Twitter and Tear Gas: the power and fragility of networked protest (Introduction)

Twitter and Tear Gas: the power and fragility of networked protest  by Zeynep Tufecki

In the introduction to Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest Tufekci discusses the changes brought about by internationally networked communications systems that now exist thanks to the connectivity provided by the internet. With specific references to the Egyptian uprising in 2011 against the rule of President Mubarak, she explains the huge benefits that social media brought to organised protests in the early days of the uprising. Here the combined effects of citizen journalism and public opinion, published and read over the internet, spreading faster than the Egyptian authorities could compete with, brought about Mubarak’s downfall.

“Digital technologies had clearly transformed the landscape, seemingly to the benefit of political challengers” (Tufekci, 2017).

But the benefits of digital technology, most pertinently the speed at which it is possible to rally protestors to a cause, is cited by Tufekci as also contributing to the potential downfall of the organisations who had previously profited.  She explains that organisations that grow exponentially over a very short space of time lack organisational structures. They are by the nature of their creation, typically flat structures that lack structured management or decision-making.

Where citizen journalism has been successful it has often been a result of huge numbers of people effecting small-scale change. These changes tend to be the result of peaceful, virtual protests. The MeToo movement is an example of peaceful protest by huge numbers, which eventually created social and political change.

As with most new technologies, social media and internet communication have experienced a grace period, by which I mean that benefits are realised before the technology is thoroughly understood. The internet is the latest battleground between those who seek to use it for good (and there are many such organisations and individuals, and those who seek to use it for their own gain or for nefarious reasons. The internet is no longer the anonymous virtual world that we might think it is. Governments and big corporations watch our electronic interactions. The governments of most countries monitor us to identify those that they consider to be subversives or terrorists. Some control access to information via the internet, blocking information that they see as a counter to their particular flavour of propaganda. Large organisations, particularly the providers of these internet-based applications, buy and sell our information. Most control what we see using algorithms to push information to us that they believe we will respond to. It is worth reminding ourselves that such companies are not doing this for the greater good! They are commercial organisations whose primary function is to make money for their shareholders.

Tufekci explores how organisations, governments, and some influencers, assert control over the population through the Internet. One method quoted is the “muddying of waters” by publication of misinformation “making it hard for ordinary people to… sort fact from fiction” (ibid, p.28). Contemporary examples of this include Donald Trump’s use of the term “fake news” and his publication of sometimes ridiculous stories and counterarguments. Other techniques employed, particularly by influencers, are to unceasingly publish their opinions. Those with the loudest voices eventually get heard and promoted due to social media algorithms until they become influential voices despite not having legitimate public support. One such example of this approach is the rise to infamy of the influencer Andrew Tate.

Tufekci crams all of these thoughts into just the introduction to her book, which promises to be thought-provoking and illuminating work.

“The author is also insightful on how governments and politicians are moving from censorship, no easy task on social media, to attention-grabbing and misinformation. “Just as attention is under-appreciated as a resource for social movements, distractions and ignorance are under-appreciated as methods of repression through denial of attention,” she writes” (Kuchler, 2017).

KULCHER, H., 2017. Why networked protest struggles on the streets. Financial Times

TUFEKCI, Z., 2017. Twitter and tear gas : the power and fragility of networked protest. New Haven, [Connecticut: Yale University Press, pp. 21-31