social media & democracy

social media &democracy

Universidade Catolica Portuguesa Formação Avançada em Media SociaisApril 24, 2012

Joel Postman

• Terremark, Miami, FL, One of the Internet’s global “kill switches, controls 200 networks

• Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and a handful of others control all the movement of information in the U.S.

• Meanwhile, one person with a printing press or a laser printer can print and distribute whatever he/she wants.

• Which information source is more free?

the free flow of information?

Government of Egypt threw the switch and turned off the Internet for a nation of 80 million

“The president … may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network.”

U.S Cybersecurity Act of 2009

some internets are freer than others

How wired is Egypt?• About 19% of Egypt's 80M people have

Internet access• Egypt has about 5.2M Facebook users,

less than 7% of the population. • About 31 percent of those who have

Internet access have signed up for Facebook accounts—a lot of them over the past few weeks.

• In contrast, nearly 60 percent of those with Internet access in Tunisia have Facebook accounts, while the number is close to 50 percent in the UAE

PBS, How January 31, 2011 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/01/how-wired-are-egyptians.htmlComputerworld http://blogs.computerworld.com/17810/is_the_role_of_social_media_in_egypt_being_overstated

What was blocked in Egypt?• Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat

Misr, Egypt’s four largest ISPs shut down• Twitter and Facebook blocked• Internet and some landlines also down• Network operators and service providers in Egypt

told by email to suspend services “in selected areas” in compliance with local laws

• France Telecom said its Egyptian Mobinil service was blocked

• SayNow (acquired by Google) converts voicemail to a Tweet with the hashtag #egypt.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-01-28/egyptians-defy-curfew-to-battle-police-in-challenge-to-mubarak.html

How fast can you turn off a nation’s Internet?

sms/mobility & the campaign machine

• SMS-based poll monitoring in Pakistan, India, Kenya, Afghanistan

• Dec. 2008: The Office of the Tehran Public Prosecutor announced the formation of a “special office to review Internet- and SMS-related crimes and violations.”

• Following Egypt & Tunisia, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton calls for Twitter accounts in Farsi, Arabic, etc. to reach young people

slacktivism

Doing good with little or no effort on the part of the person inspired to participate, through…forwarding, exhorting, collecting, or e-signing. Snopes, origin unknown

• Status update copy-and-paste• Likes• Avatar modifications• Authentication issues• Highlighted by spurious campaign

for National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

sms/mobility: political equalizers

• SMS-based poll monitoring in Pakistan, India, Kenya, Afghanistan

• Dec. 2008: The Office of the Tehran Public Prosecutor announced the formation of a “special office to review Internet- and SMS-related crimes and violations.”

• Following Egypt & Tunisia, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton calls for Twitter accounts in Farsi, Arabic, etc. to reach young people

sarah palin likes sarah palin

• Comments favorably on daughter Bristol's appearances on reality TV show Dancing With the Stars.

• “Likes” herself• “Lou Sarah” Facebook page now

“Not Found”

social media candidate, anti-social president

• Barrack Obama change.gov praised for social media savvy, role in election; after election transitioned to whitehouse.gov

• Job of a candidate vs. job of a president Freedom of Information Act, Presidential Records Act, Americans with Disabilities Act

Channel Obama McCainFacebook 2,379,102 620,359Twitter 112,474 4,603YouTube Viewers 18,413,110 2,032,993Blog Post Mentions 500,000,000 150,000,000

joel@socializedpr.com@jpostman

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