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Ben Cole Mr. Campbell Extended Inquiry Paper English 1102 5/3/12 Global Village Web 2.0: We see the web as something to use for fun, a way of interacting with a mass group of people; we see the web as a tool for enjoyment. What if it were something, else something more? A tool not for homework but for creating justice, what if it werent used as a getaway from your life or your parents but a getaway from those who hunt you because of your religion? What if it werent a break from reality into a fantasy world but a look on what your country could become through democracy? What if the internet didnt mean freedom from your homework but meant freedom from your parents. Todays generation in America has grown, with the web, theyve seen it evolve from something their own parents used for work to what they used for a school project helper to were the next would solely rely on it as there social outlet. What if the world could be like a small town where everyone knows everything about one another? What if the web could become a way to create global village per say. But first the question is what exactly is web 2.0. Two essential features are useful in distinguishing Web 2.0 projects and platforms from the rest of the web: micro content and social media. (Alexander and Levine). Micro content is a term is a recently new term that describes search results and there relevance to a topic that invites the reader in to them. But more importantly to describe web 2.0 we need to define social media. And that is web based applications that involve interaction between however many members that can view it. This is extremely significant because that relates to the fact that

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a boy in Hong Kong can post a picture that can be discussed in Denmark and at the same time be displayed in Brazil. The internet makes all things placed on it virtually assessable to anyone, making the entire planet like your local neighborhood as far as communication is concerned. No one could have predicted that wed be able to send a message across the world in a second, fifty years ago and now we can do it with a device that fits in our hands. What could happen next is anyones guess. Where will the internet lead us in ten years, or twenty? We may not see how it has led us to here. How has the connection of a global village impacted the human culture as a whole; including business, politics, and day to day lives? More importantly how has it impacted other cultures that have not always grown with the internet like America but have just recently been exposed? Countries in North Africa and the Middle East are currently going through something that has never been experienced before. A series of uprisings and rebellions most commonly known as the Arab Spring, Arab Uprising or the Arab Awakening. So is the recent exposure of the democratic world the reason all of these countries who have very recently just have all of a sudden been able to rise up together using the internet as a tool for there protest. Is that the end of this discussion or is it the beginning. Can the internet be the source of a new world wide form of democracy that truly represents what the people want, and can possibly stop governments in there tracks? That is what we hope to uncover in this paper. Build Up to the Arab Spring The Arab Spring is generally thought of as a mass assembly of protest started for different reasons for different countries, including problems like the governments leaders or in most cases dictatorship or absolute monarchy. Other issues such as; human rights being trampled over, governments and or political corruption, economic decline, unemployment, widespread poverty,

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and the cultural issues. This includes large percentage of educated but generally unequally divided among the social classes. As well as unsatisfied groups of students within the vast majority of the population concerning political choices that are being made. The promoters for the revolts in North Africa and around the Persian Gulf are populations of their respective countries. Who saw that there countries have been focused on the wealth of the hands of the select few of the higher class. Like dictators in power for years and years, some even decades, all it seems by corruption and it looks like the youth had had enough so they acted. Growing food prices and mass cases of famine rates have also been a hot topic factor, as they involve difficulties to food security around the globe. We also see rising of the tension between mounting aspirations and a lack of government reform for the younger generation who do to outsources like the web have been introduced to other ways of life. (GIC) According to the Juan Cole All the talk about the role of Facebook and Twitter and other new media in enabling the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Algeria has taken the focus off a major player in these dramatic events: the labor movement.(Live Leaks) The Tunisian Revolution was where it all began and was an intensive campaign of civil rebellion, including a series of street demonstrations taking place in Tunisia. The strikers began in December 2010 and led to the overthrow of their former and very long time President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. (Al Jazeera English) The demonstrations were triggered by Mohammed Bouazizi who was a tired of being harassed by the local police and decided to publicly set himself on fire on December 17, 2011. (Daily News) Bouazizi became a marder for vast unemployment, food cost inflation, corruption, no freedom of speech and poor living conditions. The protest actually turned out to be a success and led to the removal of President

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Zine El Abidine Ben Ali 28 days after they began and on 14 January 2011. He officially quit after fleeing to Saudi Arabia, ending 23 years in power. (Daily News) Next would be Egypt, and where most of the world would begin to pay attention. After seeing the success in Tunisia Egypt decide it was time to take action against their long term president, President Hosni Mubarak. Despite the strikers intentions to remain a nonviolent protest and keep it peaceful in nature, the revolution was not without violent casualties between security and protesters, with at least, 60,000 injured and up to 846 people killed. The insurrection happened in Cairo, Alexandria, and in other parts of Egypt. Issues of Egyptian protesters were focused on legal and political issues. (Egypt Independent) Cairos protesters believed that Mubaraks government had led to problems such as police brutality, a constant state of emergency laws, no free elections and freedom of speech, uncontrollable and ramped corruption, and economic topics like high unemployment numbers, food prices rising, and low if any minimum wages. The crucial demands from protest organizers were the end of the Hosni Mubarak reign and the end of emergency law. They wanted freedom and equality, a responsive government that was non-military, and a voice in topics like organization of Egypt's resources .Strikes by labor unions which were planned over the internet added to the pressure on government officials to either support them or go into economic ruin. (Live Leaks) The main protest ground in Cairo was considered a warzone by the government and a hot bed for international journalist. The international point of view was controversial to say the least but some could even say that the peaceful movement was a step I reform that the protesters were looking for. Web 2.0s Part in the Fight

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So how did the internet play into this achievement? Why are Egyptians formally thanking Mark Zuckerberg the creature of Facebook, and naming their daughters Facebook. (NP) Facebook usage in Egypt has skyrocketed since the uprising and many who live there credit it for their success. It was a man named Ghonim that first started the uprising by posting about a protest that he was planning. (The Daily Beast) The tweet threads kept use involved with the protest, we could see it from the peoples eyes feel there want for justice, and we saw their pain and their never flinching resolve to stick to what they believe even with the possibility of torture or death. The world felt the crowd we felt there struggle we listened to their messages a world away and we were with them through the end. The modern man could see an individual not just a countries rebellion but unique people who have lives and stories sticking to what they believe in and riding out the hard times for their own peaceful protest which actually was extremely threatening. We had had in touch journalism previously but the world had never seen this before. School girls werent tweeting about their day and teenagers werent Facebooking about their weekend plans a whole country was fighting for their rights and we were seeing it through their eyes moments after it was happening through the power of social media.( Egypt Independent) Did the creators of Facebook see this? They had wanted to create the college experience for everyone not helps topple governments. Is it possible that Facebook is no longer a way to express yourself but a new tool for mass communication? At this point society had just used Facebook to describe your day; the idea wasnt to describe your day of protesting a dictator to the whole world. This unyielding connection we see is obviously a powerful tool which no one had ever thought to use before now. Tweets werent just used to describe someones homework but to keep the whole entire world updated and informed.

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Even while the service, and in fact, all Internet access, has been intermittently blocked in Egypt during the crisis, news, video clips and images continue to spread around Twitter with the greatest urgency, says Jollie ODell a writer for Mashable Social Media, In fact, Google today launched a voice-to-Twitter service specifically to assist Egyptian Twitter users wishing to act as citizen journalists. ODells work actually tracked a lot of information about tweets during the protest and the amount of tweets from Egypt and the tweets that week in comparison to the week before increased substantially, by thousands at least. That isnt even accounting for those who didnt share their location to protect their identities. (Mashable) Are we looking at a new age? Where the public can know every espionage secret is just a Wikipedia page away? Is this too much? Or a new rebirth, possibly a way to bring about groups that have not spoken directly for years through online interaction alone? Can the social media one day hold everyone in the world together? Be the online family of an informational age? Where is the line what is to stop terrorist from using Facebook instead of peaceful protest like in Cairo? Was Facebook the difference between Tiananmen Squares failure and Cairos success? The experience is real no matter where you are in the world you can interact with someone else somewhere else in the world make conversation and get to know each other. What is the next step? The Cairo protesters used the social media to win over the world and stop a dictator from ruling. The effects of this are without a doubt world-shattering. What middle schoolers use after they come home is a link between every man, woman and child on Earth with a computer and an internet signal. Web 2.0 is a tool that can stop governments. A country like America is so big that no single voice is heard so now people can get on a side online and cause serious upheaval. Home front, SOPA and PIPPA

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Recently two acts in congress where stopped by protesters on the web signing an online petition. The first time that not just the whole state but the whole nation said, Wait Senator you need to think about this look how many people are against it! Another instance were a group of normal people through the help of the social media and web 2.0 were able to stop a whole government in its tracks and make them reconsider their opposition. SOAPA and PIPA were just two acts designed to help companies fight piracy. Put together to take care of the property of companies that is exploited all over the internet. Some artist music is stolen, a movie is downloaded without being paid for, or a copyrighted software program is just put up so everyone and anyone can use it. Media companies are always looking for new ways to fight piracy. They've tried suing individual users, getting Internet service providers to take action against subscribers, and working with the U.S. government to shut down domains based in the United States. States Jared Newman a writer for PC World. But none of those actions can stop overseas websites such as The Pirate Bay and Mega Upload from infringing copyrights, or prevent Internet users from accessing those sites. These are without a doubt criminal acts and do have the right of the owners of their respective companies to be stopped so that theft is committed. But it was stopped, a perfectly right act by logical accounts was stopped by a great mass of people who just went on the internet and signed a petition stopping corporations that are ginormous in their tracks. The common man yet again stopping a government in its tracks. (PC World) We have seen what some are calling the Facebook revolution work effectively. Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power eventually at what can only be known as a very monumental moment in the Arab Spring movement. We can see that it is a ground breaking achievement to use the web for our everyday lives but an even more triumphant one to use it to overthrow a

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dictator. Web 2.0 has made life very enjoyable and is a great accessible tool and apparently it can be used as a detrimental weapon.

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Work Cited Alexander, Brian and Alan Levine. "Storytelling." Educause review. N.p., 2008. Web. 9 Apr 2012. <http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0865.pdf>. Arab Spring." Global Issues in Context. GIC, Jan.-Feb. 2012. Web. <http://find.galegroup.com/gic/docRetrieve.do?searchPageType=BasicSearchForm&inPS=tr ue&prodId=GIC&userGroupName=gale&docId=CP3208520388>. Cole, Juan. Labor movement drives egypt, tunisia protests. N.p., 2011. Web. 9 Apr 2012. <http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0e3_1297519992>. Giglio, Mike. "The Facebook Freedom Fighter." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 13 Feb. 2011. Web. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/02/13/the-facebookfreedom-fighter.html>. Gonzalez, Juan. "Street Peddler Mohammed Bouazizi Sparks Changes in Tunisia." NYDailyNew.com. 30 Dec. 2011. Web. <http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/streetpeddler-mohammed-bouazizi-sparks-tunisia-article-1.998734>. Harrison, Teresa, and Brea Barthel. "Wielding New Media in Web 2.0: Exploring the History of Engagement with the Collaborative Construction of media products." SageJournals. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Apr 2012. Hartly-Parkinson, Richard. Meet my daughter . N.p., 2011. Web. 9 Apr 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358876/Baby-named-Facebook-honour-socialnetwork-Egypts-revolution.html>. Hussein, Abdel-Rahman. "Was the Egyptian Revolution Really Non-violent?" Egypt Independent. 24 Jan. 2012. Web. <http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/was-egyptianrevolution-really-non-violent>. McCarthy, C. "Egypt, Twitter, and the Rise of the Watchdog Crowd." Cnet. CBS Interactive, 11 F. Web. 9 Apr 2012. <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20031600-36.html>. Moxham, Ben. "Egypt's New Labor Movement Comes of Age." People'sWorld.org. N.p., January 31 2012. Web. 9 Apr 2012. <http://www.peoplesworld.org/egypt-s-new-labormovement-comes-of-age/>. Newman, J.. "Sopa and pipa: Just the facts." Pc world. PC World, 2012. Web. 9 Apr 2012. <http://www.pcworld.com/article/248298/sopa_and_pipa_just_the_facts.html>. O'Dell, Jolli, "How Egyptians used Twitter During the January Crisis." Mashable. N.p., 2011. Web. 9 Apr 2012. <http://mashable.com/2011/02/01/egypt-twitter-infographic/>. Ryan, Yasmine. "How Tunisia's Revolution Began - Features - Al Jazeera English." Al Jazeera English. Aljazeera, 26 Jan. 2012. Web. Mar.-Apr. 2012. <http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/01/2011126121815985483.html>.