Calling all Friends, Calling all Friends

People have been using creative ways to rally each other since the dawn of time.


As the internet has proliferated the lives of many a citizen  of the world, a new form of activism has emerged.  Using social media such as Facebook, demonstrations can be planned, organized, shared, collaborated, and executed on a scale impossible before the tools of social networking.  A flash mob is one such example.

According to Wikipedia a flash mob is "a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire."  By most definitions a flash mob is harmless.  The intent is purely for amusement and entertainment. 


Yet this is not the limits of social media.  Protesters in Egypt were able to organize groups of thousands primarily using social media and text messages to stage simultaneous protests across the country in January.  The government cut off all internet connections in response to this.  The effect was an almost immediate cutoff of all information flowing to and from Egypt.  New stations around the globe were in the dark as to the events of the country, and speculation was rampant.  However, the internet shutdown might have helped facilitate the end of president Mubarak.  Crowds swelled as outrage grew.  This is probably one of the first cases of an revolution precipitated by the use of the internet.  It is a brave new world to see how such a form of mass communication will be used for political purposes in the years to come.