The Trouble with Revolutions on Social Media

Newspapers appear the every morning with your tea cup. These days the newspaper only serves as a recap of yesterday’s event since you are more than likely to have already watched it on television the previous evening. Actually, even the television is not all that current. Twitter has nudged televisions aside. If you follow the right people on twitter, chances are that someone has “live tweeted” the event as it was unfolding. Today, anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection is a media house.Revolutions too have started happening on social media. ‘Twitter Revolution’ is an accepted term to refer to uprisings that have been coordinated on social media. Whether it was the protest against the election results in Iran or the revolution in Tunisia, social media has taken the lead in fomenting awareness among the citizens, getting them to collectively voice their protest and then to keep the world posted through a minute by minute description of what is happening. It is no wonder that authoritarian regimes want to block net access at the first signs of trouble.When Anna Hazare asked the citizens to make corruption a national issue, it was the youth who turned the spark into a fire. There were messages on Facebook telling people to gather at particular locations. Even today, a page dedicated to Anna Hazare has 627,000 “likes” on Facebook. Brands have discovered long since, that getting a thumbs-up on the Facebook page does not translate into sales. It is the same with revolutions.The Egyptian uprising is showing us that it is one thing to post updates and snapshots of the moment on Twitter and it is a different thing altogether to translate the collective desire into action. That requires leadership skills on the ground. The virtual world often moves much faster than the physical world. Unless the youth build leadership skills that involve influencing real people to make choices and act with accountability, we will continue to see revolutions in the virtual world happen faster than changes on the ground.Soft skills are harder to teach. They do not depend on the skill of the teacher. They depend on the willingness of the learner to try out new behavior, stumble, falter and still continue.Facebook ‘likes’ are shorthand for many complex emotions. It is like several emoticons rolled into one. My friend said on Facebook that she was heartbroken having lost her dad. By the end of the day 37 people had given it a thumbs-up and “liked” that comment. Only one had actually stated in words a cryptic, “Sorry to hear about your loss”. When we communicate in symbols like the thumbs-up button, the emotion is often lost in translation.People never actually take action unless their emotions are stirred. They may understand the data and the argument and nod vigorously but they will not take action. Social media is a tool. The protestors use it to voice their anger. The regime uses it to track down dissidents. Criminals use mobiles and social media to identify victims while the same tracks are used to retrace the steps the criminal took.Without real leaders, revolutions will happen only on Facebook.What do you think?----------Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduriThe New Digital Age explains this. My review is here