Opening Closed Regimes

What Was the Role of Social Media During the ?

Philip N. Howard, University of Washington Aiden Duffy, University of Washington Deen Freelon, American University Muzammil Hussain, University of Washington Will Mari, University of Washington Marwa Mazaid, University of Washington

Working Paper 2011.1

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Summary Social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring. A spike in online revolutionary conversations often preceded major events on the ground. Social media helped spread democratic ideas across international borders.

Main Findings examining political conversations in the No one could have predicted that Tunisian blogosphere, analyzing more Mohammed Bouazizi would play a role than 3 million Tweets based on key- in unleashing a wave of protest for words used, and tracking which democracy in the . Yet, after countries thousands of individuals the young vegetable merchant stepped Tweeted from during the revolutions. in front of a municipal building in The result is that for the first time we and set himself on fire in protest have evidence confirming social of the government on December 17, media’s critical role in the Arab Spring. 2010, democratic fervor spread across North Africa and the Middle East. Our research has produced three key Governments in Tunisia and soon findings: fell, civil war broke out in , and protestors took to the streets in , First, social media played a central role , Syria, and elsewhere. in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring had many causes. One of these sources was social media and Our evidence shows that social media its power to put a human face on was used heavily to conduct political political oppression. Bouazizi’s self conversations by a key demographic immolation was one of several stories group in the revolution – young, urban, told and retold on Facebook, Twitter, relatively well educated individuals, and YouTube in ways that inspired many of whom were women. Both dissidents to organize protests, criticize before and during the revolutions, these their governments, and spread ideas individuals used Facebook, Twitter, and about democracy. Until now, most of YouTube to put pressure on their what we have known about the role of governments. In some cases, they used social media in the Arab Spring has new technologies in creative ways such been anecdotal. as in Tunisia where democracy advocates embarrassed President Zine Focused mainly on Tunisia and Egypt, El Abidine Ben Ali by streaming video of this research included creating a unique his wife using a government jet to make database of information collected from expensive shopping trips to Europe. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The research also included creating maps of Bloggers also used the Internet to important Egyptian political Websites, publish information critical of the governments in Egypt and Tunisia. And www.pITPI.org - 2 -

our evidence suggests that political organizations and individuals used Governments themselves also Western news sites – such as the BBC recognized the power of opposition and CNN – to spread credible movements equipped with social media. information to their supporters through In Tunisia, officials attempted to block the revolutionary period. The result was Facebook and other social media sites that, by using digital technologies, and arrested bloggers and others who democracy advocates created a used social media to spread critical freedom meme that took on a life of its news about the government. What they own and spread ideas about liberty and found is that democracy advocates revolution to a surprisingly large number were tech-savvy and had the help of of people. Interestingly, not a single hackers and talented computer Egyptian political Website we mapped programmers who were able to shutter linked to regional news sources such as government services online and provide and Al Arabiya before the protestors with workarounds to censors. revolution. Likewise, Egypt attempted to choke off access to social media and found that Second, a spike in online revolutionary the protestors in ’s Tahrir Square conversations often preceded major were nonetheless able to stay events on the ground. connected. The relied on bloggers whose servers were Determining whether online located in London and therefore conversations were driving street couldn’t be taken offline. protests or whether the presence of a large volume of people in the streets Third, social media helped spread was feeding an ongoing online democratic ideas across international conversation can be difficult. However, borders. our evidence suggests that online conversations played an integral part in Our evidence suggests that democracy the revolutions that toppled advocates in Egypt and Tunisia used governments in Egypt and Tunisia. We social media to connect with others find that conversations about liberty, outside their countries. In many cases, democracy, and revolution on blogs and these connections helped inform on Twitter often immediately preceded Western news stories about events on mass protests. In Tunisia, for example, the ground, which in turn spread news 20 percent of blogs were evaluating about ongoing events throughout the Ben Ali’s leadership on the day he region. In many other cases, we find resigned from office (January 14), up that democracy advocates in Egypt and from just 5 percent the month before. Tunisia picked up followers in other Subsequently, the primary topic for countries, where similar democratic Tunisian blogs was “revolution” until a protests would later erupt. Ultimately, public rally of at least 100,000 people social media brought a cascade of took place and eventually forced the old messages about freedom and regime’s remaining leaders to relinquish democracy across North Africa and the power. Middle East, and helped raise

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expectations for success of political political change in that country uprising. ballooned from 2,300 a day to 230,000 a day. Interestingly, the relative Twitter offers us the clearest evidence contribution of people not living in the of where individuals engaging in region diminished significantly over this democratic conversations were located period. On the day Mubarak left office, during the revolutions. We find that February 11, there were more than there were over 2,200 tweets from 225,000 Tweets outside the country Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, and that spread the news of his departure. Yemen about Ben Ali’s resignation on In the two weeks after Mubarak’s the day he stepped aside. Over the resignation, there were an average of course of a week before Mubarak’s 3,400 tweets a day about the political resignation, the total rate of tweets from crisis in Egypt by people living in Egypt—and around the world—about neighboring countries.

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Opening Closed Regimes What Was the Role of Social Media During the Arab Spring?

Main Report increases for civil servants and military Over the past century, the world has personnel. witnessed waves of democratization sweep into sometimes surprising Morocco and appeared to places. The last such great wave fend off serious domestic uprisings, but toppled the Berlin Wall and brought the outcomes for regimes in Bahrain, democracy to formerly communist , Syria, and Yemen remain far countries in Eastern Europe and other from certain. Democratization parts of the globe. By 2010, even movements had existed long before though some countries had slipped technologies such as mobile phones back toward , approximately and the Internet came to these three fifths of the world’s countries were countries. But technologies have helped governed by some form of democracy.1 people interested in democracy build And in 2011, a new wave was sweeping extensive networks, create social into a region that had remained notably capital, and organize political action. devoid of democracy: North Africa and Technology may not have created the the Middle East. desire for political freedom, but it is a tool democracy advocates have used to Between January and April 2011 public their advantage. demand for political reform cascaded from to Cairo, Sana’a, Amman Egypt and Tunisia’s Tech- and Manama. This inspired people in Savvy Democrats Casablanca, Damascus, Tripoli and One reason why technology has been an dozens of smaller cities to take to the effective tool for democracy advocates streets to demand change. By May, the in Tunisia and Egypt is that both political casualties were significant: countries have relatively young, tech- Tunisia’s and savvy populations. In Tunisia, where the Egypt’s , two of the median age is 30 years old, region’s most recalcitrant dictators, approximately 23 percent of the 10 were gone; Libya was locked in a civil million people who live there are under war; and several constitutional the age of 14. In Egypt, where the monarchs had sacked their cabinets median age is 24, 33 percent of the and committed themselves to country’s 83 million inhabitants is under constitutional reforms. Other 14. Cell phone use is widespread in governments sought to quell unrest by both countries, with 93 mobile phone promising vast expenditures on subscribers for every 100 people in infrastructure projects, unemployment Tunisia and 67 mobile phones for every benefits, food subsidies, and salary 100 people in Egypt. What’s more, in both countries the government has 1 , , 2010 censured the media, giving individuals a Edition. www.pITPI.org - 5 -

strong incentive to turn to the Internet between people Tweeting in-country for credible sources of information. from those using the same hashtags Internet use in both countries is also (key words) but Tweeting outside the significant. About 25 percent of the country, we were able to determine that population in Tunisia and 10 percent of 30 percent of the people actively the population in Egypt has used the contributing to Twitter conversations Internet at least once, with much of the inside of Tunisia were women. Women use concentrated among young people. made up 33 percent of the people Some 66 percent of the Internet-savvy actively Tweeting inside Egypt during population in Tunisia, and 70 percent in the revolution. Egypt, is under the age of 34. All of this might explain why many of the people Voices of Freedom and who took to the streets earlier this year were young, technologically inclined Dissent Online Even before the revolutions, Tunisia and individuals who blogged, Tweeted, or Egypt had active blogospheres. Often posted to Facebook news events as the most critical coverage of they unfolded.2 government abuse was done not by

newspaper reporters, but by average In addition to enabling young people to citizens using their access to the organize, technology has facilitated the Internet in creative ways. Most famous growing participation of women in in Tunisia was the graphically simple political conversations. Forty-one video of the president’s plane arriving percent of Tunisia’s Facebook and leaving Europe’s elite shopping population is female and 36 percent of destinations with his wife as the only Egypt’s Facebook population is female. passenger. Since the online publication Women also participate actively in of that video in August 2007, the political conversations over Twitter, and regime had variously cracked down on were notably present in street YouTube, Facebook, and other online gatherings in both Tunisia and Egypt. applications. Indeed, through social media, women

like Esraa Abdel Fattah of the Egyptian In Egypt, democracy advocates Democratic Academy became vocal benefited from the fact that Cairo is not opponents, and Leil-Zahra Mortada, only a cultural hub, it is also a media documented women’s involvement in center with a reasonably robust the revolution with a popular Facebook information infrastructure. This has album. enabled the city’s politically disaffected,

but still active, youth and others to build Our unique dataset of Twitter a vibrant public sphere online. Over the conversations in Tunisia and Egypt past several years, political parties and reveals that women were quite active social movements have become during the uprisings. By distinguishing In addition to enabling particularly adept at using social media young people to organize, to their advantage. The Muslim 2 technology has facilitated Demographic data from the CIA World Factbook Brotherhood, for example, used the the growing participation of and World Bank’s World Development Indicators women in political database. Technology use data from the Internet to share information, organize conversation. International Telecommunications Union.

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supporters, and conduct other activities couldn’t be taken offline by the that helped it challenge secular government. authorities. Egypt has a number of active political In response, the governments in Tunisia parties, many of which maintain and Egypt arrested bloggers, tracked Websites and online newsletters to online conversations, and shuttered communicate with their supporters and Websites and Internet access. For constituents, but also with each other. example, in 2005 Egyptian blogger Almost all major parties publish online Abdolkarim Nabil Seliman was arrested newspapers, such as the New Wafd and imprisoned for four years after Party’s Al Wafd Daily, the National criticizing President Hosni Mubarak and Progressive Unionist Party’s Al-Ahali the state’s religious institutions. In newspaper, the Arab Democratic 2007, a number of bloggers were Nasserist Party’s Al-Arabi weekly, and arrested for organizing and covering the Tomorrow Party’s Al Ghad weekly. social protests when the Egyptian In addition to the discussion spaces parliament approved controversial fostered by newspapers, party- constitutional amendments. Many publications like these allow for active activist Egyptian bloggers, some opportunities for cross-party, political affiliated with groups such as negotiation. The Muslim Brotherhood and the April 6 Movement, were had been banned by the government, arrested and faced physical abuse. but nonetheless used and English language publications to Egyptian bloggers proved particularly maintain an equal, if not more resilient in continuing to publish critical prominent, presence in online Egyptian information online. But in both Tunisia politics than many legally sanctioned and Egypt a cottage industry of bloggers parties. and activists used the Internet to evade government by creating Before the Arab Spring, Twitter had a alternative newscasts and building loyal following of users in Tunisia and spaces online where individuals could Egypt, living mostly in the largest cities. publish information critical of the While records of Twitter conversations government without attaching their in both countries prior to the revolutions names to it. Online activists and are not available, in most parts of the bloggers, digital news organizations, world we know that Twitter is used by and Websites form a networks of family and friends to trade virtual ecology of civil society groups jokes and talk about everyday life. that debate contentious issues. In Facebook became a political tool many cases, the boundaries between because people found it useful for these organizations are blurred for amassing content and building links to important reasons. For example, like-minded individuals. The Tunisian banned political parties, such as Egypt’s government was more active than the Muslim Brotherhood, have relied on Egyptian regime when it came to bloggers who maintain servers located restricting social media. In 2007, for outside of the country and thereby example, it blocked YouTube and

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DailyMotion for an extended period and man’s plight, came to realize that they in 2008 it blocked Facebook for a shared common grievances. The month. In both cases, observers recognition came as people watched suspected that the regime was reacting and uploaded YouTube videos about the to fears that social media were abusive state, read foreign news strengthening the bonds of coverage of political corruption online, communication between citizens in and shared jokes about their aging ways not easily monitored and managed dictators over social media sites. In the by the state. end, social media helped people develop strategies to overthrow their Western news media were quick to label president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. the political uprisings as “Twitter” and “Facebook” revolutions. To prepare this Ben Ali’s critics dominated virtual report, we sought the latest data on spaces, but after Bouazizi’s death, they trends in technology use to help shed took to occupying public spaces. light on the actual role of the Internet Shamseddine Abidi, a 29-year old and social media in Tunisia and Egypt. interior designer, posted regular videos and updates to Facebook. Al Jazeera Tunisia – From Oppression used the content to carry news of events to the world. Images of Bouazizi, to Resistance to Spark for hospitalized with burns, passed along the Region networks of family and friends. An On December 17, 2010, Mohamed aggressive Internet campaign called on Bouazizi set himself on fire. This young fellow citizens and unions to set up street vendor had tried in vain to fight committees to support the uprising in an inspector’s small fine, appealing first . Lawyers and student to the police, then to municipal unions were among the first to take to authorities, and then to the region’s the streets in an organized way. governor. At each appeal he had been physically beaten by security officials. The government tried to ban Facebook, Bruised, humiliated and frustrated by an Twitter and video sites such as unresponsive bureaucracy and a DailyMotion and YouTube. But within a thuggish security apparatus, Bouazizi few days, social media networks were set himself alight in front of a local the organizing tool of choice. Less than government office. By the time he died 20 percent of the overall population in a hospital on January 4, protests had actively used social-media Websites, spread to cities throughout the country. but almost everyone had access to a It is not enough to say that news of mobile phone. Outside the country, the Bouazizi’s tragedy travelled quickly, hacker communities of Anonymous and because the state-run media did not Telecomix helped cripple government cover the tragedy or the simmering operations with their “Operation anger over political oppression in the Tunisia” denial-of-service attacks, and city of Sidi Bouzid, where Bouazizi self by building software activists used to immolated. Networks of family and get around state firewalls. friends, feeling sympathy for the dying

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The government responded with a Soon events in Tunisia would help counter-insurgency strategy against its inspire the largest protests in Cairo in tech-savvy opponents that included 30 years. jailing a group of bloggers in early January. For the most part, however, Social media brought a cascade of the political uprising was leaderless so messages about freedom and there was no long-standing democracy across North Africa and the revolutionary figurehead, traditional Middle East and helped raise public opposition leader, or charismatic expectations for the success of political speechmaker who could be arrested. uprising. Two kinds of evidence reveal much about this cascade: the rhythm of But there were prominent nodes in the Tweets about political change and the digital networks, people whose topical evolution of blog posts. contributions held sway and mobilized turnout. , a member of The rhythm of Tweets is significant the focused “,” because it gives us a window into blogged the revolution (and later took a conversations taking placed over the post in the national unity government). broad digital spectrum. The vast Sami ben Gharbia, a Tunisian exile, majority of conversations likely involved monitored online censorship attempts using cell phones to send text and other and advertised workarounds. “El type of messages, but there isn’t a good Général,” a middle-class Tunisian database for studying that information. rapper, streamed digital “soundtracks There is, however, a robust set of data for the revolution.” for conversations that take place over Twitter, so in a sense Twitter can serve By early January, protestors’ appeals for as a proxy for understanding the types help and clumsily recorded mobile of conversation that happened on other phone videos were streaming across forms of digital communication. North Africa and protests in Algeria and other countries started to crop up. By And what we can see on Twitter is that a the time Ben Ali fled Tunisia on January large volume of people—both inside 14, active campaigns for civil each country as well as across the disobedience against authoritarian rule globe—were following events as they were growing in Jordan, Oman, and unfolded. Twitter seems to have been a Yemen. In other countries, such as key tool in the region for raising Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and expectations of success and the Sudan, minor protests erupted on a coordinating strategy. Twitter also range of issues and triggered quick seems to have been the key media for concessions or had little impact. But spreading immediate news about big even in these countries opposition political changes from country to leaders appeared to draw inspiration country in the region. As a group, from what they were tracking in Tunisia. Twitter users are probably more Moreover, opposition leaders across the educated and wealthy than the average region were learning the digital tricks for person, and more likely to be found in how to catch ruling elites off guard. major cities. They are also,

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consequently, opinion leaders for whom stories that did not paint the regime in a Twitter served as an important means flattering light. of carrying on an extended conversation about the prospects for liberty and the Beginning with the earliest available logistics of social action. records of Twitter feeds in Tunisia, it is possible to graph waves of political In total, there were 13,262 Tweets consciousness with key events and using the hashtag most prominently protestor turnout. Figure 1 identifies the associated with Tunisia’s political number of active Twitter users uprising—#sidibouzid. On average, contributing to one of the most throughout the study period of January important hashtags of the time, 14 to March 16, 18 percent of the #sidibouzid. The number of users Tweets about the Tunisian uprising appears on a logarithmic scale, day-by- came from inside Tunisia, 8 percent day. A blue bar indicates the dates on from neighboring countries, and 32 which journalists began reporting that percent from outside the region. The attendance at street protests had remainder offered no location reached into the thousands. In Tunisia, information. The day Ben Ali resigned, the number of contributions increased 2,200 tweets from Algeria, Bahrain, steadily between late January and late Egypt, Morocco, and Yemen concerned February. The number of people with the uprising in Tunisia. Many Tweets no location information also declined, involved personal stories of suffering at suggesting that as time passed the hands of a tough and incompetent Tunisians grew more willing to note regime. Some involved links to critical publicly that they were Tweeting from documentaries on YouTube, or made inside Tunisia during the heady days of reference to Facebook groups and news political change.

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Figure 1: Logged Number of Tweets on #sidibouzid, by Location

Notes: “Outside Country” refers to Twitter profiles that had locations outside both the country and the region, and “No location” refers to profiles that either had no location data or had have been deleted or suspended since archiving began. The blue bar indicates the period in which journalists began reporting that protests had reached the level of “thousands” of participants.

Figure 1 tracks the rhythm of Tweets on that security forces were interfering with the topic of political change. It also communication networks. When the reveals the moments when the service service returned to normal, Twitter was either overloaded or mobile traffic peaked again, with a thousand networks were under attack (or both). Tweets a day in Tunisia and street Before Ben Ali resigned, more than a protests drawing tens of thousands of thousand people in Tunisia and around people. Tweets and protests lasted for the world were Tweeting each day about several weeks, until the last vestiges of political change in that country. the ruling elite were removed from Immediately after his resignation, power. Twitter service declined precipitously, with activists in the country reporting

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Figure 2: Percent of Tunisian Blogs With Posts on Politics, By Keyword

Note: Figure represents the percent of all blog posts containing at least one of six keywords. Based on data captured through eCairn beginning November 20, 2010.

Figure 2 tracks six of the most conversations about liberty, revolution, important keywords in the Tunisian and President Ben Ali’s leadership. In blogosphere. Just as Twitter traffic this way, the volume of digital peaked with street protest, the topics conversations peaks with the size of discussed in the Tunisian blogosphere street demonstrations, and the content closely tracked with public interest in of these conversations directly reflects political freedom. Analysis of the public sentiments. structure of content and links in the Tunisian blogosphere between Tunisian bloggers had, for several years, November 2010 and May 2011 been among the most critical opponents indicates direct parallels between online of Ben Ali’s regime. By scanning the political conversations and offline structure of content and links of the events. Particularly after December 17, Tunisian blogosphere, we can chart the 2010, when Bouazizi set himself on fire, progress of the idea of political reform. the Tunisian blogosphere experienced a Many Tunisian bloggers wrote in French spike in the frequency of online and Arabic. Moreover, distinct

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keywords and themes regarding The relative prominence of economic grievances and conversations about freedom among democratization arose preceding the Tunisia’s wired middle class is popular uprising. consistent with anecdotal evidence of public sentiment during the first few Among Tunisia’s digerati, economic days of the uprising. Journalists and woes and Ben Ali’s leadership are key country experts consistently expressed topics from November to December. surprise that traditional political But with Bouazizi’s death in early ideologies and political parties were January came a spike in conversation absent from the protests. Major about his plight, and shortly thereafter a opposition parties and political leaders growth in the number of conversations did not feature as prominently as about freedom and revolution. Islam, Bouazizi, and were not particularly as a political theme, tracks on only a associated with conversations about few blogs and the interest in economic liberty or the prospects of revolution. issues diminishes over time relative to And conversations about liberty and themes of freedom and revolution. freedom were more important than conversations about Islam. Talk about revolution continued even after Ben Ali fled the country, because Viral Democratic Values his replacement, Mohamed Around the region, people increasingly Ghannouchi, was viewed by many as Tweeted about events that were part of the old regime. Consequently, occurring in their neighborhood. Stories the percent of blog posts with the of success and difficulty spread widely keywords “revolution” and “liberty” and created a kind of “freedom meme.” peaked after Ben Ali had already left The same meme traveled across the office. By the third week of January, 18 region through Facebook and YouTube, percent of all Tunisian blog posts talked as inspiring images were captured by about revolution; 10 percent discussed mobile phone and transmitted. liberty. That week marked the climax of protester turnout with estimates ranging Here we study Tweets, rather than from 40,000 to 100,000 people in the simply Twitter users, because they streets. represent a sense of conversation and active dialogue about freedom that The primary topic of political transcended national boundaries. For conversation in Tunisian blogs then example, after Egyptians heard that Ben became “revolution” until a public rally Ali fled Tunisia on January 14, Twitter of at least 100,000 people on February user and journalist Gigi Ibrahim 27, after which Ghannouchi was forced declared that “the is to resign. In Tunisia, the blogosphere being twitterized ... history is being anticipated what happened on the written by the people #sidibouzid ground by days. Demand online for #Tunisia.” Blogger Tarek Shalaby liberty eventually manifested itself in echoed with, “we will follow it!” On the streets. January 25, journalist Hossam el- Hamalawy noted that “tens of www.pITPI.org - 13 -

Figure 3: Number of Tweets in the Region Using Hashtags for Neighboring Countries

Notes: These are the hashtags that most prominently came to be associated with political uprisings in Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, Morocco and Yemen. The hashtags analyzed, in order, were “#algeria”, “#egypt”, “#feb14”, “#morocco”, “#sidibouzid” and “#yemen.”

thousands r protesting [with] the same graphic, we first selected all the Tweets chants as the Tunisians.” In the we could confirm using our geolocation aftermath of an unexpectedly large efforts as originating in Algeria, Bahrian, turnout in Egypt that day, Mahmoud Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia or Yemen. Salem—the blogger and activist also Then we isolated the Tweets using known as “Sandmonkey”—urged his hashtags for countries and freedom Twitter followers to “please remember, movements other than the one they it took a month of protests 4 Tunis were in. In other words, this figure revolution 2 succeed. Persistence is specifically displays the rate at which everything.” people in each country caught and transmitted the meme of political Figure 3 demonstrates the rising wave freedom from other countries. In the of Tweets about events in other two weeks after Mubarak’s resignation, countries and the prospects of making there were an average of 3,400 tweets democratic gains. To produce this a day about the political crisis in Egypt

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by people living in neighboring fundamentalists, investigative countries. journalists and disaffected citizens interacted. When the Muslim This figure reveals that at the peak of Brotherhood's online news services events in Tunisia, there were 2,200 were banned in Egypt, the organization tweets outside Tunisia but in the region moved its server infrastructure to about Ben Ali’s resignation. In the London and kept up a flow of political subsequent months, the hashtags spin. But it was not the established associated with conversations about parties and unions that converted anti- political change in particular countries Mubarak vitriol into civil disobedience. were often used by people in It was the campaign to memorialize a neighboring countries. In other words, murdered blogger. people in countries throughout the region were drawn into an extended , a regional executive at conversation about social uprising. As Google, opened the Facebook group street protests arose in Tunisia and “We are All Khaled Said” to memorialize Egypt, then Yemen and Bahrain, and a young blogger whom police had eventually Algeria and Morocco, people beaten to death for exposing their across the region tweeted in real time corruption. Just as digital images of about big events. This is significant in the hospital because it reveals how the success of passed over networks of family and demands for political change in Tunisia friends in Tunisia, in Egypt an image of and Egypt led individuals in other Khaled's bruised face taken as his body countries to pick up the conversation lay in a city morgue passed from one and talk about how it was relevant to mobile phone to thousands. “We are All their own lives. In other words, it helped Khaled Said” became a portal for cascade conversation about freedom collective commiseration. But more across the region. than being a digital — Egyptian police have long tormented Egypt – The Freedom Meme bloggers — this Web page became a logistical tool, at least temporarily, to Spreads Through Social help organize democracy advocates. Networks Ghonim also fast became the country’s News of Ben Ali’s departure spread most prominent Tweeter, linking a rapidly in Egypt, where almost everyone massive Egyptian social network writing has access to a mobile phone and the in Arabic to networks of interested Internet-using population is the largest English-speaking observers abroad. in the region outside of . State-run media in Egypt, which had been slow to The first occupants of Cairo’s Tahrir report protests in the region and in Square shared many of the hopes and Cairo, reluctantly covered Ben Ali’s exit. aspirations of their counterparts in Tunis. They were a community of like- Like Tunisia, Egypt has long had a large minded individuals, underemployed, and active online public sphere. It is educated, eager for change but not here that illegal political parties, radical committed to religious fervor or a

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specific political ideology. They found crippled government agencies. The solidarity through social media, and people most affected were middle-class then used their mobile phones to call Egyptians, who were cut off from their social networks into the street. In Internet service at home. Some people a surprise to both government analysts apparently stayed there, isolated and and outsiders, a large network of uncertain about the status of their relatively liberal, middle class, peaceful friends and family. But in the absence citizens quickly mobilize against of information about the crisis, others Mubarak. The traditional Islamists, took to the streets. Mubarak’s move to opposition parties, and union shut off the protestors may have organizations were in the square too, bolstered their ranks as people filled but liberal and civil society voices the streets to find out what was dominated the digital conversation happening. about events. News and speeches from Mubarak, President Barack Obama, and A few days later, the Egyptian security regional leaders were streamed live to services began using Facebook and mobile phones and laptops in the Twitter as a source of information for a square. counter-insurgency strategy. They used social media alerts to anticipate the Mubarak tried to disconnect his citizens movements of individual activists. They from the global information arrested Ghonim once his Facebook infrastructure in the last week of group topped 300,000 people. But by January. It was a desperate move and it then, the revolution was well underway. failed. A small group of tech-savvy students and civil society leaders stayed Events in Egypt not only helped to spark connected by organizing satellite protest movements in neighboring phones and dialup connections to Israel countries, they also seeded a global and Europe. There is also evidence to conversation about the politics of suggest that some of the people freedom. Twitter was used to draw the Mubarak relied on to shut down international community into Egyptian telecommunications systems events. Real-time conversations about deliberately acted slowly to choke off protester turnout, regime response, and Internet access. The first large Internet Mubarak’s political options did not just service provider was asked to shut occur between Egyptians. Figure 4 down on Friday, January 28, but tracks the active number of Twitter engineers didn’t act until Saturday. users contributing to the primary Other providers responded quickly but hashtag associated with the freedom returned to normal service on Monday. movement in Egypt—#egypt. The amount of bandwidth going into Egypt did drop for four days, but it was We find that as domestic and not the information blackout Mubarak international pressure for Mubarak to had ordered. resign was building, there was an interesting shift in the geolocation data What’s more, taking down pieces of the of people Tweeting about political nation’s information infrastructure change in Egypt. Two weeks prior to his

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Figure 4: Logged Number of Tweets on #egypt, by Location

Notes: “Outside Region” refers to Twitter profiles that had locations outside both the country and the region, and “No Location” refers to profiles that either had no location data or have been deleted or suspended since archiving began. The blue bar indicates the period in which journalists began reporting that protests had reached the level of “thousands” of participants.

resignation, we find that 34 percent of information (a common strategy for the Tweets on the topic of political political protesters). change in Egypt were coming from people who self-identified as being The regime’s interference with digital outside the region entirely. But as networks interrupted online traffic on public engagement with political protest some days. Yet in-country Twitter traffic grew in the week prior to his peaked on the day street protests resignation, the relative contribution of reached into the thousands and then outsiders dwindled to just 12 percent. peaked again during the last days of In other words, the vast majority of Mubarak’s hold on power. Over time Tweets were coming from people who the number of Egyptians in Egypt were either in country, in the region, or Tweeting about politics surpassed the had refused to give their location number Tweeting from elsewhere in the region.

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Table 1: Online Structure of Egyptian Political Parties, Before and After Revolution Before Revolution After Revolution

Unique Unique Volume Volume Political Party, URL Pages External Pages External (MB) (MB) Links Links , 6april.org ...... 378 8 48 Communist Party of Egypt*, cpegypt.tk 1,297 248 62 3,379 9 190 Egyptian Greens, egyptiangreens.com 441 2 16 527 2 17 Kefaya Movement*, harakamasria.org 4,372 90 24 4,522 78 25 National Association for Change*, 1,983 2 35 ...... taghyeer.net National Democratic Party, ndp.org.eg 1,343 11 43 ...... New Wafd Party, alwafdparty.org 78 .. 9 2,015 11 165 Progressive National Unionist Party, al- 1,583 12 22 323 7 7 ahaly.com Socialist Labour Party, el3amal.net 304 7 2 615 6 4 Muslim Brotherhood (Arabic)*, 6,123 66 137 7,948 67 459 ikhwanonline.com Muslim Brotherhood (English)*, 4,372 896 196 4,579 739 386 ikhwanweb.com

Note: Groups marked with an asterisk (*) were illegal political parties until recently.

media are not simply sites used for Social Media’s Centrality to entertainment or managing their personal lives. These social media are Political Conversation where Egyptians go to do politics. Between November 2010 and May Political parties have learned this over 2011, the amount of content produced the past few months, and are working online by major Egyptian political actors hard to put new content online and increased significantly as they reacted connect with potential supporters — to events on the street and adjusted some of whom may be voters in strategy to compete for the affinities of upcoming elections. newly freed Egyptian voters. Some

observers have been skeptical of social In November 2010, the Websites of media’s relevance to the evolution of major political actors had more links to political conversations in Egypt. But we Facebook and other Western media find that in Egypt, Facebook and than they had to each other. Over 20 Western news media are central to percent of the 928 links going out of online political discourse. We mapped Egyptian party Websites were to social the digital space in Egypt twice, once in media such as Facebook, YouTube, and November 2010 and a second time in Twitter, and to blogging tools or Western May 2011. What we found was that news Websites such as the BBC or CNN. Egypt’s major political actors often By May 2011, however, this had linked to social networking and news dropped to 15 percent of 1,332 services. In fact, major Egyptian outgoing links. Table 1 highlights the political Websites were far more likely to number of pages, unique external links, link to Facebook or Western media like and overall size of the Websites of CNN than they were to each other. For major political groups in Egypt, both Egyptians, Facebook and other social

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Figure 5: Structure and Content of Egypt’s Online Political Sphere, November 2010

Note: See Appendix for technical details.

before the revolution and after. Groups originating from a group’s homepage, is that were unlicensed by Mubarak’s mapped in Figures 5 and 6. The shaded government are indicated with an circle around a group’s origin node asterisk (*). Both the number of pages represents the volume of pages within and the volume (in megabytes) are good that site (the diameter of each circle indicators of the overall size of the directly represents the amount of Website, though the first may be a good content, in megabytes, that each site measure of text content and the second hosts). Comparing the ratio of unique a measure of multimedia content. The external pages to a site’s volume number of unique external links is a indicates how much any given site is good indicator of how much a political relying on external and self-produced party connects its ideas and content to content. In the network map of Egypt’s larger political conversations. online political sphere, each dot represents an external link originating The network structure of Egypt’s online from the political parties’ Websites. political parties and pressure groups, When two dots connect, it is a site that along with the unique external Websites two parties linked to and any links

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Figure 6: Structure and Content of Egypt’s Online Political Sphere, May 2011

Note: See Appendix for technical details.

position political parties closer together linked to al Jazeera, and there were only based on the program’s algorithm. We six outgoing links to al Jazeera when the can see the clear arrangement around crawl was repeated in May 2011. blogs and state-run media sites. The results of the May 2011 network In May 2011, Western social media and generation show that the same Western news outlets are still at the center of the media are still present, but are now online Egyptian political network. The oriented along the periphery of the majority of common links between Muslim Brotherhood’s Websites. And Egypt’s political parties are commercial, while links to Western media are found Western sites. Most central, we see: on many Egyptian sites, the Muslim Facebook, Google, YouTube, CNN, Brotherhood provides a surprising Yahoo!, Blogger, BBC, Flickr, Twitter and amount of new content in both its Wordpress. Notably, none of the Arabic and English language sites. In Websites crawled in November 2010 terms of pages, the Arabic version grew

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by almost 60 percent, and in terms of two of the Websites of the Muslim size it more than tripled. Considering Brotherhood. In November 2010 these how large the Muslim Brotherhood’s two Websites had 10,495 pages, with Arabic language Website is, it is 962 outgoing links and 333 megabytes interesting to note how relatively few of content. By May 2011 this had links it makes to outside news sources evolved to 12,527 pages, 806 links and or content from other political actors. 845 megabytes of content. In other words, the number of Web pages had The National Democratic Party's grown by 19 percent, the number of Website [ndp.org.eg] is no longer in outgoing links had diminished by 16 service. The last publicly available percent, and the volume of content had versions of the site were cached in grown by 154 percent. Google's search engine on February 26, 2011. There is no redirect, so it The Muslim Brotherhood presence on appears that the host servers have English and Arabic Websites was been taken offline. The April 6 dominant in Egypt’s online political Movement, which had a central role in sphere before the November elections the uprising, barely existed as a began and has grown significantly since standalone URL in November 2010 then, particularly with respect to because most of its content was not on content. The Brotherhood's English site its own Website but almost exclusively links to much more external content on social networking platforms like than its Arabic site, but it is a smaller Facebook and Twitter. The National site in terms of hosted content. This Association for Change and the National may indicate that when seeking to Democratic Party ceased to exist after inform their English-speaking audience, the uprising. the Muslim Brotherhood provides more links to external content to build The Muslim Brotherhood’s legitimacy. This may also indicate that there is more English content than Changing Online Content Arabic content available to link to. The Even today, Facebook remains one of Arabic version of the site has fewer the most central nodes in Egyptian external links (90 percent fewer) and networks of political information. In more hosted content (159 percent November 2010, before the political more) than the English version. uprising, the Websites of major political actors had more links to Facebook and The Muslim Brotherhood is actively other Western media than they had to developing its own social media sphere, each other. By May 2011, Facebook with ikhwantube.com and ikhwanbook was still central, but with Mubarak’s and ikhwanwikitube.com — Websites departure, the volume of digital content that offer much of the functionality of produced by the Muslim Brotherhood Western namesakes like YouTube and has come to dominate these networks. Facebook. As regional experts might

expect, the Muslim Brotherhood and The most significant change in how Communist Party of Egypt share a political parties operate online involves number of links to the same kinds of

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content. Both parties were the major totaling 1,200,000 cumulative views. opponents to Mubarak’s ruling National These videos were from citizen Democratic Party. Since the November journalists and included live footage 2010 elections, both parties have rebroadcasted through the news increased the amount of content they agency’s outlets. ’s have online. YouTube channel similarly contributed three videos, totaling more than Viral Videos Spread the 300,000 views. ’s YouTube channel contributed one video totaling Freedom Meme more than 200,000 views. YouTube became a particularly important tool for spreading news and There were four major types of content information of Egypt’s uprising—in the that typified Egyptian viral videos: raw form of user-generated videos — around protest and mobilization footage; citizen the world. Our research identifies the commentary; political punditry; and top viral videos as of June 2011 (see “soundtracks for the revolution.” Raw Appendix for basic statistics ). While it protest and mobilization footage was is difficult to measure the precise the most common, totaling nearly 5.5 impact of these videos on audiences, million views from 23 videos. One video some images of suffering certainly featured a detailed 20-minute dialogue would have spurred protests and between a religious scholar and political heightened moral outrage. philosopher about the future of Egypt,

totaling 100,000 views. Another The first significant Egyptian video went featured a home-made video with a viral on January 25, 2011. The video young girl’s commentary about political depicts thousands of protesters events, totaling 275,000 views. But the converging on Tahrir Square. The most popular video, a music video, was images are captured by an amateur heralded as a soundtrack to the cameraman looking out of a building revolution and served as a rallying cry of near the main road. Based on the support for the Egyptian peoples’ metadata reported on the uploader’s protests. This music video was the YouTube account, the video was single most popular viral video for the distributed by an account registered as Egyptian revolution, uploaded on located in the United States. Since January 27, and accounted for 25 then, this video has accumulated more percent of the top-20 video views. A list than 600,000 views. Based on tracking of the most prominent viral videos of the embed code, it is most likely that about the political uprising in Egypt the video received popular attention appears in the Appendix. after being posted on AllMania.com, a sports commentary site that has experienced a 600 percent increase in traffic in January 2011.

RussiaToday’s YouTube channel contributed 5 of the top-20 viral videos,

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mobilization within and between Conclusions countries. Facebook functioned as a central node in networks of political Social media played a crucial role in the discontent in Egypt. During the political uprising in Tunisia and Egypt. protests, YouTube and other video Using original data from multiple social archiving centers allowed citizen media sources, we can offer some journalists, using mobile phone concrete conclusions about what that cameras and consumer electronics, to role was. First, social media played a broadcast stories that the mainstream central role in shaping political debates media could not or did not want to in the Arab spring. Second, a spike in cover. online revolutionary conversations often preceded major events on the ground. Social media alone did not cause Third, social media helped spread political upheaval in North Africa. But democratic ideas across international information technologies — including borders. mobile phones and the Internet — altered the capacity of citizens and civil Democratization movements existed in society actors to affect domestic North Africa and the Middle East long politics. Social media, such as before technologies such as mobile Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, have phones, the Internet, and social media several kinds of impact on local systems came to the region. However, with of political communication. First, social these technologies people who share an media provides new opportunities and interest in democracy learned to build new tools for social movements to extensive networks, create social respond to conditions in their countries. capital, and organize political action. In It is clear that the ability to produce and both Tunisia and Egypt, these virtual consume political content, independent networks materialized in the streets in of social elites, is important because early 2011 to help bring down two long- the public sense of shared grievances standing dictators. and potential for change can develop rapidly. Second, social media fosters Anecdotally, we know that social media transnational links between individuals played an important role at key and groups. This means that network moments in the events of this year. But ties form between international and what are the big-picture trends in social local democratization movements, and media use that explain why public that compelling stories, told in short text demand for democratic reform rose messages or long video documentaries, now, and why events unfolded the way circulate around the region. The they did? Our unique datasets reveal inspiration of success in Tunisia was not much about the role of different kinds of just a fast-spreading contagion, for civil social media. The Tunisian blogosphere society leaders in neighboring countries provided space for open political also learned effective strategies of dialogue about regime corruption and successful movement organizing the potential for political change. through social media. Twitter relayed stories of successful www.pITPI.org - 23 -

Social movements are traditionally defined as collective challenges, based on shared purposes, social solidarity, and sustained interactions with elites, opponents and authorities. They support a public claim against target authorities and engage in political action by forming coalitions, organizing public meetings and demonstrations, and using the media to highlight their claims. Through such demonstrations and media use, social movements display their unity, numbers and commitment. Social media, social networking applications, and consumer electronics have not changed the purpose of social movement organizing — economic opportunity and political voice are still the shared goals of social movements.

But in North Africa and the Middle East, relatively new youth movements have been surprised by the speed, size and success of protests they have organized over social networking Websites. Over several years they have found their political voice online and have held their meetings virtually. Each of the dictators in these countries has long had many political enemies, but they were a fragmented group of opponents. Now these opponents do more than use broadcast media to highlight their claims. They use social media to identify goals, build solidarity, and organize demonstrations. During the Arab Spring, individuals demonstrated their desire for freedom through social media, and social media became a critical part of the toolkit used to achieve that freedom.

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do not all cover the same time period. Methods Appendix The earliest, #sidibouzid, begins on Analyzing Twitter Data January 14, 2011, and the last tweets The data for Figures 1, 3 and 5, comes (in multiple hashtags) occur on March from the analysis of Twitter feeds. This 24, 2011. TwapperKeeper experienced project is among the first to analyze the system overloading at several times flow of text messages about the during this duration, resulting in potential and strategy of coverage gaps within some of the democratization movements among archives. But even for archives with no multiple countries. In addition, we gaps, it is highly unlikely that figured out how to distinguish between TwapperKeeper’s archive captured all domestic, regional, and international relevant tweets due to limitations contributors to the growing online imposed by Twitter. All six archives consciousness about political crisis. combined contain a total of 3,142,621 Demonstrating Twitter’s impact on tweets, some of which undoubtedly regional conversations is an important overlap because each tweet could contribution but was technically contain multiple hashtags. Over 75 challenging. We processed more than 3 percent of these (2,363,139) are from million tweets for their use of hashtags #egypt. This method omits some about events in North Africa and the unknown number of in-region tweeters Middle East. We purchased cloud due to blank location fields, deleted computing time from Amazon to speed accounts, and uninterpretable up the text analysis, and wrote information in the fields. automated scripts for identifying the relevant tweets. A significant number of Twitter changed its terms of service on the tweets provide longitude and March 20, 2011, to disallow public latitude information, and that sharing of tweets. The archives information was automatically analyzed in this report were queued for converted into country location. Finally, downloading from TwapperKeeper on we hired a translator to help with texts March 19, 2011, but due to the backlog and location information that is in of similar requests from other users, the Arabic, French, Hebrew and Turkish. downloads did not become available until several days later (which is why This dataset was created using the some of them include tweets added Twitter archiving service after March 20). The archive dates for TwapperKeeper specific hashtags vary, and the earliest (http://twapperkeeper.com/) to capture data points come from #egypt on the flow of tweets from the Twitter January 5, 2011. All tracking ends Search API for Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, March 20, 2011 due to Twitter’s terms Morocco and Yemen. The hashtags of service change. TwapperKeeper, the analyzed, in order, were “#algeria”, service used to track hashtags, was “#egypt”, “#feb14”, “#morocco”, crippled (See “#sidibouzid” and “#yemen.” Since http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives these archives were initiated by /how_recent_changes_to_twitters_term different users at different times, they s_of_service_mi.php) www.pITPI.org - 25 -

The hashtag archives included a wide countries with less than 5 percent array of metadata along with each Internet penetration, for which only the tweet, including the author’s name, the capital city was used in addition to the GMT time it was posted, and the country name. Because many user- application used to send it, among other provided locations came in the form of information. However, authors’ self- latitude-longitude coordinates or were reported location field was not included. written in other languages, we decided To gather this, a list of unique users to convert these into English before from each hashtag was created via a applying the filter. Google’s reverse custom PHP script. Each list was then geocoding service was used for the used as an input into a second PHP former and Google Translate was used script which automatically saved each for locations written in Arabic script. user’s location field from the Twitter Manually reading the translated REST API. Due to restrictions on the locations, we were able to identify number of requests that can be sent to additional city names within the Arabic Twitter’s REST API per hour, the user region that recurred often, so we added locations had to be collected one these to the word filter. archive at a time. Location collection for the largest hashtags took longer than a The above procedure resulted in a day, with the exact amount of time dataset for each archive that consisted depending on the number of unique of each unique username and its users that contributed to it. Ultimately, category ID as determined by the word between 25 percent and 40 percent of filter. To combine the category IDs with the unique users in each archive lacked the full tweet data, each pair of archive any location data. Reasons for this files (consisting of one full tweet set and included simply leaving the field blank, one list of unique names and category deleting one’s account, or having it IDs) was loaded into a MySQL database suspended due to misuse. hosted on a virtual Linux computer hosted by Amazon’s commercial cloud. Once this script had finished collecting Custom SQL queries were used to the location fields for all unique users automatically graft each unique user’s from each hashtag archive, each data location to each appearance of that file was subjected to a word filter that user within the archive. Another SQL attempted to automatically classify each query tallied the number of tweets in user-provided location into one of four each full archive classified as coming categories: (1) within the hashtag from a user in the hashtag country, in country; (2) within the broader Arabic the broader Arabic region, outside of the region; (3) outside both the country and country and region, and with no the Arabic region; and (4) no provided location. These summaries were location. The first two filters consisted of aggregated by date and used to create a simple string-matching search pattern time-series charts showing the posting that sought the English name of each dynamics of each location category. country along with the names of the top five cities by population in each country. The sole exception to this was for

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Analyzing the Tunisian Hammah have had the most prominent bloggers. The most central blogs in Blogosphere Tunis were El Fan, Tuniscope, and The data for Figure 2 comes from our Tekino (all had medium network analysis of the Tunisian blogosphere. centrality in the larger Tunisian This dataset was created using the blogosphere). The most central blogs in eCairn Conversation archiving and al-Hammah were Tunisie Blogs, Tn- analysis service. The tool was used to Bloggers, and Barbach (all had high capture the flow of information through network centrality in the larger Tunisian blog posts from RSS feeds for Tunisia’s blogosphere). Interestingly, al-Hammah key blogs. The captured data-streams was a more critical location for the begin on November 20, 2011, and end Tunisian blogosphere than Tunis. In on May 15, 2011. A total of 475 key addition, there have been several Tunisian blogs contributed a total of prominent Tunisian blogs maintained by 26,000 posts during this period. A people in the Tunisian diaspora. For number of languages are represented in example, the blogs Stupeur, Houblog, the Tunisian blogosphere, including: Arabasta, and Chroniques Absurdes Arabic, French, and English. We were were located in Montreal or , able to analyze blog centrality through belonged mostly to Tunisian expatriates, eCairn Conversation, and 17 of 475 and were key mid-level blogs in the blogs were identified as the main Tunisian national blogosphere. information gateways for the Tunisian blogosphere. In order of centrality, they The keywords identified for the analysis are: Tunisie Blogs; Wallada; were determined using eCairn’s Extravaganza; Tn-Bloggers; Boukornine; conversation analyzer. The application ΔѧѧϧϭΩϣ ϭέΎѧѧѧѧѧѧѧϣϳϟΎϛ; Venus et Moi; Barbach; used text search and identification Tuniblogs; Notes; Carpe Diem; algorithms to assess word frequencies L’universe de Narwas; ϥѧѧѧѧѧѧ˰˰˰˰˰˰ϳΩΎϳϣ; and proximate phrases. This allowed us Desenchantee; Ωѧѧѧ˰˰ϟϭ Ύγέѧѧѧѧѧѧѧѧѧ˰˰˰˰˰˰˰˰˰˰˰ϳΑ; Mon to specify Ben Ali, Bouazizi, Economie, Massir; and Blogger. These 17 blogs Islam, Revolution, and Liberty, as (3.6 percent of the Tunisian national important conversation items in the blogosphere) were linked to the Tunisian national blogosphere. After remaining sphere of 475 blogs, of which identifying important keywords, we 76 (16 percent) were located in a reverse-analyzed their presence through medium level of network centrality, 262 time-series analysis. By sub-selecting (55.1 percent) were in low network the portions of the blogosphere which centrality; and 120 (25.2 percent) were frequently mentioned different key network outliers and did not link to or words, we were able to investigate their share much dialogue with the rest of the particular network-structures. For Tunisian blogosphere. example, the keywords appearing less frequently (e.g., Islam) had less network Almost all of the 17 core blogs in the heterogeneity and were composed of Tunisian blogosphere have been hosted less and mostly low-influence blogs. In within Tunisia. According to IP contrast, blogs mentioning popular addresses, the cities of Tunis and al- keywords (e.g., Revolution) had more

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network heterogeneity, were composed English transliterations of Arabic party of larger, more diverse, and more high- names, and for the official English level influence blogs driving those names of parties. conversations. Put more simply, the networks of blogs within the Tunisian To analyze the structure, Web Data national blogosphere that were more Extractor crawled each political party’s diverse, cross-linked with others, and URLs and extracted all external-facing were key information gates, were able URLs on the entire directory. All links to drive different topics of conversation from the first data set were collected by more successfully than smaller and Web Data Extractor from November 11- more homogeneous blog networks. 13, 2010 and all links from the second data set were collected between May 3- Analyzing the Structure of 6, 2011. An XML based add-in for Microsoft Excel 2007 called NodeXL, the Egyptian Political Web developed by a team funded by A comprehensive list of Egypt’s political Microsoft Research, was used to create party and political pressure group data network maps with the data like that was built using both the Central pulled from Web Data Extractor. NodeXL Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, generated the Network Linkage Map Wikipedia, and some specialized between Political Parties in Egypt in Egyptian political blogs anticipating that Figures 5 and 6. An arrangement of this combination of “official” and nodes and clusters, the map is based “unofficial” data could bring major and on the Harel-Koren algorithm, which minor, new and established parties to groups the nodes (individual sites as the list. Several search engines and dots) based on common external links media databases were consulted to and distributes to avoid crossover. confirm the URLs for parties that had

Websites. Analyzing Viral Videos from In the pre-uprising data set, a total of YouTube 1,332 external links were found across Between May 16 and 20, 2011, the 10 active Websites, of which 1,225 most prominent videos loaded into were unique and 102 were linked to by YouTube with the keyword “Egypt” were more than one site. In the post-Mubarak hand coded for author, viewing, and data set, a total of 927 external links creation date information. The most were found across 9 active Websites, of viral videos on YouTube are identified in which, 828 were unique and 99 were Table 2, ordered by number of views linked to by more than one site. We and then date of uploading. searched for party Websites in Arabic, in

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Table 2: Viral Video Content From Egyptians, By Upload Date and Number of Viewers Title Channel Views Date

Protest in Egypt - Jan 25, 2011 lukasjakubicka 676,701 25-Jan-11

Day of anger in Egypt ReutersVideo 217,518 25-Jan-11

Egypt's Protests Day of Anger Riots 25 Jan 2011 AusNetwork 110,162 25-Jan-11 Demonstrations Rare Raw Footage

The Most AMAZING video on the Internet #Egypt #jan25 hadi15 2,127,384 27-Jan-11

Man Shot in Egypt NeroAlex1988 154,823 27-Jan-11 Egypt Unrest: Video of police killing teen protester, riots RussiaToday 397,099 28-Jan-11 aftermath

28th Jan. 2011 - Storyful - Egypt Cairo uprising protest storyful 285,628 28-Jan-11 video - Mohamed Ibrahim Elmasry

Demanding change in Egypt AlJazeeraEnglish 111,908 28-Jan-11

Egyptians renew protests after curfew AlJazeeraEnglish 106,191 28-Jan-11

Juju's message to Mubarak oneholysinner 275,302 29-Jan-11 Video of Egypt's bloody clashes as protesters defy curfew RussiaToday 204,736 30-Jan-11 in Cairo Video of fighter jets & choppers over Cairo as military RussiaToday 167,422 30-Jan-11 tries to take control

Egyptian Revolution 2011 COMPLETE. World MUST eyeinsidefilm 484,043 1-Feb-11 MUST watch this. Freedom for All! 'March of Millions' in Cairo as Egypt riots death toll RussiaToday 123,965 1-Feb-11 reaches 300 Video of fierce Egypt clashes as pro-govt crowds attack RussiaToday 322,708 2-Feb-11 anti-Mubarak protesters

Fourth Horseman (death) Egyptian riots. Full Original PunkersTV 1,551,796 3-Feb-11 Video

The fourth horseman (of Death) at the Egypt protests FooledToaster 150,532 3-Feb-11

Hosni Mubarak, a citizen of the people of Egypt at the shaghelhom 139,526 4-Feb-11 end of wisdom

Riz Khan - Tariq Ramadan and Slavoj Zizek on the future AlJazeeraEnglish 107,769 4-Feb-11 of Egyptian politics

US Intervention: Pentagon sends warships to Egypt otraverdad1 281,201 7-Feb-11

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About the Project

The Project on Information Technology and Political Islam (www.pITPI.org) at the University of Washington's Department of Communication investigates the politics of information infrastructures in Muslim societies, and the civic and political uses of digital media in the Muslim world. The Project is funded by the National Science Foundation under awards IIS-0713074 and IIS-1144286, the GWB Institute supported research for this study, and the Education Program of Amazon Web Services contributed cloud computing services. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial- No derivatives 3.0 Unported license.

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