Arab Spring - The Ultimate Social Media Guide

It’s Arab Spring, and social media is writing its own chapter in the history books. After Tunisia’s revolution, nobody thought that a people’s uprising would spread to another country in the region.  Experts the world over published news articles and editorials telling us how Egypt isn’t Tunisia, Syria isn’t Tunsia or Saudi Arabia isn’t Tunisia. Yet here we are today, in the midst of an historic regional uprising with implications for the whole world, implications that could change the course of world history giving a region rife with conflict, despotism and colonization the chance for real freedom and choice. Without Twitter and Facebook, it’s entirely possible that this would not have happened.  

Below you will find the ultimate social media guide to the “Arab Spring,” Twitter accounts from leaders and people on the ground to homepages of revolutions on Facebook. Facebook isthe soapbox they stand on, and Twitter is the Megaphone through which they speak.

UPDATED  April 1, 2011
 

Twitter has embraced its role in the Pan-Arab uprisings. While the core of rebellion was born on Facebook, it’s Twitter where word really spread and organizations and opposition groups organized themsleves. Twitter is full of activists on the inside and out who post minute by minute Tweets of what is going on in every hotspot in the Pan-Arab uprising. From refugees and expats in England to leaders and activists in Iran, Twitter has them all. Information comes in so quickly in fact that its hard to keep up with it all. It is raw and uncensored information straight to your computer.

Facebook has no doubt proved the most vital source of rebellion on the net. It is from Facebook pages where activists rallied the people in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, etc. to the call that it was time for change, to assemble, let your voices be heard and take to the streets on such and such date. One could call Facebook the “Cradle of the Revolution”.

Unfortunately Facebook has deleted several opposition group accounts due to terms of service violations. The most recent being a page calling for a 3rd Palestinian Intifada for May 15th, 2011 against both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority with over 200,000+ “Likes”.

When Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois sent Facebook a letter requesting that it amend its no-anonymity policy to protect democratic activists in the Middle East, Facebook said no. Despite this, dozens of pages dedicated to the various uprisings remain and are active everyday posting pictures, video and news stories about what is happening in their respective countries.