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How Killing the Internet Helped Revolutionaries

Posted by Soulskill on from the anything-that-gets-people-off-twitter-has-to-help dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In a widely circulated American Political Science Association conference paper, Yale scholar Navid Hassanpour argues that shutting down the internet made things difficult for sustaining a centralized revolutionary movement in Egypt. But, he adds, the shutdown actually encouraged the development of smaller revolutionary uprisings at local levels where the face-to-face interaction between activists was more intense and the mobilization of inactive lukewarm dissidents was easier. In other words, closing down the internet made the revolution more diffuse and more difficult for the authorities to contain." As long as we're on the subject, reader lecheiron points out news of research into predicting revolutions by feeding millions of news articles into a supercomputer and using word analysis to chart national sentiment. So far it's pretty good at predicting things that have already happened, but we should probably wait until it finds something new before contacting Hari Seldon.

4 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Pitchfork at the ready by macraig · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If some supercomputer analyzed my public writings, it would recognize that I've been keeping the pitchfork I made out of the old plowshare handy by the back door for some time now. I ate the oxen quite a while back when Monsanto took my fields away, so it's not like I had any other use for it.

  2. Re:Human Machine by cobrausn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My bet is it would predict a revolution in the US every couple of years... probably every 2 years... right around election time...

    --
    How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
  3. Awesome concept by RobinEggs · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Very nice concept. We always hear that turning off the internet was effective suppression that protestors nevertheless overcame; this is a brilliant question to ask about another possible result.

    Even pondering this kind of gently contrarion (as opposed to deliberately provocative or 'egdy') research demonstrates more curiousity and academic honesty than a lot of tenured people show in their entire lives.

  4. Re:Just like the Declaration of Independence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

    It's been recognized for generations that people won't rebel against a government for light reasons. As long as people have food and jobs to keep them busy, they'll tolerate quite a bit of oppression.

    The thing is, the Internet is both a "bread and circuses" sort of distraction and - to a younger generation (and to use Western generational/cultural identifiers, because those are the only ones I know), the Internet is more than what "TV" was to their Boomer parents. It's more akin to what "church" was to their Silent grandparents: where everybody goes to interact, not merely distract. Governments, typically being composed of older-generation folks, don't seem to understand that yet.

    Hence, the meme that started with the Egyptian riots: If the government shuts down your internet, shut down your government.