VasGk | Κοινωνικό Νερό

Shimon Peres & Benjamin Netanyahu, in two different occasions, talked about the role of the Internet in the recent events throughout the Middle East. Peres at a Chatham House Conference: Sixty Years of British-Israeli Diplomatic Relations (30 March 2011), and Netanyahu in a recent YouTube interview (31 March 2011). Both messages carry the same principles. Peres said: It's actually a revolt without organizers. Nobody knows who organized it. It arrived from an unknown combination of sentiments and knowledge introduced to the younger generation by modern communication, the internet, smartphones, Facebook. For the first time, young people in the Arab world could have seen with their own eyes the ugly face of dictatorship, of corruption, of want. And they could have compared their lot with the lot of other young people in the world. And ask themselves why they're not here. And actually, it is really a revolt, unorganized, spontaneous, against autocracy, against oppressi...

First of all, I want you to look at the print-screen below. It's when Gaddafi delivered his first speech after the clashes started in Libya. At the same time, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, made a statement and the BBC carried the two pictures side by side. Can you see the differences? Clearly there is a stark difference! the man on the left is wearing a suit and making a point; while the man on the right is wearing a brown robe with a turban; plus he is reading a green book. Now, to any person that has watched cartoons is fairly simple to decide who he/she is going to trust. You can clearly identify the bad person in the picture. But is it really so simple? Obviously not. In the video below you can watch Gaddafi in a recent interview with the BBC. Watch how he smirks when the interpreter finishes his question. A BBC report on the ground finds people that support Gaddafi and are loyal to the regime. Gaddafi is known for his outlandish statements and ch...

I've been following what is happening in Libya these days, and I am not sure why this uprising has not been hailed as a Social Media or "facebook revolution". Although this sort of tagging is mostly planted by mainstream media, I am sure that in the aftermath of the middle-east happenings there will be a lot of analysis and even research on how the Internet played a part. In one of my past posts, I wrote on " The Internet and Social Media in #Egypt, how It really matters ". Saif al-Islam Gaddafi , the son of Muammar al-Gaddafi , on a recent speech to the Libyan people (February 20th) referred to some people that want to drag Libya into: "what happened in Tunisia and in Egypt and it started by facebook, emails and twitter and in their media campaign". In an article " Libyan dictator warns against use of Facebook " Emil Protalinski confirms what Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said. So, not only citizens know how Social Media impact t...