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The first wave of social unrest in Egypt came about as civilians sought freedom, liberty and social justice and this wave of unrest is now widely known as the ‘Jan 25 revolution’. The movement was spontaneous, decentralised, self-networked, and grassroots organised and it was motivated by a desire to achieve a western style of democracy. In Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Philip Howard argues that ‘democratic change in Islamic countries is conditional upon the use of communication technologies’ (2010: 31). Several scholars, political commentators, media reporters and activists have emphasised how important information infrastructure was for generating collective action that turned out to play a crucial role in liberating the Arab society. As Ghonim indicated in a CNN interview (2011), ‘if you want to liberate society, just give them the internet’. As it turned out the first wave of unrest largely achieved its goals through the use of new social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. These served to accelerate political transformation, energise civil society, and catalyse public mobilisation (Khamis and Vahugan 2012: 2). Hart

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Cohen adapted the term ‘social energy’ to explain ‘the political mobilisations of large groups of people encoded by social media in their contemporary confrontation with authority and dictatorship’ (2012: 2). The internet and social networks, therefore, act as catalysts and as organising mechanisms. Wael Ghonim sees the internet as, ‘the only free media in the Arab world; it is the media no one controls. Thanks Facebook/Twitter/YouTube’ (@ghonim, 2011). According to Eric Selbin, during the events of the first wave of social unrest in Egypt social media networks served as ‘tools of connection’ (cited in Lawson 2012: 15). As George Lawson:

Because ICT networks are meritocratic, informal, horizontal, and transparent, they are, it is argued, necessarily anti-authoritarian. And by sharing information both immediately and without official sanction, ICTs are said to foster a new type of politics, one which was indispensable to the Arab uprisings. (2012: 15) Mark Lynch (2011) aids an understanding of this phenomenon by arguing that social media contributed to collective action in four ways during the first wave of unrest:

[…] by making it easier for disaffected citizens to act publicly in

coordination;(b) by creating information cascades that bolstered protesters’ perceptions of the likelihood of success; (c) by raising the costs of repression by the ruling regimes; and (d) by dramatically increasing publicity through diffusion of information to regional and global publics.

In order to understand the role of social media in the Egyptian revolution of 2011 it is important to outline the chronological events of Web 2.0 applications in Egypt. Egyptian digital activists built on their previous experience of harnessing the power of weblogs and Facebook in political activism by following the steps of their fellow Tunisian activists. They thus created Facebook pages with the aim of establishing a sense of trust among members by sharing credible information, promoting and sharing common grievances and highlighting police and regime brutalities. This resulted in the creation of robust networks of individuals who shared democratic values and who discussed real activism. These networks were established through the use of online public opinion polls.

During the first phase, the democratic environment of the social media sphere established a new form of journalism driven by citizens. The new generation of activists, empowered with mobile phones, created a more vibrant and participatory sphere of information flows. This

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was in distinct contrast to the state-controlled media. For example, in Tunisia the self- immolation of Bouazizi was first broadcast on the ‘Nawaa’ Facebook page. It was never shown on a national TV station. Once these images reached the Tunisian public outrage occurred and Bin-Ali was forced to visit Bouazizi while in hospital.

Social networks have also enhanced street activism because they facilitate the call to political mobilisation. For example, in Egypt, attendance at a political speech prior to the ‘Jan 25’ revolution was dramatically increased by the proceeding activity on Facebook (see Figure 4.1).

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Figure 4.1: Calls for the January 25th revolution become the 4th most discussed subject on social media across the entire Arab world on January 20th. Source: static.com

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Research coming out of the American PEW research centre stated that the:

Use of social networking sites for discussion of politics ranked significantly higher in several Arab countries. The numbers using social networking sites overall in the Arab nations generally ranked in the bottom half of the nations surveyed. Still, in Egypt and Tunisia, two nations at the heart of the Arab Spring, more than six-in-ten social networkers said they shared their views about politics online. The same was true for social networkers in Lebanon and Jordan. (2012)

Again in Egypt the call for the ‘Day of Rage’ (28 January 2011) was first announced on ‘We are All Khaled Said’ Facebook page. Similarly, in Syria Facebook pages such as ‘the Syrian Revolution 2011’ and ‘We Are All Hamzeh Al-Khateeb’ played a critical role in the Syrian revolution. On these pages text messages were often posted, some examples being ‘see what is happening in Tunisia’ and ‘tell your friends’ (Baker 2011). Alongside social networks, Google maps were also extensively used to coordinate actions and events between online activists and on-the-ground protesters. For example Google maps were used to avoid clashes with pro-regime supporters and to give directions when police place barricades and road closures were hindering movement. While Google Maps were important for on-the-ground information Twitter was the main tool used for the coordination of protests. For example, some Tahrir square activists equipped with smart phones kept the world informed of what was happening by feeding live to #Jan 25and #Egypt. Howard and Hussein maintain that ‘Twitter seems to have been a key tool in the region for raising expectations of success and coordination strategies’ (2013: 814). Twitter played a role on-the- ground with the 140 Twitter characters proving crucial for sending messages to activists on the ground who then guided protesters. Twitter was also used to raise international awareness and to communicate the events with human right organisations who then fed the news to networks hungry for media content on the uprisings. As Denis Campbell notes:

In 18 days, Twitter went from a tool used primarily by and for self-indulgent techies, to a powerful counter-block to a repressive regime’s attempts to shut down all opposition. Nobody had ever seen Tweets used this way and it represented a sea change in the way news is gathered and history recorded. (2011: 367)

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The video portal site YouTube also played a role. It worked as an ‘instant witness’ to events and consequently raised international awareness by documenting the regime’s brutality. Web 2.0 was the basis for these entire different social forms and it thus acted as a catalyst for the first wave of social unrest in Egypt which went on to shift the balance of power in favour of the civil society actors and their quest for democracy. As Ulises Mejias, in his book Off the Network, notes:

The mass adoption of corporate-owned digital networks has somehow been heralded as the end of cultural monopolies. Power has shifted, we are told, and no longer is an elite minority in control of the production and dissemination of messages. That capacity has now been distributed among a new army of

content producers who digitize, analyse, aggregate, and share content without a need for permissions or licenses, and who face no steep barriers of entry. (2013: 30-31)

To this end Web 2.0 platforms were hailed as ‘technologies of liberation’ and as ‘tools of empowerment’ because civil society actors achieved what they aimed for in terms of political change in ousting Bin-Ali and Mubarak. The popularity of Web 2.0 applications during the first wave of democratic movements led political commentators and journalists to declare the Egyptian revolution a ‘Facebook revolution’ and the Tunisian revolution a ‘Twitter

revolution’.

The exhilaration of this period, though, changed during the second wave of social unrest in Egypt and concomitantly Web 2.0 technologies entered a different phase in terms of their role in the social struggle.