To the tech-savvy activists who engineered uprisings across the Arab world, headlines like “FACEBOOK REVOLUTION” and “TWITTER REBELLION” were ridiculous. Social networks don’t overthrow governments—people do, courageous people who, despite the risk of retribution or even death, take to the streets because they have had enough.
Yet dismissing technology’s role in the Arab Spring is equally erroneous. The speed of communication through digital channels gives activists unprecedented agility during street operations. Online, they can organize, debate, plan, and broadcast at a level of coordination that was unavailable, indeed unimaginable, in the past.
The powers-that-be can—and certainly did—persecute bloggers and infiltrate dissidents’ social networks, hoping to undermine plans and root out influential rabble-rousers. But compared with the likes of China’s leaders, the Arab-world governments proved largely inept in their countermeasures—so much so that in the case of Egypt, authorities resorted to shutting off Internet and telecom service. (That move sent everyone pouring into the street, because how else are you going to get in touch with the people in your life? Hosni Mubarak should write a guide on how to accelerate the collapse of a regime on the rocks.)
The uprisings that began in December 2010 didn’t magically deliver stable democracies and thriving economies. At press time, Egypt teeters, Tunisians are mourning an assassinated opposition leader, and Syria is a nightmare. But the Arab Spring has shown the world what is possible when you combine social unrest with brave citizenry and powerful digital tools. As Egyptian activist and former Google executive Wael Ghonim put it in his memoir, “Revolutions are processes, not events.” The process has begun.
[
Wired 01.01](https://www.wired.com/magazine/2013/04/wired0101/)
[
Dreams](https://www.wired.com/magazine/2013/04/dreams/)
[
Titans](https://www.wired.com/magazine/2013/04/platon/)
