How Facebook, Twitter and their Likes are Changing the World

Each time I read about the revolts breaking out in various parts of Arab and the details of how the protesters are organizing them, one question crosses my mind: Would it be possible in pre-social-media era? Facebook, Twitter and blogs are as much to thank for the success and spread of the revolutions as the people who are revolting.


For example, Egyptian protesters not just took inspiration from their Tunisian counterparts (where the protests broke out first) but also the know-how of how to organize and carry out successful protests. The Time has reported a Tunisian blogger as writing how a protester can stay safe and agile by wearing comfortable clothes and the importance of carrying water to protest venues. “Don’t discuss your strategy with just anyone you meet at protest site because it could be a security person in plain clothes,” the blogger warns.

It explains why the Internet becomes the first casualty when nervous governments want to stifle freedom of speech. The Internet gives people access to informal media (or social media) – Facebook, Twitter and blogs etc – empowering them to express their views in as-is form. This democratic character of informal media makes it more worrisome for repressive governments than conventional media which being organized are easy to control and suppress.

An Egyptian, a Google employee, set up a subversive group on Facebook and was jailed by authorities, and tortured. After the authorities freed him under public pressure, he went to Tahrir Square and gave a speech describing how he was tortured while in jail. Next day, the Egyptians who were part of his Facebook group went to Tahrir Square to join him, triggering protests that would eventually force Mubarak to step down.

History may have instances where a person singularly kicked off mass protests, but what is unlikely to have precedence is a popular protest in one country beginning a chain of revolutions in several countries, leaving regimes toppled and fates of nations reshaped in its trail. And no one knows where it will stop. That’s the power of social media.

                           A Scandalous Literary Work

Currently I am reading a book that many will recoil at – Lady Chatterley’s Lover – by D.H Lawrence. The book was published in 1928 and had created a furore in England and America because of its controversial storyline which is about extramarital affairs with graphic details of sexual intimacies.

Chatterleys are an unhappy couple. An accident has left Mr. Chatterley physically challenged and unable to perform conjugal duties. He also is indifferent towards his wife and encourages her to have a chequred relationship with someone so that Mr. Chatterley can get an heir to his immense wealth. Lonely and unloved, Mrs. Chatterley embarks on an affair with her husband’s gamekeeper, a caretaker.

The story gives you the glimpses of old English society, very lopsided and snob, and shows how the upper classes were indifferent to the plight of the ones below them. The Chatterleys have collieries and stay in a mansion, a world completely insulated from the lives of those working in their mines.

Lawrence had to have the manuscript typed by an Italian because several decent-minded English-knowing typists had refused to type it earlier due to heavy use of sexual expletives in the book. Upon its publication in the US, the book was banned. The ban spawned pirated copies which sold very well. It was DH Lawrence's last novel.

Will it Mean a Transformed Arab

I used to see the Arab world as a swathe of wealthy nations whose people are so content with their wealth that it didn’t matter to them that they were denied even most basic forms of freedom by their governments. No doubt I was ignorant, but many would share my views – until few weeks back.


First, Tunisia went up in flames and then the fire spread to other countries. What was most funny to see was how once the people took to streets, the dictators, who seldom showed any sign of weakness, started quaking. Following Ben Ali’s fleeing from Tunisia, the governments who would have otherwise considered it beneath them to give into people’s demands are ready to agree to anything to quell the fire of protests.

Media reports are attributing the eruption of protests mainly to two things: spike in food prices and absence of political freedom.

A strange part of the protests is that they are not anti-US despite the fact that the dictators are mostly US-backed. The US has many interests in Arab and it should make sure the popular uprising results in political freedom for the people; instead of one set of dictators replaced by another. The US’s fondness for dictators is one reason why democracy couldn’t flourish in Pakistan.

Will the outcome of the protests be a politically transformed Arab? I’m not sure but in the meantime, the protests will give China something to worry about unless they have already blocked the flow of news about the protests into the country.

Landlord on the Run

Earlier I had written at length about my landlord in this blog. He is acting stranger than before. Every month I meet him at a place to give my rent. When I went to the place last time, he appeared almost an hour late and said he had shifted to another place, quite afar, hence the delay. He looked distraught and from what he told me, he sounded like a man on the run.

I asked him why he wasn’t taking my calls and he said his phone was tapped. I was scared. Your phone can be tapped only by government investigating agencies. I asked him why and he said some people were “playing games” with him. “What kind of games and which people?” I asked. He has some real estate properties in Koramangla (Bangalore) and they were trying get them sold, he said. I couldn’t catch what was so wrong with it and how it justified his phone being tapped, but I remained silent.

He accused Jugrajji, who owns a jewelry shop under our building, of being behind everything. It was strange that Jugraj would try to trouble him; only couple of weeks back I had seen the two talk heartily. They were friends.

Jugraj and his friendship had always looked weird to me. They came from completely different backgrounds; Jugraj from a village in Rajasthan who wants to make it in Bangalore; the landlord from a wealthy family with a brother who is a doctor established in England with a Dutch wife.

On my way back home, I summed up what the landlord said and reached my conclusions. The phone-tapping thing was rubbish. I don't think he would be involved in something so serious that his phone would be tapped. But who he was trying to avoid by shifting to another place?

Today (31st Jan), when I met him to give my rent, it became clear who he was trying to avoid.

Having waited for an hour last time, this time I wanted to make sure that I didn’t find myself waiting again. I called him up and asked him to reach the spot and call me; it would not take me too long to walk to the location.

He called me and asked me to come to another place, not where we used to met for rent until last time. When I reached the place, he wasn’t there. I called him; he didn’t take the call. Fed up, when I started walking back home, my phone rang: it was the landlord.

He wanted me to come to another place to meet him. I wanted to snap but held myself back; after all it’s only once in a month, I thought.

When I reached the new spot, I didn’t find him. I called him but he refused to take the call. When I angrily started walking away, my phone buzzed. “I’m here,” he said. I turned back and found him bending and seeing me avoiding a low-hanging branch.

I walked to him and asked, “Why don’t you take your calls?” “If I take calls it becomes easy to spot where I am,” he replied. “Easy for whom,” I pursued; I deserved an answer, I thought. “That guy – Jugraj,” came the reply.

I was correct that no one was tapping his phone. The landlord has a Blackberry and so does Jugraj (at least he carries something that resembles a Blackberry) and there is an app (could someone tell the name, please?) which helps you detect the location of another person having a Blackberry. A shred of doubt lingers. I don’t think Jugraj, who is scantily literate, is tech smart enough to use the app.

Why the landlord is running away from Jugraj as if the latter has contracted a communicable disease? Probably the months to come will reveal.

Last time, when I had written about how Jugraj was pilfering power from me causing my electricity bill to shoot up, Elen had commented that I should find myself another accommodation. While coming back home today, I thought the same.