[Air-L] ISOC Statement on Egypt’s Internet shutdown

Aziz Douai azizdouai at gmail.com
Mon Jan 31 06:35:15 PST 2011


Dear AoIR scholars,

I have been watching the contribution of social media to the street protests
in Tunisia, Egypt, and other parts of the Middle East.

My question: What sort of theories would best explain social media's role in
the contagion-like spread of these popular movements?

Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Aziz




On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 11:26 PM, Sari <angyjoe at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nice wishes from the west of the world! But…
>
>
>
> One subtle thing the world can learn from this is that democracy is about
> confronting, confronting all those incurable diseases with whatever you
> have
> in your artillery. In all western democracies, the present practice allows
> few influential lobbyists to make all the decisions of the state, whereas
> the rest of the people are just "consumers". Even if participating
> personally in political affairs is not possible when population is big, the
> present practice still deserves some big yell!
>
>
>
> /Sari
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 11:54 PM, Richard Forno <rforno at infowarrior.org
> >wrote:
>
> > The Internet Society on Egypt’s Internet shutdown
> >
> > We are following the current events in Egypt with concern as it appears
> > that all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic has been disrupted. The
> > Internet Society believes that the Internet is a global medium that
> > fundamentally supports opportunity, empowerment, knowledge, growth, and
> > freedom and that these values should never be taken away from
> individuals.
> >
> > The Internet Society considers this recent action by the Egyptian
> > government to block Internet traffic to be an inappropriate response to a
> > political crisis. It is a very serious decision for a government to block
> > all Internet access in its country, and a serious intrusion into its
> > citizens’ basic rights to communicate.  If the blockage continues, it
> will
> > have a very detrimental impact on Egypt’s economy and society.
> Ultimately,
> > the Egyptian people and nation are the ones that will suffer, while the
> rest
> > of the world will be worse off with the loss of Egyptian voices on the
> net.
> >
> > However we are most concerned about the safety and security of the
> Egyptian
> > people.  Alongside the rest of the world, we share the hope for a
> positive
> > and lasting solution to the problems that have risen to the surface
> there.
> >
> > In the longer term, we are sure that the world will learn a lesson from
> > this very unfortunate example, and come to understand that cutting off a
> > nation’s access to the Internet only serves to fuel dissent and does not
> > address the underlying causes of dissatisfaction.
> >
> > http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=3091
> > _______________________________________________
> > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
> >
> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> > http://www.aoir.org/
> >
>
>
>
> --
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> _______________________________________________
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> http://www.aoir.org/
>



-- 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aziz Douai, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Social Science and Humanities
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
55 Bond Street East
Oshawa, ON   L1G 0A5

Tel: 905.721.8668, ext. 3790
Fax:    905.721.3372
E-mail: aziz.douai at uoit.ca
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"A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring
it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both."  James
Madison, 1822

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