Book Review
The subject and the point of discussion for the book Twitter and Tear Gas are the protest movements that have taken a boost with the arrival of modern internet technology (Tufekci, 2017). Tufekci has observed and pointed out how modern protests have changed because of the arrival of the internet. The power of the internet is making possible the protest movements at large scale. Ethnographic research and deft analysis have been put in her book, having a significant data analysis from social media outlets. The book lessons are much wider than the central topic, which makes the book entertaining and insightful. Tufekci has explained the book concepts using two opposing models. First, the internet has made the protesters like a mammoth who have influence over society and government. It is evident from the successful revolutions from 2010 to 2013 of Egypt, Ukraine, and Tunisia. Second, today’s protests are not influencing the large population like protests of years back; the internet has made them ineffectual. In social movements, both social media and computer algorithms are implemented to orchestrate the agenda. In response, the government uses technology to manipulate social movements while using technological affordances. As a result of these implications, the forces help the society in mobilizing and demobilizing for a cause and agenda.
The book subtitle is ‘The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest.’ With the internet, protesters are getting this power as a tool to influence the public. The internet is giving newfound abilities to them to quickly organize and scale. The author says that judging the modern and pre-internet protests on the same scale would be a mistake. If hundreds of thousands of people were gathered to listen to the speech of Martin Luther King Jr., it was a culmination of a multi-year protest effort and six months of careful planning. With the arrival of the internet, many people came together in the 2011 Cairo protests because they were loosely coordinated on Twitter and Facebook.
Nepalese of the Sherpa region had put an effort to assist the climbers of Mount Everest by carrying supplies, such as ropes and ladders, for them That is the power through which people with less training made a great effort. The author of the book explains that the internet has made possible gradually and rapidly the start of networked movements where there has become less need to make prior formal and informal efforts for the inevitable challenges. All is possible just by changing the tactics. The phenomenon called “tactical freeze” given by Tofekci says: “Make movement, wide decisions and survive over the long haul” (Tufekci, 2017). The purpose of Tofekci’s book is not to argue that modern protests are less effective and unsuccessful, but her focus is that they are different. So, in order to lead an effective movement, the protesters need to understand the differences and extract advantages of their movements.
The taxonomy of the author of the book Twitter and Tear Gas is a more general discussion over the effect of the internet on society. In my perception, our technological future is a long characterization between quick and strong. The quick make the first use of new technology to expand their power. The people of this category are marginalized groups, hackers, and criminals. However, the strong are slower, and they expand their power slowly. In this case, protesters use Facebook first for the purpose of organization. Later on, the government uses Facebook on how to track protesters. There is no clear distinction on who will take the upper hand in the long run.
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