I’ve tried to remain neutral in the great “social media is-or-isn’t having a role in democratic revolutions” debate. I’ve seen some good arguments on both sides, have often chuckled at the impossible fantasies of freedom technologists, while shaking my head at the obstinate refuseniks who can’t see what’s happening right before their eyes. There are so many problems with the debate – namely the expectation that a dictatorship must be shattered in order to say that social media makes a difference, as well as the basic issue of causation: of course these movements aren’t happening because of social media, they are just using it efficiently. At any rate, here Erik Sass fires a few shots across the bow of Malcolm Gladwell’s pessimistic perspective:
Once again, Gladwell tries to use historical analogies to make an embarrassingly simpleminded argument: basically, because revolutions happened in the past without social media, social media didn’t play a role in the current Middle East revolutions.
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