How Facebook changed the world

How Facebook changed the world

Arab Spring --> December 2010, Tunisia

Ben Ali --> leader in Tunisia at the time
He was a dictator
He controlled the time at this time and caused press censorship in Tunisia
Corruption
State police were corrupt and would take brides from people who wanted to sell their produce to people whilst on Tunisian public land.
enriched himself at the peoples expense

Mohamed Buazizi --> activist/protester

• Was a produce seller 
• All of his produce was taken due to the corrupt police wanting a bride from him so that he could sell his stuff to people in Tunisia as he didn't have the money to pay the brides set by the government
• He couldn't pay the bribe therefore they took his produce 
• He set himself on fire in an attempt to gain attention 
• The act of protest was not shown on Tunisian television and was almost forgotten about due to the corruption of the government. 

The government did not listen to the people in Tunisia. They used mobile phones whilst protesting to tell the world what they were doing and what is going on. 

They were killing innocent people.

The Tunisian state media/news did not show anything about the situation 

The outside world did not know what was going on therefore people (protesters) were filming what was going on in Tunisia. 

This is known as Citizen Journalism 

People were shot for filming what was going on in Tunisia. 

People were not able to speak freely in their county

25% of people had broadband

90% of Tunisian citizens had mobile phones

"the weapons of the activists of the Arab Spring were not guns but was the internet and mobiles."

"the internet revolution had tipped the balance of revolution"

...Due to digital media we now have democracy 

censorship of all political sites

However... people were able to avoid the censorship 

Bloggers faced detention and torture if caught blogging about the Tunisian government

Videos were posted on Facebook of break outs and protests. The whole world soon found out. 
Protest videos went viral as the World found out what was going on. To ensure it was on the internet instantly, the protesters and activists did live streams of most of the Arabs protesting against the government and the dictator Ben Ali. (Citizen Journalism) 
Finally the a news channel by the name of Al Jazeera (whos is the leading provider for Arab news) first broadcasted the happenings in Tunisia

• 2 million FB users (1-5)

The government stayed quiet about what was happening 

police were on every corner to stop activists. Twitter was used in order for activists to communicate with one another to meet up in the square to protest without being caught whilst going to protest. This kept the activists one step ahead of the police at all times. 

Protesters shot dead

Tear gas fired at them 

"Tunisia was a different Tunisia. It was revolution"

15th jan --> a transition of democracy was announced
it took 28 days to get rid of Ben Ali from a dictatorship to a democracy and pluralist country.