New Social Networks With Old Technology - What The Egyptian Shutdown Tells Us About Social Media

Egypt is the latest in a series of countries to witness the powerful potential of modern social media to catalyse and mobilise people around social issues. The Egyptian government response was to have the internet and mobile networks completely shut down. This was, however, not the end of the role that social media ideas played in the events that followed. People inside and outside of Egypt collaborated to re-create the missing networks using the still-available technologies of landlines, dial-up and ham radio...