Egypt's social media revolution

Facebook groups and tweets incited what some would call a "social media revolution" in Egypt that began 18 days ago.

Mubarak ended his presidency Friday because of protestors numbering up to 2 million in Egypt.

While the people started the revolution, it was social media that helped to speed the process along. The effect of social media was seen back in August when a protestor, Khaled Said, was beaten and soon a Facebook group was started saying, "We are all Khaled Said" and then protest groups began to emerge on Facebook.

The revolution started a few weeks ago with the immolation of one protestor along with one of the key organizers of the uprising, Wael Ghonim, Google Marketing executive who was arrested during the protests and held in jail for 12 days. Ghonim helped organize the "revolution on Facebook and Twitter and plans to write a book about the effect of social media on political activism called "Revolution 2.0." according to Los Angeles Times.

Ghonim told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "If you want to liberate a government, give them the Internet."

Online pledges to participate approached 90,000 Group pages created "gained hundreds of thousands of members and promoted the early protests in Cairo."

Activists have used social media to pass on information and over the past month there were five million new Facebook members in Egypt. During an interview on CNN, Nicholas Thompson said posters on Facebook and Twitter were saying things like, "Get together in twenty minutes" or "the revolution is coming."

BBC says that this is the emergence of a new generation with a "vast number of the population being under the age of 30 who are technologically savvy and able to coordinate their protests."

Leaders in Egypt must have felt the threat of Facebook and Twitter and other social media outlets because they shut down the Internet and soon after cell phone lines in an attempt to stop the protests from growing.

With each revolution there seems to be a new driving force that speed up the process, according to baptistandard.com

"The Protestant Reformation would have been impossible without the printing press; the American Revolution was advanced by the postal service Benjamin Franklin designed. There is a two-step process by which public opinions are formed."

Even the U.N recognizes the effect that social media had on Egypt's revolution, according to MSNBC, American U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice recognized the 'enormous impact' of Twitter and Facebook on the world's stage. 'Governments are increasingly cognizant of their power.'"

Social media outlets are now recognized as new tool for the people.

CNN summed up the potential learned for social media networks, "And conversely, the events in Egypt have shown the strength of these tools for both organizing and informing people. The Egyptian people and reporters alike found ways to share their messages even when the government tried to stop them. Using VPN, proxy sites, third party apps and other tools, they were able to continue sharing news with those of us on the outside. And at the same time, the rest of the world found ways to use tech to curate and disseminate information."