Technology’s role in the Egyptian unrest

What started as an organized demonstration in Egypt has resulted in the entire country falling off the digital map.

On Jan. 25, thousands of Egyptian citizens in various locations around the North African nation rallied together in what Egyptian news source Al-Masry Al-Youm called the "Day of Anger." They had come together to express their dissatisfaction with the Egyptian government, and to protest "the deterioration of economic conditions."

Many of the protestors brandished signs calling for the resignation of current leader, President Muhammad Mubarak.

The protests are thought to be influenced by the recent unrest and upheaval in Tunisia, which took place in December of last year.

Beyond the similarities, activists were also spotted carrying the Tunisian flag. Mona Eltahawy of the Washington Post saw one man carrying a sign saying, "Yesterday, Tunisia. Today, Egypt. Jan. 25 the day we began to take our rights back."

These protests were relatively calm until Jan. 27, when the Egyptian government issued an order for its Internet service providers to shut down their services.

Internet monitoring company Renesys reported, that by the next morning, 93 percent of Egyptian networks were unreachable and the only remaining provider, Noor Group, was shut down later that day.

All of Egypt was taken off the Internet after a few phone calls from the government. The phone lines quickly followed.

Though many cell phone carriers have not ended their service in Egypt, many phone owners have been experiencing low reception.

Despite the numerous restrictions and difficulties with phone and Internet, people around the world have been keeping close review on the progress of the protest.

Much of what is being reported from the protestors has come from citizen journalists using their limited access to technology to send updates to the world.

Although social networks such as Facebook.com and Twitter.com have been shut down in Egypt, the international support for the citizen journalists resulted in what Arabic news group Al Jazeera is calling "Hacktivism." The portmanteau signifies a mixture of computer hacking and activism.

Citizen journalists have been using their computer hacking skills to bypass government restrictions in order to post information on the protests on their social networking sites and to organize protest efforts.

One outlet has also been YouTube.com, which has dedicated its "Citizen Tube" page and portions of its homepage strictly for videos coming out of Egypt.

Clips on the page vary from marches alongside tanks patrolling Egyptian streets, to interviews with citizens watching from afar. These videos are providing raw, uncensored material that previously might have been edited and shown on a major media network.

Yet to post videos on YouTube, one would still have to be able to circumvent the government Internet restrictions. That's where @speak2tweet has lent a hand.

Jillian C. York, a contributor to Global Voices, an online aggregator of citizen media and blogs , wrote that on Feb. 1, "Google and Twitter (along with SayNow, a company recently acquired by Google) [announced] that they were jointly launching SpeaktoTweet, a service that would allow Egyptians to call an international number and record a voice message which would then be tweeted from the Twitter account @speak2tweet."

Those without Internet access can connect to a landline phone, many of which have not been disconnected at this time, and leave either a tweet with their account or an anonymous one.

Last week, several Egyptian government websites were hacked and vandalized. Soon after, individuals identifying themselves by the infamous Internet hacktivist moniker "Anonymous" took responsibility through an Internet press release.

"Anonymous" also voiced supported for the protestors, and even threatened the Egyptian government.

"[Our group] challenges all those who are involved in censorship. [Our group] wants you to offer free access to uncensored media in your entire country … when you ignore this message, not only will we attack your government websites, [We] will also make sure the international media sees the reality you impose on your people."

The group was also involved in the 2009 student protests in Iran, creating a site devoted to the leaking and receiving of information from the students.

Five days after Egypt was disconnected from the web, Martyn Williams of Computerworld, reported that many Internet users were regaining access and many Egyptian based websites are slowly coming back online. With the lifting the service provider blocking, also returned Twitter and Facebook to the country.

On Wednesday, an estimated 5 million by the Huffington Post logged onto Facebook creating "around 32,000 groups and 14,000 pages," in relation to Egypt, the most popular of which belongs to Amr Khaled, a preacher who already has over 2 million "likes."

Events are still unfolding in Egypt without a clear solution in sight. Mubarak refused to step down, but announced he would not seek reelection.

During the 2009 Iranian protests over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the unrest was dubbed the "Twitter Revolution" by the Washington Times. Despite the medium's role in the upheaval, Abmadinejad was still sworn in, and the protests eventually stopped.

Social networking may not yet be an effective tool for revolutionaries, but it provides an unprecedented and otherwise impossible look from within the protest.

—

DC Guastella contributed to this report.