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Nicholas Richu
English 111-122
Ms. Jennings
April 9
th
2014
Timed writing #3
Dennis Barons Reforming Egypt in 140 characters talks about social media impact on
the Arab Spring and how it helped toppled totalitarian governments. Baron starts off by talking
about the different social medias and their relevance to the Arab spring revolution like twitter
with Tunisia or Egypt with Facebook. He acknowledges that because of these advances in
technology, it makes it easier to communicate with people one would otherwise barely talk to for
whatever different circumstances. The Egyptian revolution was up on Wikipedia faster than you
can say Wolf Blitzer (Baron). He however also acknowledges that for every positive force,
theres an equal negative force pushing; he gives the example about for every anti-Gov. internet
site, theres a firewall to counter it. Baron also attempts to say that social medias influences are a
bit exaggerated citing his evidence as Egypt rallies growing stronger by the day despite the
internet shutting down.
Dennis makes far too many assumptions though his point remains valid. For instance, he
notes that for every force for something theres on equally against it. For one thing it depends
entirely on the government and country. For instance, the NSA runs a massive warrantless
wiretap program against its own citizens yet, theres been less than a handful of (reported) civil
lawsuits against the government. Even then, despite congressmen vowing action and demanding
reform, no one seems to have put or even demanding anything concrete. Another is that he
assumes at the very least, a response from the government or authorities would include what he
calls imprimatur which is censoring the very media thats opposing those in a position of
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authority. Yet you barely ever see this is western countries and even then it varies. For instance,
American media is largely uncensored apart from language. In fact, the media see it as early
Christmas to report on incriminating evidence against individuals in the government or the
government itself. There have been no effort to censor said incriminating evidence. However the
government has taken action to punish whistleblowers which still doesnt follow his narrative.
Baron also makes the assumption or rather he indirectly implies that government mistrust cant
happen because other countries have other problems to deal with like famine. Well what if the
government is the cause or is partially responsible for those problems? The countries that went
through the Arab spring were largely third world countries who have huge illiteracy, famine and
other problems. Though his premise may be valid, specifically his point of everything, especially
technology, having both a good and bad side, he puts too much emphasis on it and makes
assumptions based on that emphasis.