It’s a widely believed theory that the Internet, social media and other online tools and technologies can serve to undermine authoritarian regimes and help to spread democracies. As I wrote before, technology represents the ‘democratization of information’ - by which regimes no longer have a monopoly on knowledge. By reaching people who might never have known of other possibilities, the Internet and technology is opening people’s eyes and putting power in the hands of the people via the dissemination of knowledge. For sure, this is a powerful theory. But even beyond this more ‘general’ effect, we’ve heard stories of how Twitter has facilitated protests and organization by the people against the state - in places like Iran and Moldova. Twitter is truly revolutionary - in more ways than one.
Yet, these success stories are - perhaps - isolated incidents, and most of the authoritarian countries of the world are much less amenable to the spread of social media. A brilliant article by Foreign Policy claims that Twitter barely exists in most autocracies - many of these countries have their own versions of microblogging or have their own social networks. In many parts of the world, Orkut is far more popular. More likely, Internet in these countries is not widespread enough nor fast enough for people to be constantly logged on to Twitter. Moreover, Twitter is likely to be used by people with knowledge of English and some international exposure - it doesn’t necessarily reach wide swathes of the population, many of whom may be poor and non-English speaking. It mostly reaches the educated and the elite.
Another problem described in the article relates to the lack of anonymity on Twitter - incidents in the past have shown that individuals can easily be tracked down by government forces for their actions on Twitter. This isn’t exactly conducive to starting a revolution. If I were living in an authoritarian country, I doubt I’d use Twitter, a public medium, to voice my criticisms of the regime or to publicize protests I was a part of - it seems too easy to get caught!
Twitter is also prone to misinformation. After all, how much detail can you put in a 140 character tweet? During the swine flu outbreak, there was certainly misinformation all around - sometimes certain issues or breaking news stories spread like wildfire, and just as likely these stories can cause mass hysteria. Twitter simply isn’t a tool meant for informing people completely, and it becomes even less useful when we begin dealing with complex political situations. That’s just not something you can easily break down on Twitter, and such sensitive information is prone to misunderstanding.
Ultimately, Twitter’s an excellent tool for many of us - it helps us keep up to date with the latest issues and debates, generates fantastic conversation, and helps drive traffic to our sites. It’s gaining a cultish following by some who understand it’s true power - it helps us create a network, an audience far greater than what we’d have otherwise. Some people claim that Twitter is stupid — I’ll be honest and say that it makes me smarter. And you know why? It’s because I follow smart people. There is intellectualism to be found on Twitter, and those who find it are hooked.
Despite all the hype, Twitter isn’t going to be spreading democracy anytime soon. Sure, it may facilitate protests in certain areas, but there are still many obstacles stopping Twitter from being embraced within authoritarian regimes, especially poor ones.
But I’ll still be holding on to some hope. And in the meantime, I’ll be tweeting.
Picture credit: here
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