Our Voice: Embrace change via social media
Simply passing the racks of newspapers around campus, it’s hard not to notice the revolution that’s been going on in Egypt. Even if you are unaware of the logistics of the protests and changes in the government, there is one factor of the Egyptian people’s situation that people have been buzzing about—the role of censorship and social media in organizing, perpetuating and communicating (and stopping the communication of) the realities of the revolution.
When the Egyptian people chose to rally against the 30 years of President Hosni Mubarak’s reign, Twitter became a vital tool in organizing the protests. Once the government became aware of the use of Twitter and Facebook in the revolution, the social networking sites were shut down, followed shortly by the total closing of the Internet.
While Egypt’s Internet is in the news and China is well-known for it’s strict censorship, how much do we know about censorship in our own country as well as others around the world?
According to a graphic released by Mashable on Feb. 15 titled “Just How Open is Your Internet?” countries in Africa as well as South America are experiencing lesser censorship than America. Ours is one of the countries listed as having “some censorship.” Although we are aware of the reality of censorship our Internet in America is under, compared to areas such as Saudi Arabia and Tunisia (which recently experienced an Egyptian-like revolution), we have much freedom in access to our Internet. Especially as students, we have the ability, skills and freedom to truly access the potential of social media.
For many of us at Georgia College, we use Facebook as a way of sharing our thoughts, inviting friends to events or even checking out that attractive stranger in our Spanish class. We are rarely using our Twitter accounts to organize mass protests or attempt to overthrow our government.
It is important to understand the potential we have as Americans in using social media to create change in our university, our city and even country. The Colonnade fully supports the potential of social media and taking advantage of more freedom and less censorship of our Internet. The Egyptians proved that not only the pyramids, but change through social media is possible.
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