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I’ve been captivated with the events in Egypt and Libya. It’s been incredible how citizens have organized and gotten information out of their countries despite the huge efforts of state security. Even the shutdown of border routers didn’t stop online communications. As entrenched regimes are being toppled, thoughts now turn to what will happen next. Will democracy bloom or will a power vacuum enable a theocracy to take over? Worse, does nothing happen and a ‘failed state’ emerge? While I’m not an expert on such things, I do know that the final decision will be up to very young people.
There’s been a huge discussion on the effect of Facebook and Twitter is having on current efforts to bring down regimes. While the value of social networks in telling the Rest-of-the-World what’s happening is obvious, their contribution inside countries is less so. Egypt for example only has 19% of their citizens able to access the Internet, while 80% have a mobile phone with basic (voice, SMS) service. The important statistic is who holds those mobile phones.
Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen all have younger populations. On average 60% of the population are under 30 years old (Yemen is 72%). What makes them unique from their older citizens is that they all have a bigger awareness of the outside world and they know how to get more of it. While they might not have a Facebook account, they know about it, maybe have seen it, and now want it. How can you meet the demand for social networking quickly without building out broadband in these countries?
Luckily for these young people, companies are thinking finding new ways to get them their Facebook. ReadWriteWeb wrote an excellent post on Gemalto and other companies efforts to bring Facebook and Twitter to feature phones. It involves embedding software on phone SIM cards and enables the phone to access Facebook (another company can do Twitter) without a data plan. All the interaction between the user and Facebook are orchestrated via SMS (and I assume some software at the Carrier).
Democracy thrives on the free flow of information. Having a way for people to connect, discuss, and promote ideas if the perfect prevention to dictatorship (secular or religious).
