What now Gladwell?

This past week the turmoil an Egypt captured the attention of the world. An entire nation, tired of the status quo, united itself against an unpopular and corrupt government. How could a country with over eighty million inhabitants come together so quickly? Twitter and the Internet. Contrary to what Gladwell claimed in his article, "Small Change," a revolution did occur because of Twitter. 

Although Gladwell’s main idea was incorrect, not all of what he argued was completely untrue. For people to go and attempt something like a revolution, they have to be surrounded by the people they love. That is the only way they would be willing to sacrifice so much and put their lives at risk. He was also correct when he assumed that connections between most people in Twitter are relatively weak. People can't have meaningful relationships with hundreds of people, most of which they haven’t personally met. Where Gladwell was wrong was assuming that all relationships on Twitter are weak. People who are close still follow each other on Twitter and tweets became an effective way to organize people. Gladwell also did not understand the increase in communications that came with tweets.

Gladwell also underestimated the power of weak connections between many people. Twitter allowed the small isolated groups throughout Egypt to communicate and create a widespread protest. Alone people would not have had the courage to go against the government. Twitter allowed people to see that other people shared the same views toward the corrupt government. This widespread consensus gave the protests more legitimacy.

The power of Twitter and the Internet is further exemplified by the actions that the current president, Hosni Mubarak, took. Egypt was traditionally more liberal than most Middle Eastern countries when it came to the Internet. In the midst of the revolts, the government was quick to initially shut down Twitter and eventually all Internet access on January 27^th. The drastic and unusual actions the Egyptian government proves that Twitter and the Internet were the driving force in the protest.

Egypt’s turmoil also gave insight to the Internet’s role throughout the world. The censorship in Egypt brought help from around the world. Volunteers helped by making dial-up lines after the government cut phone lines. Even large companies like Google and Twitter teamed up to help in Egypt. Together the two companies made it possible to send tweets through phone. Average Internet users helped the protests by continuing to circulate videos and photos of injustices when the people in Egypt could not. The international on-line community is truly committed to giving everyone access to the Internet.

         The actions in Egypt should make us think how easily the Internet can be taken away from us. The Egyptian government was able to cut all Internet access in less than a day. Here in the United States there has been the idea of an “Internet kill switch” bill in the Senate that would centralize control over Internet networks. This would make it even easier to “turn off” the Internet. Without the Internet, how could a nation so dependent on it for communication fight against a tyrannical government?