Facebook.com is the largest social media platform on the Web. In October 2012 Facebook celebrated its one billionth member. It has been said that if Facebook were a country it would be the third largest in the world. Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerburg, a 22 year old Harvard student. The online portal spread virally in 2006 after Facebook
administration decided that everyone could join – prior to this it had been exclusively for Harvard and college students. The pervasiveness of Facebook among young Arabs has opened new communication channels of social interaction and political activism. During the
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events of the Arab Spring uprisings Arab youth stunned the world by organising themselves into Facebook political groups such as ‘April 6 youth movement’ and ‘we are all Khaled Said’ in Egypt, and ‘Nawaa’, ‘Ma Tunisie’ in Tunisia. The youth of Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya have also harnessed the new medium after demonstrators rallied in the streets and squares of these countries after being inspired by Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. In Syria Facebook groups such as ‘We are all Hamza Al-khateeb’ and ‘The Syrian revolution 2011’ were not only used to call for political mobilisation but were also used to disseminate information and to post revolution updates.
The role of Facebook in the political activism of these countries has attracted the attention of scholars, academics and political commentators who have sought to shed light on the
characteristics of the new medium of communication and to understand how it has changed communication and media landscapes. In regards to the Arab Spring uprisings, Facebook played a central and pivotal role in shifting the power dynamics between the Arab
authoritarian regimes and the civilian activists. Despite this shift, my digital ethnographic research in Egypt showed that narratives about Facebook have ceased being only about how it aids liberation to how it can also be used for oppressing people, that is, it has shifted from being a liberator to an oppressor. In other words, networks of antagonism and hate have emerged and replaced the networks of outrage and hope as the Facebook landscape has come to engage the Egyptian community in the political struggle between seculars and Islamists. For the remainder of this section I will explore the importance of Facebook in political activism and repression, while in chapter four I will more closely analyse Facebook data in order to gain an understanding of what role Facebook plays in polarising the media. Some broad statistics on Facebook indicated that, according to the Dubai School of
Government (DSG) (2011), the total number of Facebook users in the Arab world stands at 27,711,503 (as of April 5, 2011), up from 21,377,282 (January 5, 2011), having almost doubled since the same time the year prior (14,791,972 in April 2010). This number doubled again to reach nearly 50 million Arab users by August 2012. The Arab users are
predominantly Arab youth between the ages of 15 and 29, a sector of the society which make up nearly 70% of the population. With this volume of users Facebook has come to be the preferred social media platform in the Arab world (see Figure 4.3).
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Figure 4.3: Facebook penetration in the Arab world in January 2011. Source: Dubai School of Government.
According to the e-Marketing Egypt Online Competitiveness Intelligence report (2013) Egypt’s Facebook community witness grew 41% between 2011 and 2012 and by 21 July 2012 the number of users was 11.3 million. This means that the current number of Facebook users in the Arab world is approximately 17 million people (see Figure 4.4).
(Figure 4.4)The growth rate of Facebook users during 2011 uprisings, as compared to the same time period in 2010. Source: Arab social media report 2011.
The latest statistics show that an enormous number of Arab youth connected and harnessed the power of the new social network such that Facebook became a key player in the events of the Arab Spring uprisings. Facebook aided the revolutionaries during the waves of social unrest in Egypt in four main ways and these are explored below.
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a) Facebook acted as a medium of communication: Facebook offered a fast reliable way of communicating that minimises the role of email, bulletin boards and chatting channels such as Yahoo and Hotmail (MSN). Facebook offered video and photo services in addition to ‘share’, ‘comment’ and ‘like’ characteristics which allow users to contribute content. The convergence of Facebook with other social platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Skype makes it a unique communication environment. Also, it allowed individuals with political, social and economic ambitions to create networks of people with an unlimited number of members, where quite literally millions of participants can be edified with a mere click of a mouse.
b) Facebook allowed for ‘virtual togetherness’ and the development of online communities. Virtual togetherness is a concept that was coined by Maria Bakardjieva in 2003. Bakardjieva believed that online there are different ways in which people engage with others. She said, ‘I recognise new vehicles that allow users to traverse the social world and penetrate previously unattainable regions of anonymity as well as to expand their social reach’ (2003: 292). Facebook has played a central role in creating networks of people who share common grievances whether they were political, religious or social. Online participants have the autonomy to participate in any networks they wish and this has created a space for civic engagement and self-expression free from social restrictions. In Lebanon, for example, lesbian and gay communities – considered taboo in the Arab world – have, for the first time, created Facebook groups. This ‘virtual togetherness’ has helped civilian activists to overcome fear. Fear of retaliation by Arab regimes has been the main factor that previously hindered calls for democracy and public liberty. This has left the Arab population in a state of political stagnation for many decades. Manuel Castells, in his recent book Networks of Outrage and Hope (2012), highlighted the connection between the emergence of social media networks and the overcoming of fear. He showed that togetherness is the key to success for the movements because it is through togetherness that people overcome fear. In his own words, ‘togetherness is the starting point and the source of empowerment’ (2012: 225). Thus Facebook political groups such as ‘Nawaa’ and ‘We Are all Khalid Said’ were the wheels that drove the Arab street uprisings. During the Egyptian uprisings of January 2011 some revolutionaries held banners that said, ‘thanks Facebook for breaking the fear barrier’ (see Figure 4.5). The power of togetherness was therefore at the root of the Arab Spring revolutions.
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Figure 4.5: an Egyptian man holds up a sign praising Facebook ‘we have overcome centuries of fear’. Source; blogsspot.com
c) Social media in general and Facebook in particular, challenged state-controlled media by offering an open source of information. Through this such media gained the public’s trust. The emergence of what is called ‘grassroots media’ or ‘citizen journalism’ has highlighted the corruption and brutality of authoritarian regimes, and catalysed publics for political action and the organisation of protests that have raised awareness (see Figure 4.6).
(Figure 4.6): Shows the main usage of Facebook during social movements early 2011. Source (DSG 2011)
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On the other hand, Facebook has also come to be seen as a double edged sword. During the Egyptian uprisings the authoritarian regime could learn of the date, time and location of protests because most of them were pre-announced on Facebook pages. Further, the police could identify participants and trouble makers through images posted on Facebook during these events. This made it easy for the police to persecute and imprison activists. Despite these limitations Facebook is still an important tool for activists and this is particularly so because it has remained the only medium of communication available to civilian activists after media crackdowns implemented during the third wave of social uprisings.
d) Facebook was important for establishing and strengthening social ties. Through its social networks Facebook led to the creation of new forms of social relationship. In social media networks there are two types of social relationships: ‘strong ties’ and ‘weak ties’. Strong tie relationships are where people know each other socially regardless of the geographical distance. Weak tie relations tend to be friend of friend type relationships. This latter type of relationship has empowered social networks because people have been encouraged to
participate in online debates and then progress to participating offline and this was the case in both the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions.
In order to better understand the ebb and flow tendencies of the sphere of social media and its role in shifting the dynamics of power shift, in order to understand whether it is used as a tool of liberation or one of repression, it is necessary to draw on empirical studies rather than just engage in a theoretical exercise of questioning and critique. The next section of this chapter, therefore, is an outline of my primary analysis of Facebook data which was extracted from the pages of the clashing networks after then ‘25 Jan’ protests. My aim in this section is to show how Facebook has been used to both liberate and oppress Egyptian society. Using this information I seek to consider and predict how social media will be used in future social movements and political change.