A Better Use For Facebook

May 5, 2008 on 12:51 pm | In Other-NewMedia, - Jauretsi |

Digital Activists

(Banners from Egyptian Facebook groups calling for the May 4 Strike)

Variety reported today that a 27 year old blogger finally got released from jail in Qantar. She basically opened a Group page on Facebook to rally people in protest of the hikes in food price. Esra Abdel Fattah had mentioned a nationwide protest planned for April 6th, but she got arrested (along with Mohammed Sharkawi and Malak Mustafa). About 1 week before the big protest, Egyptian police scooped her up while she was chillin’ buying coffee in some Cairo coffeeshop. Fattah’s Facebook page had 64,000 members!

Anyway, her mother appealed directly to the president Hosni Mubarak and the Interior Minister let her go. The protest instead focused on Mahalla (a Nile Delta city). Demonstrators ripped down posters of Mubarak. The youth were throwing stones chanting about rampant inflation. The police had rubber-coated bullets. Three people were killed in the clash.

(Arabic for “We Blog For Freedom”. Image from Abdel Monem’s blog, based in Egypt)

The last organized gathering on Facebook was for a protest (also for price hikes) to take place yesterday, May 4th (Mubarak’s 80th birthday). The group called like-minded people to have a “day of civil disobedience” and to mourn the deaths at Mahalla.

In short, there is INSANELY interesting activity happening online with the youth of the world. One particular site, called DigiActive fosters this community of “digital activists” by explaining the online tricks of the trade for social change. There is a smart interview with blogger Nora Younis regarding Facebook as a tool here.

If you’re feeling that as Americans we’re skinny on this topic, let me remind you that the first glorious protest executed using the tools of the internet was back in 1999 in Seattle. Watch Stuart Townsends film Battle in Seattle to learn how Americans organized themselves back at a time when the internet was in its infancy. The outburst resulted in the cancellation of the World Trade Organization meetings to take place in Seattle.

The tools of communication are better today. So I hope we start seeing more smart Facebook “Group Pages” in the States, and less people “throwing sheep” at me… and please stop “poking” me! (if you use Facebook, you’ll know what that means)….
J