Christopher Pouncy's List: DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP

• Ghonim's page — We are all Khaled Said — had accumulated 130,000 fans, according to the New York Times.
• Where there had been scattered planning, mostly in secret — the WikiLeaks document was not even clear whether or not the "sensitive" revolutionary plan was on the Internet — there was now public online gathering.
• Egypt holds the dubious honor of being the first country to shut off its Internet, cutting off about 20 million people, a quarter of the nation's population.

  • This is something I never thought was possible, even though the article said some internet users got around the shutdown.
• Though it was likely achieved through a combination of system shutdowns and data re-routing or blocking, it was remarkably clean. Cell phone and landline voice service continued, but SMS text messaging was also disabled.
• On Monday, Feb. 1, a service called SpeakToTweet, launched by Google and Twitter, brought voices of Net-deprived Egyptians to the global forum of Twitter by way of a phone number. Just like regular voicemail, people could call and leave a message.
• But thanks to another dose of Internet ingenuity, another group, Small World News, created a site called Alive In Egypt that posted the translations of the tweets, along with the original audio.

  • Organizations helping the people of Egypt by ensuring their voices be heard.
• This cost Egypt tens of millions of dollars per day for lost e-business," Cowie said. It would make sense to assume, even, that the protesters themselves were not the ones hardest hit by the financial losses.

  • A large form of online consumers in Egypt could now purchase goods because of the government shut down the internet.
• "How do you make everybody care?" asks Cowie. "Turn off the Internet."

  • Our society lives and raises their kids in a Digital world. 

6 more annotations...

• angered and animated, the Egyptian-­born Ghonim went online and created a Facebook page.
• the Egyptian-­born Ghonim went online and created a Facebook page.
• Two minutes after he started his Facebook page, 300 people had joined it.
• Three months later, that number had grown to more than 250,000.
• We Are All Khaled Said” helped ignite an uprising that led to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak and the dissolution of the ruling National Democratic Party.
• And he’s right. But his individual story resonates on two levels: it epitomizes the coming-of-age of a young Middle Eastern generation that has grown up in the digital era,

  • The change in society that is needed to remain relevant and up to date is a must. Digital Technology waits for no one.
• Though only a fraction of Egyptians have Internet access, Ghonim writes, the number of Web users in the country increased to 13.6 million in 2008 from 1.5 million in 2004. Through blogs, Twitter and Facebook, the Web has become a haven for a young, educated class yearning to express its worries and anxieties.

5 more annotations...

• The demonstrations that ended Mubarak's 30-year rule have become known as "The Facebook Revolution,"

  • The people rose up against the government and took the country back in the name of democracy, through a form of Digital Citizenship.
• • Mention in the presentation.
• The social media obviously played a very important role," says Khaled Fahmy, a professor of history at the American University in Cairo, "but the more traditional media played a vital role, too--maybe not in triggering the revolution but in preparing the way for it."
• • Another digital tool we have access to. In this case photoshopping Mubarak in a  position that would resonate his image.
• On Jan. 28 the regime shut down local Internet and cell-phone service. Kismet El-Sayed, the head of Al-Masry's digital operations, posed as a foreign guest and talked her way into a room at the Inter-Continental Cairo hotel, which still had a connection to a server outside the country. Twenty staffers moved in and managed the paper's website from there.
• That afternoon, an Al-Masry video reporter shot footage from the room of a crowd of thousands leaving Friday prayers and attempting to cross a bridge leading into Tahrir Square, only to be repulsed by government tanks outfitted with water cannons. After Al-Masry posted the footage on its website, it was picked up and replayed by foreign networks like CNN and BBC, which the Egyptian authorities had prevented from broadcasting live images of the protests.

4 more annotations...

• The first revolution was the Egyptian people and the Egyptian military toppling President Hosni Mubarak and installing the former defense minister, the aging Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, as the de facto head of state. Tantawi and his colleagues proved utterly incompetent in running the nation and were replaced, via a revolutionary election, by the Muslim Brotherhood’s party, led by President Mohamed Morsi. He quickly tried to consolidate power by decapitating the military and installing Brotherhood sympathizers in important positions. His autocratic, noninclusive style and failed economic leadership frightened the Egyptian center, which teamed up last month with a new generation of military officers for a third revolution to oust Morsi and the Brotherhood.