Facebook Fuels Revolutions

 While most users of social networking sites use them purely for communication and entertainment purposes, certain countries involved in civil wars have been using these websites as a tool to revolt against their own totalitarian governments.
For months now Syrian civilians in Duma, a north eastern suburb of the capital have been protesting against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. These protestors have reportedly been using Facebook as a means to fight for their cause. Syrian activists have dozens of profiles on Facebook that include the photos, names, addresses, and other information on suspected awainiyya, or "The Watchers" who are government informants posing as civilian protestors. Syrian residents can use the social networking sites to report suspected informants in their neighborhood, and the suspects' activities are monitored on the site, providing the civilians with information about who to trust and who not to trust, before the suspect is 'outed'. Once outed, the suspects usually receive a quick, and often violent retribution from the protestor regime.
However, although the revolutionists claim that they don't use information and photos of suspects unless they're absolutely sure that they're informants, many civilians have speculated that some people are taking advantage of the aggressive attacks on the 'outed' government informants. They claim that some people's information gets put on the Facebook sites, making it seem like they're suspects, for personal reasons like vendettas, whether they're actually informants or not.
Because the Syrian protestors are utilizing social networking sites as a tool to aid in their revolution, the Syrian government has taken action by completely shutting down the civilian's internet to foil their efforts.

Along with the Syrian protestors using facebook as a tool to revolt against their government other
countries like Egypt have mimicked their actions. Kullena Khaled Said was brutally murdered in
response to this incident activist Wael Ghonim created a facebook page inspiring others to act on the
behalf of Said. Ghonim says "I wanna meet Mark Zuckerburg one day and thank him...I'm takling on behalf of Egypt. This revolution started online. This revolution started on facebook. This revolution started in June 2010 when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians started collaboratin content. We would post a video on facebook that would be shared by 60,000 on their walls within a few hours. I've always said that if you want to liberate a society just give them internet."

Facebook has always been a good source to use when expressing your opinions. These countries are able to utilize the social network as means of communication to protest their government and broadcast how they want the rights they deserve. It's interesting to see a website that most people use as a casual means of communication being used for a greater purpose such as a revolution. Since we live in America, and never worry about rights being taken away, it is mind-blowing to see how a government can completely take away the internet from an entire country.

Cited: Flamand , Annasofie. "Syria's protesters turn to Facebook to expose 'citizen spies'." The Guardian. The Observer, 08 Oct 2011. Web. 10 Oct 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/09/syria-informers-protests-internet-facebook>.