
- · Took photographs to show how big the crowd was
- · Tear gas, unarmed protesters shot dead
- · Ben ali went on a PR, even standing by dying fruit seller
- · Two guys were arrested and questioned.
- · Whole country in open revolt
- · Police responded with live fire
- · 150 people dead
- · 100’s of thousands of people marched to the capitol
- · it was protester’s dream come true
- · 14th of January Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia
- · it was something magnificent, felt like freest man in the world
- · 24 years to 28 days to overcome government
- · Tunisia north of Libya
- · Egypt, ready to revolt
- · Egyptian dictator would be harder to crack
- · Internet was safest way to communicate
- · Police had virtually unlimited power to torture and kill opponents
- · Egypt had its own martyr, who was murdered for writing online.
- · 5 million users in Egypt, news of his fate spread quickly
- · Islam brotherhood leaders were the largest opposition to dictator
- · Didn’t believe that the Internet was a threat.
- · January 25, public holiday in honor of the police (ironic)
- · Part 3
- · 20% of Egyptians had access to the Internet
- · Sent messages through taxi drivers
- · He talked on the phone while in the taxi cab and the taxi drivers spread the secrets
- · She talked on video and got out the message about the 25th
- · Announce decoys, wrong places, wrong times
- · Separate police off in different directions
- · Shouted we will sacrifice our lives for democracy
- · 40,000 Egyptians
- · Peaceful demonstration, but police sent to break up crowds
- · Tear gas and water canon
- · People stood their ground
- · How the US responded would be critical
- · She reverted to old fashioned style, Egyptian gov’t is stable… what?!?!?!?
- · Focused on its own pragmatic interests
- · We decided that America didn’t exist
- · Organizers met in secret location
- · How to fight teargas
- · Government reaction: severed all online connections
- · Egyptians were caught off from each other and rest of the world
- · Revolutions need people, more than just Internet
- · Abarba was good suburb to revolt
- · People went out on streets because of internet shut down
- · 30-40,000 protesters
- · police started shooting to kill.
- · Either us or them
- · A lot of people died, 2 of them died in front of their eyes
- · Part 4
- · Unarmed protesters broke down police force and headed for the square
- · Police withdrew from the square
- · And they put building to flames
- · 200,000 protesters
- · His speech was greeted with contempt
- · Obama said he needed to make things good, but it wouldn’t work
- · US worked to get him out
- · Tried to use new technology to his advantage
- · Egyptians did not respond to his patriotic text messages
- · Is the army with or against the protesters
- · Army agreed not to shoot
- · Obama spoke
- · Dictator lost power
- · Terrorism reached the streets
- · Stones being thrown everywhere
- · Battle of the camels
- · Army officers joined protesters
- · Dictator done
- · Feb 11th, government going to make an announcement
- · He’s abandoning his position as president
- · Hysterical joy!!!!
- · Internet became even more critical
- · More battles ensued
Does cyberspace inhibit or enhance democratic principles?*can take many different forms
- internalizes outside hierarchies and social structures
- could enhance democratic principles
- cyberspace as potential artifact
- bring societal issues to life, racism ideology is alive online in cloaked websites
- Internet as human right ~ not really on same level as food/water
- hypothetical situation
- take away child’s Internet
- then put him/her on lower playing field
- no cyberliteracy
- taking away access to Internet is taking away ability to find job, get apartments, and so on
- If you don’t have the Internet, are you missing out?
- Are there universal rights?
- is democratic because of free speech, law lags behind technology.
- cloaked/non-cloaked websites of white supremacy shows free speech
- anarchical rather than democratic
- celebrities on twitter, Lady Gaga
- people against SOPA/PIPA want the Internet to be democratic, but threat to shut down opponents?!
- western world thinking: are we trying to show off our western technology and prove the world of its potential benefit?