the Armchair of El Diablo

the Armchair of El Diablo 15

Amazing photos from the “2nd revolution” in Egypt. More at here The Atlantic

24 November 2011

Senior tech editor at The Atlantic, @alexismadrigal, scores and publishes the pamphlets being used to organise the Egyptian protest marshes that due to kick off in earnest in a few hours.

Nice scoop. But scary stuff. Note the warning “Please distribute by email and phone and print only: Twitter and facebook are being monitored”.

The protests will be taking place amid pretty grave concerns for safety. Word is the full internet black out occurred 10 minutes after AAP uploaded video of an Egyptian protester being shot (I won’t link to it, but if you need to see it look on the AAP site).

#Egypt is trending in twitter pretty solidly. There seem to be a lot of understandably very nervous folk there.

Here’s wishing them safety.

28 January 2011

the Armchair of El Diablo

Meanwhile in Egypt…

Former UN inspector, Mohamed El-Baradai, is preparing to lead the opposition in what looks to be the latest North African-Middle East region’s uprising.

Thing is though, as far as I can see, the protests have been rolling for days without a public leader - and only now one is appearing. (Surely that topsy-turvey oddness is a sign that social media is both a cause and a facilitator of social movements?)

So the government’s response to street protests over the past week has been to block access to Twitter… then Google and facebook… and now the whole internet. Ah screw it, throw in SMS as well.

Nicolas Thompson wrote in the New Yorker, “Movements that centre around hashtags, tend not to centre around leaders”.

So, without a leader to negotiate with, governments feel they have no choice than to respond disproportionately, and blanket-bomb communications. Which, of course, only casts them in a more oppressive light.

Egypt is just the latest government to not have realised that napalming the interwebs is no way to put out the fire.

28 January 2011