How Killing the Internet Helped Revolutionaries

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.

Comments

Just give it a little thought

[Dyinobal]

If you're like me you don't generally like the government I got loads of complaints with the state of the government in the USA but do I really do much about it? No I'm too busy with my job, friends and other stuff. Plus lets face it things aren't that bad here despite all the dire stuff they put on the news. But if the government suddenly turned off my porn and tv shows plus slashdot and various other sites I habitually use I'd be up in arms pounding on my congressman's door maybe even joining a riot if the mood was right.

Re:Just give it a little thought

[Machtyn]

Agreed. While our freedoms have not been completely stripped, making us the frog in the slowly boiling water, we have been contented with our current freedoms and, more especially, our conveniences to be able to do anything about anything. Half of us vote, sometimes. Fewer than that know why they are voting for whom they vote. Fewer than that are actually properly informed about the candidates for whom they are voting for and against.

Still, there is a slow momentum of dissatisfaction with the US government and the current state of social affairs. It is being shown in various ways - the rise of the TEA party. Even though Pelosi, et al, may think this is not a grass roots movement, it is. The back and forth issue with Prop 8 in California. The rise in CCW licenses and survivalist purchases (food storage and other things). Roaming, violent flash mobs. The growing popularity of libertarianism. All these things say to me that there is a movement afoot.

None of the sides have been able to grab the populace's attention long enough to make a sustained effort to gain control and move this ship in one direction or another. The Dems made strides in 2006 because of massive dissatisfaction with Bush and his policies. Obama was elected on this wave. He was such an atrociously bad leader the Dems were thrown out in 2010 and Obama will likely (hopefully) be thrown out in 2012. But who's to say that even if the Repubs gain any control in the House, that the tide won't shift back to the Dems in 2014? It seems this pendulum is swinging farther in either direction instead of slowing down to a centrist point so that our leaders can agree on some things and make our society progress.

Re:Just give it a little thought

[Hatta]

The government DID turn off my recreation, and is more than happy to incarcerate me for years on end if I just try to have a little fun. From my point of view, there's very little difference between America banning Cannabis and Iran banning western music/TV.

Pitchfork at the ready

[macraig]

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.

Re:Human Machine

[cobrausn]

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

Shutting down the internet had other results

[JoshuaZ]

Shutting down the internet had two other results: It made people in Egypt who were not involved in the revolution sit up and take notice. This especially applied to some of the higher income people in Cairo who used the internet for both entertainment and business. Also, shutting down the internet made the rest of the world a lot more sympathetic to the Egyptian revolutionaries. Shutting down the internet is such an obvious, massive form of censorship that it immediately becomes clear to a lot of people that the people doing it are doing a bad thing. It wouldn't surprise me if in thirty or forty years shutting down the internet will itself be considered a form of crime against humanity.

Just like the Declaration of Independence

[crow]

"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.

Re:Just like the Declaration of Independence

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:Just like the Declaration of Independence

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

There was a large complacent middle class from the very beginning of America... Only about a third of the country, led largely by the upper class, whom had the most to gain but also the most to lose, wanted to revolt against England. Another third, again, largely led by the upper class that were scared to lose, wanted to continue our relationship with England. The final third didn't really care, they just wanted to be left alone to do their thing.

Anyway, at the time, we had the very wealthy - large plantation owners, the very poor - slaves, indentured servants and the like, and a large middle class made up of independent businessmen and the help they hired. That held true up until the 20th century, when the government decided that it needed to become involved in the business of redistributing the wealth as a reaction to the extreme wealth created by the industrial revolution, largely due to a fad regarding Marx, Engels and such.

The post-WWII boom wasn't created by the policies of Wilson, FDR, LBJ or whatever progressive hero you have, it was created by the simple fact that most of the factories in the rest of the industrial world were destroyed by war and Europe, Eastern Asia and the like had to rely on the unscathed factories of the United States and Canada to rebuild. It was only natural that, as the manufacturing capacity of Europe and Asia were rebuilt, that the United States would decline. You've been trained to blaim the policies of Nixon, but it was simply the duration of the rebound of the first world economy outside of the Americas.

What we had done in the meantime, was create numerous entitlement programs which, especially regarding the Great Society, were unsustainable. Specifically in the case of the Great Society, with welfare, Medicaid, Medicare and the like, Congress decided to raid the Social Security Trust Fund (via an Amendment in 1967) to paper over the huge costs, which had far exceeded CBO projections prior to passage. The truth is, in addition to taxes, inflation, and bonds, Congress was raiding the other "lock boxed" source of income, largely so they could continue to lie to people, telling us that we could afford something they already knew would bankrupt us. They lied and they were either retired or dead before people began to catch on - but they got to stay in office longer, having duped the masses.

So, by all means, blame Nixon. Blame Ford, Reagan, Bush and Bush if you want to... but be sure to blame Obama, Clinton, Carter, LBJ, JFK, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, Hoover, Wilson and TR too, since they all contributed to our current problems in their own way. Don't be a partisan hack and pretend all the problems fall on one side or even one President, because they were all involved. More importantly, don't forget their Congresses, since the President can't introduce legislation on their own and all spending, in particular, must originate in the House.

Be sure to blame the unions too... for demanding more than what was responsible in the long term, but like the 1967 Congress that authorized raiding the Social Security Trust Fund, blame the union leadership for cashing in on what they knew was unsustainable so they could maintain and grow their own power, influence and pocketbooks. Likewise, blame the executives that capitulated to them.

Under the guise of redistribution of wealth, you end up with two classes - the rich that have the money to defend themselves, and the poor, who demand everything from anyone else. It's the middle class, which has enough money to provide for themselves but not enough money to defend themselves, that suffer from the powers that demanding wealth redistribution, be it the government or the special interest groups that advocate it. It's also the natural result of converting the government from a body solely meant to protect our rights into a body out to seek reparations from one group on behalf of another.

We're seeing this with the BART protests

[Fned]

If BART had left the cellphone repeaters on during the first protest, most of us would have all forgotten about it by now.

As it stands, there are now protests planned every single week into the indefinite future.

Not being able to communicate with their phones has not, it seems, prevented the protestors from using the calendar function on their phones...

Not the Internet as much as people being angey

[Meshach]

I think that the Internet is just a means to an end. The people were angry and ready to revolt. Lots of revolutions (Soviet Union dismantling, American Revolution...) happened without the Internet present. When people are angry enough word gets out.

Agree but there's no black or white.

[w0mprat]

Communication technology goes both ways, it's a tool. There is no simple clear cut answer whether it's good or evil it is equally available. We love to paint things broadly with a black or white brush and that's what's happened after the middle easy uprising and the London riots. One seeing praise for open communication, one seeing suggestions twitter and blackberry PIN messaging should have been turned off.

In reality really pissed off people will find a way to fight back. Taking a step back here, ultimately cutting off the communication network is not going to do much because that is not the actual cause, rather a mildly helpful catalyst. It's just an easy target for whoever needs to be seen to doing something, and is getting rather desperate.

Hell, if they cut of my slashdots I'd riot harder.

Ultimately a savvy dictatorship would use internet, the internet after all doesn't care what it's used for it just pipes your data. Certainly governments and influential organisations, political movements etc use misinformation on the internet and it's useful idiot syndrome to great affect (see Fox news lol).

Secretly we all know that facebook, twitter and anything blackberry is actually kind of crap. It's just that everyone else is on them, and they seem to work well enough. There's still no substitution for old school word of mouth for your little uprising, which by some measures is more effective. They can't switch that off.

Re:Predicting the future that you can affect

[matunos]

And once oppressive governments try to use such predictions to suppress revolutions, the people will learn to adapt and alter their public speech. For instance, after decades of government control of the media, Egyptians were able to use social networking to vent their frustrations. As governments try to suppress/infiltrate social networking, people will turn to other strategies.

Awesome concept

[RobinEggs]

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.

I live in Tunisia...

[Nrrqshrr]

And back then, when Ben Ali was still here and the riots started taking more and more regions, the gov't had the great idea of forbidding people from going to places where they might have the silly idea of "forming" a riot. Thus, football games were stopped, university courses cancelled...
Predictably, those who used to watch football every Sunday suddenly had nothing to do, and those who were preparing for exams found themselves in holidays... Why not join the riots?