Social Media In The Arab Springs

Social Media In The Arab Springs

You constantly hear people who use social media proclaim that it's so revolutionary and thanking it for the rise of the poor downtrodden class in oppressed countries to rise agains their oppressors.

You really couldn't stop hearing this sort of shit when Egypt was getting that sort of freedom injected from the uprising. How twitter and facebook played a major part of it. I mean, why hey, let's look at a place where they're using social media... a place called Bahrain. Look at what Facebook has done for the democracy there:

CLICK ON ME AS THE VIDEO IS A TIMED SEGMENT

Yeah, that is something else, isn't it. I implore you to watch the whole thing. It's 54 minutes, but it'll be a very educational hour of your time



You can basically call this the Facebook Counter revolution. You should watch it till at least the title gets explained. That in itself is a real kick in the pants.

I still remember that really dumb NPR story on how America wasn't doing enough to stop the Iranian-backed hordes trying to take control of Bahrain and how they forgot their true allies, Saudi Arabia.

I kind of have to admit that Al Jazeera is really awful now. Ever since the Libyan war, they've gotten real bad real fast. I guess it has to do with Qatari interests aligning with western neo-liberal interest and massively grown western audiences following Egypt essentially had them shift narrative to appeal to the brand new Time Warner Cable offered channel.

So it really is a case that their interest don't always perfectly match that of the west, which makes them some where valuable, but in the end they are working for the same team. To be fair, every piece of information you receive from a source other than direct observation just work for team capital anyway.

I guess the key here is to use various outlets to balance each other out. Russia today is practically run by the Kremlin and has a consistently pro-Putin and anti-NATO outlook. However, this allows it to offer some good insights that the BBC and Al Jazeera would never give.

So while it has gone down hill a great deal, Al Jazeera can still be decent. You just have to know what the filter out.