NET HUNTER DRAFT

The Net Hunter

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The Net Hunter Surfing Discoveries From Egypt’s `Virtual World

Mariam Elias

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The Net Hunter

Writing & Research By : Mariam Elias Graphic Design : Amr Kafrawy Translation & Editing To Arabic : Refat Farag, Vencia Translation Financial Support:The Arab Fund For Arts and Culture Printing: El Salam Print House ISBN 19012/2012

Title: Afreet El Net, Surfing Discoveries From Egypt’s Virtual World Copyright 2012 by the author Mariam Elias, translator and designer, Photocourtsy of facebook pages.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Mariam Elias.

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To My Grandpa Hani Haddadin As I always wished that you had lived more for only few month to see The Arab Spring

Special Thanks to My supportive Father Rafiq Elias

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Online Activists: Alla Abd el Fattah / Reporters without borders / Ahmed Naje/ Michael Nabil Saned / Wael Abass Omar Afifi/ Asmaa Mahfouz /Tamim Younis / Abla Fahita /El khorum Ahmed Maher / Big Pharaoh Karim Amer “ Abd El Karim Soliman”/ Glala Amer / Carlos Latouf Sameh El atoui/samatowy Bassem Hefny /“ ELCINEMA”/ Filfan.com/ Fatkat http://www.morsimeter.com/ Amr & Abass. Vs Markaz Al Basera ( dr Maged ossman) blogging on the nile /Malek Moustafa ( malcomx)/ Sherif nassety arab media watch Rami aly/ klot/ khorm/ Big Pharaoh/

Research & Surfing Consultants Raouf Rafla Ali Atef Boula Rizakallah Hadil Hassan Youssra El Guindy

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Acknowledgments: I wish to thank all those who contributed to the creation and the realization of this book: Most importantly my dad Mr Rafiq Elias, who has been always a moral and financial supports for his children’s creations even if it seamed not economically rewarding. My dad, Rafiq Elias was the financial supporter of my first book “ Thawret el Loool” and he also contributed a lot in finding the right human resources that helped in the development of the project. In this project he helped in giving ideas and a lot of insightful directions. It only needs a supportive dad like my father in order to choose conventional paths in life that seams to be compensable at the beginning.

Also I would like to thank Rasha Salah and all AFAC team who were enthusiastic to this idea and decided to support it, as without the support of the AFAC team, it would have been impossible for this project to come to realization. Not only AFAC helped in funding the project but it also gave more value to it.

Special thanks to Sherif El Bendary who was enthusiastic about a project together on YOUTUBE videos and Boula Rizkallah for his nostalgic insightfulness.

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Contents Acknowledgments Introduction

Chapter One : From Prince of Persia to The Web 2.0 This chapter Tracks the history of the interactive media which started with video games in the 80’s and developed to reach Web 2.0 that is based on the input of the user, it aims to create a general profile for the generation who made use of such medium and to trace back the history of internet, digital and new media in Egypt.

Chapter Two: In VHS We Trust: Special Dedication To Hany Jordan This chapter analyzes the idea of archive and how through the YOUTUBE or facebook groups, a public library was created which helped in finding a collective memory that might have been lost. It hints on how the VHS has helped in the storage of rare and popular mass media of the 20th century and analyzing how the revisit of this material in the 21st century provokes nostalgia and creates an alternative visual history.

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Chapter Three: Online Activism & Cyber Wars In this chapter it shed the light on the different political groups, bloggers and online political activists who were influential and were caught in prison for their online activities.

Chapter Four : Web Aesthetics, Cyber Kitsch & Sarcasm Societies

This chapter about a new trend of Photomontage, DIY comics that are used as socio-political statements.

Chapter Five: Videos That Are Worth Thousand Photos On Youtube videos, Indie documentary and Alternative Cinema.

Interviews Chronology

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The Day I Went Online: An Introduction “The virtual space of the Internet is primarily an arena in which my website on Facebook is permanently designed and redesigned to be presented on YouTube—and vice versa. But likewise in the real—or, let’s say, analog—world, one is expected to be responsible for the image that he or she presents to the gaze of others,” Brois Grois, Self-Design and Aesthetic Responsibility, e-Flux Journal #3, 06, 2009.

I don’t remember myself as a computer freak teenager and up-till now I have never been well oriented with all technological inventions nor manic about following the latest gadgets. For example, I still use pen and paper for writing a new contact or a things to do note, I kept using floppy disks until probably 2005 and mobile phone were only used for calling or texting no matter how smart they became with several advanced applications. However surfing the web was the only activity that I was able to master that made me able to self design my profile on social media quite well and of course one must thank the all mighty Google for being a userfriendly medium that managed to be both interactive and easily handled without a catalogue, It was in 1995, I was in the fifth grade back then (7’amsa Abtda2y ya3ny), my parents wanted to feel that they are progressive who can plan well for their children and so they encouraged me to join the computer class at school. This class which we used to call it “ El Magmou3a” or “ Magmo3at El Taqwaya” (The group or the supporting group) was an extra optional class with less number of students than the normal class of fifty for a more explicit explanation of the subjects. The computer class was outside the curriculum and cost 20 Egyptian pounds that was double the price of a normal one. Computers were still primitive back then and like the rest of Egyptian education, the class was based on memorizing rather than practice as we spent most of the time being dictated on the components of the computer such as the difference between the Dos & the Ram, the software & the hardware or the the floppy disc and the mouse.

I still remember the excitement that we had on the first day my dad brought the computer machine and installed it in the house, although there was nothing to do except entering the domain “fashion.com” and playing computer cards that was called “Solitare”.

Summer 1999 (Agazet Aola Thanawy Tahidan) was surely preserved for hours of chatting on the ICQ, as it was the first time for me to experience laughing alone in front of a screen and surely I started to learn the online language that helped me later in communication on the MSN later such as using online slang like “gtg” ( gotta go) or depicting emotions such as : ☺

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Later, I was part of an activity in which the leader who was a computer science graduate explained to us online marketing which sounded like a miracle back then and I contributed in collecting a material for a website that the same leader created for the group.

Since the MSN, most of the other social networking programs didn’t catch my enthusiasm to join, whether it was HI5, Plaxo, chat-rooms or even facebook at the beginning. Not until, my friends were talking about a virtual group where local artists & designers share their work together and vote on it.

The idea was weird and I decided to join facebook out of curiosity to know more about this group, which was called “I –Catalyst”, and since then I became addicted to the interactive virtual world.

On the 6th of April 2008, a movement was initiated on facebook to wear black and stay at home on the day of strike. The two requests were easy as already I didn’t have work back then and I used to wear black most of the time, however it was a mind intriguing experience since it wasn’t a certain political party or public figure calling for an ideological action but a socio-political invitation from a virtual unknown to contribute in a community act that requires passive resistance.

To participate or not to participate that was the question or rather an enquiry of whether involvement will create any difference. I remember sitting with a friend who worked in an NGO that monitored the fraud parliamentary elections of 2010, when he asked me if I voted and of course my answer was “No” knowing that my contribution will be futile.

After the New Year’s Eve, most of my friends’ list changed their profile into black rectangle to mourn the killed people of Kedsien church (All Saints) of Alexandria. Few days later, the photos were changed again with the flag of Tunis after the “ Zen Al Abbadin” left the power and escaped to Saudi Arabia. Suddenly, facebook that was known for self-design and creating a personal profile became a venue for expressing opinionated statements and declaring political inclinations or sides.

Inspired by the Tunisian uprising, a facebook event was created to invite people to participate in a demonstration on Tuesday the 25th of January, which was the feast of the police. Emails, inbox messages, graphic illustration were forwarded to a mass of people to explain details of assembly and protest marches or to illustrate means of protection. The profile picture was changed again to a photo of Tahrir square clustered with demonstrators, while status were full of updates of the incidents or calls for help.

Before these incidents the main program on the national TV “ El Biet Betek” had an episode that talks about the harms of facebook and how it is dangerous, however it was the 28th of January that created the main threat to the government that lead to the cut of the internet and the telecommunications from the whole country.

On the 11th of February, I found my dad merrily shouting: “ Hey girl, so you chucked him out” referring to the previous president. I had to play my role on the virtual media as well, so I uploaded a photo of an Egyptian flag that I have designed previously but never displayed and wrote a status that translates as following: “ If the people once demanded life, they should enter on the net” which is a personal version of the first verse of Abo Kassem El Shaby’ s poem “ If people one demanded life, so fate must respond”. I have to admit that I was one of those

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who were confused and everyday had a different opinion than the other, but still this didn’t deprived me from displaying an assured opinionated virtual character.

A flag I designed previously and uploaded on the 11th of February as my profile picture. Mariam Elias, 2010.

The Egyptian society was divided between revolutionaries and supports of the old regime, million of groups were created, people would send social causes to be joined or ask public questions and social media became a platform for heated arguments. On the other hand, the slogan “ No for dictatorship, No for Corruption” hanged high in Tahrir Square, people ran to the streets to mop it and clean it, pavements were being repainted and colourful murals were made with an intention to design the public walls.

This mood of self-cleansing, reviewing the past and sense bewilderment made me create a facebook group entitled “Nostalgia El Fasad” (Nostalgia of Corruption) on the 28th of February, the group became very active in a short time as it was similar to a recycle bin for memories of scandals, common bad habits, reminiscences of pseudo-news with eye-catching headlines, old propaganda or 80’s kitsch or even links to what was called “ contracting movies” ( El Mokawalat Films). The posts in the group varied from general issues to local fashion brands of the 1990’s or latest social trends such as the beaches for veiled women.

This peaceful steadiness didn’t last long, a

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On the left, the first bulliten for the group page, made to imitate SCAF’s announcements on the net. On the right, one of the logos designed by group member and net artist Kareem Lotfy, 2011.

Screenshot of the group “ Nostalgia El Fasad”, 2011.

As soon some people demanded democracy in the group through elections for the admin (the person in charge of the controlling keys). I objected the idea as it would create grumpiness’s and divisions within the one group. However, the elections for the admin happened and as expected the winner decided to do a coup d’état by closing the group. Some members sympathised with the incident and did another group entitled “ Ahna Asfien Ya Batata”. (“We are Sorry Ya Batata” /Batata is my nickname & it was an imitation for “ Ana asief Ya rayes or “ I am sorry Mr president).

After the closure of Nostalgia El Fasad, a net surfing club or group was created by the same people entitled “ Afreet El Net: Nostalgia El Fasad Sabken” or the Net jack. The new group lasted a bit longer than the previous one, but still dynamics between its members didn’t last free of politics and interior conflicts appeared again. After few months the idea of democracy in the virtual page was brought up and some members called for the downfall of the regime.

I decided to do some compromises, such as appointing a weekly admin while I would be still in charge of the controlling key. However, some members objected the idea as they thought it was similar to what happened with SCAF, so they decided to leave the group creating another without giving me access to the new one.

Censorship from others or even from the self is expected in this online world, however it was never expected from the social networks that advertised it-self as free platforms. In-fact I had two experiences with Facebook that were very chocking, one of them was a cover page for hippies in the sixties that was removed from the Facebook organization and I was banned from using Facebook or 24 hours. The other one was a secret group of six people that I created as a joke between friends, but still it got erased as the company thought it violates their terms of use.

Although the above stories are mere playful activities, they in-fact explains a lot about the virtual world. It became clear that what was thought to be a playground free of any controlling powers, turned out to be a highly monitored resort with a direct impact not only on our everyday activity but even in the global political arena.As a writer in the fields of arts and culture, I always wanted to document the local productions of the online world as in many cases it was precedent to whatever happens offline. I was interested in the banal and absurd of these posts, however after the revolution what was thought to be random uploads or youthful experimentations started to have a clear context that could be written in an accumu

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Screenshot from a notification I received after the closure of one of my secret groups on Facebook, 2011.

However, scarcity of previous researches and the lack of documentation of the early online sites and videos especially those of the nineties or pre the revolution made writing this book more complicated. Another problem was the continuous changes in the socio-political events after 25th of January, which made it hard to define things since any claim or conclusion would have an incident that refutes it the next day.

One of the notifications that blocks my activity with others, which received from Facebook after the removal of one of my photos on facebook, 2012.

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From Prince of Persia To the Web: Chapter One

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From Prince of Persia To the Web: Chapter One

Thanks to the 70’s “open door policy”, the two following decades of the 80s and the 90’s were the time of outgrowth for several decisions taken during El Sadat’s regime. Especially after years of closed economy under the Nasser’s era, consumerism had its own flair. Consumption and class comparison became palpable concerns for many due to labor migration to the gulf countries, extensive inflation and social mobility (1). All that created a certain allure to exported objects, whether they were toys that worked with batteries, preserved food like bolobeef and compote, fashion trends or electronic appliances.

For that, everything back then was contagious and had the tendency to turn into a fad. Objects made in the Far East used to hail on us each year and gain a hegemonic supremacy. For example, since its launch in the midst of the nineties the Suzuki Swift car, especially the red model, has gained an unfrequented democratic dominance and promptly became part of the urban landscape of the city. Imported products such as Amigo Al Turki shoes (the one that illuminates), Americana’s gifts (2), Tamima’s school bag (the one that can be rolled on wheels), the latest Sony’s walkmans, Troll key-chains, Tama-go-go (the artificial pet), would suddenly appear to be a must-have or even part of the national belonging of every Egyptian kid.

Video games then appeared and only a lucky kid would have the complete set at his house where the rest of his friends would gather daily to play and compete. Nintendo’s Super Mario, Namco’s Pac- Man, Prince of Persia, Sony’s PlayStation and Atari’s Jumpman were the most popular. Later several entertainment parks, cafés and clubs started to offer play-station and video games sections.

Yet, nothing was as compelling as the pre-eminence of the two main channels of the Egyptian National Television. Our calendars were marked each day with a specific program. Whatever was transmitted on the TV screen became the protagonist of our converse, fantasies and even our bedroom walls and clothes.

However, all these emblems have lost their enigma with the sudden boom in telecommunications and the satellite transmission of the ARABSAT and NILESAT. Actually, this was the case of our age: a suppressed childhood with limited choices followed by a sudden disclosure and diverse alternatives in our adolescence. Perhaps for that reason, no other generation has passed through paradoxical phases of belief like we did.

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Let us admit that it was a lucky generation in a way. During its childhood, people who worked in the media were really concerned about this young generation. Some decided to bring cartoons from all over the world and add an Arabic voice over to it, no matter how the picture and sound were matching, such as Ninja Turtles and Mazenger. Others believed that there should be a local program that enhance and develop the intelligence of an Egyptian kid and created shows, such as “El Barlaman Al sagheer” (The young Parliament), “Magalet Al Shabab” (The Youth Magazine) and “Cinema El Atfal” (Children’s Cinema).

Video games then appeared and only a lucky kid would have the complete set at his house where the rest of his Let us admit that it was a lucky generation in a way. During its childhood, people who worked in the media were really concerned about this young generation. Some decided to bring cartoons from all over the world and add an Arabic voice over to it, no matter how the picture and sound were matching, such as Ninja Turtles and Mazenger. Others believed that there should be a local program that enhance and develop the intelligence of an Egyptian kid and created shows, such as “El Barlaman Al sagheer” (The young Parliament), “Magalet Al Shabab” (The Youth Magazine) and “Cinema El Atfal” (Children’s Cinema). friends would gather daily to play and compete. Nintendo’s Super Mario, Namco’s Pac- Man, Prince of Persia, Sony’s PlayStation and Atari’s Jumpman were the most popular. Later several entertainment parks, cafés and clubs started to offer play-station and video games sections.

Yet, nothing was as compelling as the pre-eminence of the two main channels of the Egyptian National Television. Our calendars were marked each day with a specific program. Whatever was transmitted on the TV screen became the protagonist of our converse, fantasies and even our bedroom walls and clothes.

However, all these emblems have lost their enigma with the sudden boom in telecommunications and the satellite transmission of the ARABSAT and NILESAT. Actually, this was the case of our age: a suppressed childhood with limited choices followed by a sudden disclosure and diverse alternatives in our adolescence. Perhaps for that reason, no other generation has passed through paradoxical phases of belief like we did.

Let us admit that it was a lucky generation in a way. During its childhood, people who worked in the media were really concerned about this young generation. Some decided to bring cartoons from all over the world and add an Arabic voice over to it, no matter how the picture and sound were matching, such as Ninja Turtles and Mazenger. Others believed that there should be a local program that enhance and develop the intelligence of an Egyptian kid and created shows, such as “El Barlaman Al sagheer” (The young Parliament), “Magalet Al Shabab” (The Youth Magazine) and “Cinema El Atfal” (Children’s Cinema).

Boyzone, Ace of Base, Backstreet-Boys, U2, Spice-Girls (with their platform shoes), Eminem, Michael Jordan, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Whitney Huston, Aerosmith, Metallica, Tom Cruise (with his eternal love partner back then: Nichole Kidman), Jim Carrey and Leonardo Di Caprio had their hyped homage too.

This is besides the boom of Hollywood’s science fiction films, such as “ET”, “Armageddon” and “The Independence Day”, action thrillers like “Mission: Impossible” and romantic films such as “The Bodyguard” or “Titanic”. Not to forget the obsessive mania with the American soap opera “The Bold & The Beautiful”, which thanks to “Channel 2” used to be screened in 1992-94 at quarter to nine in the evening.

This entire thrill was then substituted with ‘Conspiracy Theory’, paranoia over globalization and an apparent resentment towards America at the turn of the millennium and especially after the turmoil of September 11 and the war on Iraq. Not only individuals but also companies became concerned to prove their Egyptian, Arab or Islamic identity and prove a loyalty towards it. Many companies added “Made by Egyptian Hands “or “100 % Egyptian”, to their slogan. Several started campaigns for boycotting American goods.

All that besides, the campaigns to prevent some writers from translating their works into Hebrew, sentencing the Egyptian activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim to jail for “Defaming Egypt” and the rumors that Israel was exporting belts that release chemicals to hurt Arab reproductive organs (4).

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This was hyped with the writings of some American intellects, such as Thomas Friedman and his famed book “The Lexus and The Olive Tree” and Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations”. And since then, the discussion about the ‘Other’, ‘Occidentalism’ and even the true ‘Arab identity’ never stopped.

Certainly all the above can be a mere sweeping conjecture, as a mutual history between contemporaries is not an indication that they all share similar perspectives and concerns or have a common collective memory. Yet, it is no coincidence to find several Facebook groups created to assemble people who were born in the 1980’s or archive memories and events, such as: “Mawaleed 80-90” (The progeny of 80-90), Memories of 70’s till 90’s, “Ahla Ayam Omerna” (The best days of our lives) or “Al Maokoseen Mawaleed Al Fatra Ma Bein 80-85” ( The unlucky who were born in the period of 80-85) or even fan pages for old Egyptian entertainment shows and products.

This could be interpreted as a palpable mood of nostalgia and mull over the past or a feeling of disorientation in a changing Egyptian society with an incomplete globalization project, or despair for the lack of a national vision so that objects and entertainment become the only unifying connection. How then can this patchwork of visual and cultural input depict the future art discourse? And to what extent can the progeny of the 1980’s form a “generation” that has a specific vision for the production of arts and culture in the country, creating particular tendencies or a specific visual language?

The Web: Historical Narration For Dummies Like most communication inventions or electronic devices, the history of the Internet worldwide is narrated through the initiatives of innovators companies, research centres, government initiatives and even military development. Especially that the story of the web will be accompanied with the evolution of the computers devices and its language.

Some refer to the telegraph system as antecedent to the Internet, in the concept of transmitting data between two different locations. Yet, it was in 1951 when some commercial computers started to be available in the American markets. In 1981, IBM released the personal Computer or PC, while Macintosh that was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the 70’s didn’t develop a model of personal use until 1984. Still, Apple was successful in popularizing several user-friendly concepts such as the desktop that was a visual representation of the computer interface and the clickable icons on the screen. 5 On the other hand, Douglas Engelbart’s hand Controlled device “ the Mouse” with the invention of the cursor movement was an invention of Stanford Research Institute. With the creation of replicas of the IBM’s machine, the PC became affordable during the 1980’s & 1990’s. For some, MIT professor and US Army scientist Vannevar Bush, is considered the grandfather of the internet as he built mechanical computers in the 1930’s and imagined a complex system called “the Memex” in 1945 that would be built into desks to permit multiple users to browse various microfilms simultaneously. 6 These ideas were never implemented until the 1960’s, when a communication system named ARPANET sponsored and designed by the American Department of Defence as a protection from nuclear attacks. Especially after the Soviet Union sent their Sputnik satellites into space, the Cold War was at its peak in that time and the US Government had to find an alternative invention to compete and a means of communication between its department in case any Soviet nuclear attacks. 7 A unit formed by the U.S. Department of defence called The Advanced Research Projects Agency (APRA), embraced a packet switching technology that was funded by the American president Lyndon B. Johnson as a counter act to face the soviet technological competition.

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Later, four American universities (the university of California at Los Angeles, the University Of California at Santa Barbara, the Stanford Research Institute and the University of Utah) helped in the excursion of the system.8 These four centres became the ARPANET that was the first experimental network for the Internet that is known today.

The concept of electronic mail was introduced in 1971 when special software was created to send messages within ARPANET system, while it made the first public demonstration a year later. Not until 1973, when the internet started to be an international system when some non Americanuniversities joined the network such as the University College of London in England and the Royal Radar Establishment of Norway and in 1976 Queen Elizabeth II sent the first email as a celbration.9 There were many attempts during the 1980’s to merge networks and upgrade protocols, while applications such as “Gopher” became the first commonly used hypertext interface to the Internet and later Usenet and Bulletin boards appeared.

The increase of the number of users especially after commercializing the personal computers, made the American military be concerned of the possibility of hacking the system, for that it decided to separate its network with the title “ MILNET” and made the “ARPANET” in the hands of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1982. Also in that year, the transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) was formalized after the researches of Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn. Also, the concept of a worldwide network of fully interconnected TCP/IP networks called the Internet was introduced.

Since that time there were several inventions that boomed the progression of the Internet, one of which was the creation of a system known as the Domain Name Server (DNS) which is responsible for how the web address were given in 1983.

From that, six domain address were created for identification: .org for organizations, .net for networks and non-governmental agencies, .gov for governmental sites, .com for commercial domains, .edu for educational purposes and .mil for the military. Later, as the Internet became global each country had its two letter prefix such as eg for Egypt. Note also that the first “. Com” domain was registered in 1986.

However, it was Briton Tim’s Berners-lee’s contribution that made the drastic change from its usage on research and government only to a wider decentralized scope without physical restrictions. Especially, after he proposed the global hypertext project: the World Wide Web in 1989, which ran on protocols now widely known as HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). 10 In the late 1980s and 1990s, Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) began to emerge and the Internet started to be privatized. while in 1990 The ARPANET was replaced by NSFNET that was also decommissioned in 1995 removing the last restrictions on the internet usage to hold commercial traffic.

Also thanks to “Mosaic” in 1993 and “Netscape Navigator” in 1994, graphic browsers were introduced with the ability to display audio-visual material; both were the contribution of Marc Andreessen. Later editions included open source Mozilla application and Microsoft Internet explorer.

The development of the Internet in both technological advancement and user’s penetration was very speedy and huge. Today, accessing the Internet became a daily habit that is indispensable and all new technological gadgets are designed to have easy accessibility for the Internet. What was previously an unfrequented invention with exotic titles such as “ Window to the World” became viable in the palm of the hands after the wireless technologies in devices such as the ipad, the mobile phones or black berries.

WWW Comes To Egypt Although, Egypt didn’t contribute in the invention and evolution of the Internet, yet Egyptians knew well how

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to make use of it and created a local virtual culture on the WWW. And above all, they used the net as a medium to spark a revolution that resisted years of a rigid and stagnant system.

In October 1993, the Egyptian Universities Network (EUN) of the supreme council of universities with the Cabinet Information & Decision Support Center (IDSC)’s regional information technology and software engineering centre (RITSEC) set up the infrastructure of Internet in Egypt. This was implemented by the National telephone organization (predecessor of Telecom Egypt) that provided the infrastructure for a cable connection to France of a 9.6 kbps bandwidth to theses institutions with a limited number of users of 2000 and 3000.

In the following year, the Egyptian Internet Traffic was divided into three major sub domains: (.eun.eg) for the Egyptian Universities Network, (.sci.eg) serving the scientific research institutes and (.gov.eg) for Governmental entities and all were restricted in supplying only their members only. Still the commercial penetration of the Internet back then didn’t exist but there was only one ISP “ In Touch” that got an international connection through a server in the United States and provided email services only11.

It was only when Egypt hosted the international conference on population and development in September 1994, an event that had more than 15,000 participations, a 64 kbps Internet connection had to be provided through another link to France costing $ 450,00, after which a decision was made to keep it under the responsibility of IDSC/RITSEC. IDSC/ RITSEC made an objective to support the national information high way by improving speed and accessibility. For that digital data access was provided through complexes and fiber-optic international connectivity was made available on satellite via Intelsat to avoid the limitations of the infrastructure, while rural areas were provided infrastructure through installing VSAT.12 Not until 1996 when the Internet became accessible to the masses with several developments such as the increase of the gateway speed by 20 times and the multiplying the number of users to 20,000. IDSC/RITSEC started to grant connection to private services providers ISP’s under the “. Com.eg”, while some had their own international gateways. By the end of 1996, ISPs had reached 40 and spreading along Cairo, Alexandria, Sinai and the Red sea. Later, prices reached 20 or 100 LE per month and the local telephone company started to charge communication fees per minute rather than fixed fees.

The Internet back then was highly expensive with accessibly through a modem and a dial up account. For that hacking appeared and computer gurus started to discover their skills by using hacking programs to steal the passwords of other people accounts or spread virus in their computers. “ Criminal virtual activities started with the introduction of the Internet in Egypt since the connection was expensive and I used a program called “Subseven” that can be sent via email to capture the username and password of the receiver ” explained Marimina Abd El Malek, an innovation and solutions architect at the American University In Cairo and a former hacker. “ To cut it short nobody needed the Internet back then except for News and pornography and computer games where enough to waste time on PC as social media didn’t appear yet,” he continued.

In October 1999, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology was established and the task of the new entity was given to Ahmed Nazif who held the first tenure of this post and later became the prime minster of the cabinet. Nazif, a Ph.D holder in Computer Engineering from MC-Gill, claimed to have a target of spreading the knowledge of Information technology in Egypt and thus set a plan to reduce the cost of con nectivity with free Internet access through any of the 68 ISPs available in the market of 2002.

Also public accessibility was improved by providing low-priced machines sold by private producers through the ministry’s Egyptian Telecommunications Company (Telecom Egypt), which also sponsored 70 % of the telephone revenue from the Internet use to the various ISPs. It is worth mentioning the Nazif’s cabinet that branded itself as “ The Smart Government” or the “E-government”, was dropped after the people revolted especially on the day of the shutdown of the stream and used Facebook groups to call for the demonstrations.

Since that free service, most ISP started competing to lure their clients to use their dial up numbers, by offering

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faster connection, better customer services or offers like e-mails, SMS or ringtones without charges.

One of the most famous dial up services was Ahmed Bahget’s 07775000, which became known after its TV commercials that featured a cartoon character called “ Big Faraferro” that looked like a mouse and sang the number in repeated jingle. Also one of the largest of these ISPs was TEdata and LinkdotNet and by November 2002, twenty-six Egyptian governorates had free Internet access.

An advertisment of Ahmed Bahget’s dial up number.

Also in the early 2000’s, fast access broadband services became available such as the ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) service, which is an added feature to the existing normal telephone line that converts the normal, analog and slow telephone line to a fast and digital one. Another addition was the implementation of ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology in Egypt and later wireless connection that changed the history of online activity after its appearance. Especially that it introduced the idea of spontaneity and 24/7 availability, while restrictions by place and time were diminished.

In the midth of this promotional campaign for the smart government absurd stories also existed such the shark that eaten the cables under the sea that the government said as a justification for the Internet cut off on 30 January 2008. Whether it was a shark or another reason but the two marine cables FLAG & SMW4 connecting Egypt to the world were broken and later Telecom Egypt was given the TEnorth cable and Orascom telecom took control of the MENA cable.

Luckily, TE Data users weren’t very affected as the company had a third gateway to the Internet, which helped them have access but with a reduced bandwidth. Also because of that mass, several clients were offered a free of charge month as a compensation for the outrage by the local national telecom authority. Also in April of the same year, ADSL+2 was introduced in Egypt , but later a “ Fair Usage Policy” was applied by ISPs which was a quota between 100GB and 150 GB per month that caused a huge stir among P2P users.

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Beside the governmental and private efforts in improving Informational Technology awareness, several intergovernorate organizations such as UNDP also played an influential part. One of these projects were cybercafés for the poor, as they launched Technology Access community centres ( TACCs) in Sharkiya Governorate, Siwa and Luxor. TACC had several projects such as providing Internet accessibility in rural perpherial areas, enhancing IT business and developing of web pages in Arabic. It is also worth mentioning that Egypt hosted several annual international conventions since 1996 such as CAINET, Cairo Telecom, Comdex, GItex and Cairo ICT. 13 nternational organizations and the public sector were not the mere players in the field, as private companies and independent NGOs had a significant role in the growth of the industry and the penetration of Information Technology in Egypt. More than 1000 information technology clubs are registered in collaboration between NGO’s, private sector and the government.

What characterizes these NGOs is there concern about the contribution of the future Arab generations in the IT industry such as ADEF or Arab Digital Expression foundation, S3Geeks and Hypatia. One of ADEF’s major activities is the Digital Expression Camps that they have been organizing since 2007, following the tradition of this initiative that was held by Giza Engineering company since 1985 to teach youth self expression through digital medium.

Photo for Arab computer camps that were held by Team Company between 1985-1990’s.

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Interactive Societies: From The Joy Stick To The Touch screen

In the nineties, youth hanged daily in three places: sports club, video renting shops and cyber spaces and a few lucky would go to a disco or pub. Entertainment and socializing were the two major drive for going to these meeting hubs, but calling the neighbours to play at home became another alternative with the introduction of domestic computers. Cyber cafes had it all from the billiard tables to food and beverages, while playing video games was usually in competitive matches for the highest score.

In the beginning there was the joystick, a control device in one’s hand that helps in killing an enemy, crossing borders, hunting a prey, topping a score and changing an animated world in-front of a screen. For that, although the Internet was an adolescence discovery for the generation that was born in the eighties and seventies, video games helped in the initiation of human computer interaction since their childhood. Note also that the Internet in its early stages was still primitive and limited to surfing pages that are previously written without any space for additions or changes from the users.

Some trace back the evolution of both design and communication between people and objects to the digital revolution in the 1960’s, which is considered the foundational years to interface and interaction design that lead to several technological breakthroughs in the 1980’s. Also it was in the 1960’s when Marshall Mcluhan coined the famous phrase “ The medium is the message” in his book “Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Men” that was published in 1964.

This thought was revolutionary back then as it opposed the general scientific view that dealt with communication as mechanical transmission of codes. Also, many gave him the credit of predicting for the world wide web when he popularized the term of global village in his book and described it The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man as he explained that the electronic technology and the transformation of information connected the people around the globe and heightened human awareness and sense of responsibility. Later, the two critical thinkers Ronald Barthes and Michael Foucault appeared to change the world’s perspectives on semiotics and structuralism formulating a new theory of design.

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These cultural shifts in theories and ideas were juxtaposed by the advancement in technological devices and since that the Internet cafe and cyber clubs were the first hubs for the usage of these inventions and networking became a major part of the experience.

In general, in a developing country like Egypt where people can’t afford to own a personal laptop, pay regular fees for the Internet accessibility or capitalize on the tools, Internet cafes or university labs became an alternative. This has created a Boom in which several youth from the middle class would turn into young entrepreneurs that would open their small enterprise of Internet cafes until the number accelerated in Egypt in the last few years to reach over 500 Internet Cafés. Also in some researches, Egypt appears to have the highest number of Internet Cafés in the Arab region and in the African continent. Currently even slum areas would have an Internet café that serves in its location and many young generations would work in an IT related field such as computer mechanics, Shabbi DJs and others.

Since the commercialization of the Internet in Egypt started through Internet cafes, the first one was established in Garden City (downtown the city of Cairo) in 1996 (source). Providing a friendly atmosphere for mingling and using the Internet, the café which was founded by the first private Internet company in Egypt, had both a bar corner and a computer lab.

The private sector played its role at that time, an example of that is “Internet Egypt “, which was the first Internet service provider (ISP) to initiate Internet Cafés services, with more than ten successful Cafés established to date. Customers of Internet Egypt Cafes used to sign a code of ethics to assure that they won’t visit pornographic or violent websites, before they get accessibility.

Besides providing Internet accessibility with higher costs, Internet cafes back then, offered training, and sold technology devices such headphones, microphones or mouse. However nowadays after the drop in prices of the Internet, cyberspaces became more a venue for networking and games targeting young youth. Currently most governorates have Internet cafes, while Cairo and Alexandria are the two main cities, where most of them are located.

Delivering Happinanss & E-shopping: In 2004, the Egyptian Parliament voted tp pass the law regulating Electronic Signatures,also known as the E-Signature Law ( No .15/2004), which aims to build a proper infrasturcture for e-business and e-commerce in Egypt. The Law established an e-signature regaltory body, known as the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), which aslo functions under the auspices f MCIT. This agency is responsible for issuing digital sertificates to a group of Certificate Service providers (CSPs). Other efforts for establishing e-commerce ad e-business have started to emerge in the Egyptian scociety, albeit at a slow pace.

These efforts include establishing Web sites for major Egyptian finacial institutions, including the Central Bank of Egypt ( www.cbe.org.eg), and the National Bank Of Egypt ( www.nbe.org.eg).These sites are mostly informational in nature, and have not allowed e-banking transactions in the begining. Hoever, ten other major banks have started offering online banking and telebanking services in egypt. Banks have started aggresive marketing campaign to spread the adoption and use of credit cards, which is currently rarely used in this cash scociety. A project to further spread the use of Asynchronous Transfer Mode ( ATM) networks, amd therefore encouraging the use of banking cards, has been underway with a budget of US $ 6000 million. As a result, a growing number of websites of websites are starting to offer services ranging from selling car rental reservations.

Other sites try to find creative ways to answer customer demands abd get orders online for a variety of food, pharmaceuticals,flowers,videos, rentals, electronics, and even mobile phones and computers. Orders for most googs are delivered to the customer’s address within half an hour to an hour.The site offers access to menus and price of over 500 restaurants and large number of companies and different service providers.Available for Cairo and Alexandria users, the site still does not employ the use of credit cards. Rather,it offers a cash-upon-

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delivery system. The lack of a banking card culture is currently high on the list of obstacles to e-commerce in Egypt from a consumer’s standpoint. Resisting change is another important factor in a culture where commercial lite has depended on cash for so long, which is what the gevernment and the various finacial institions are trying to change.

Cairo’s unforgiving traffic costs the country’s economy an estimated LE 50 billion each year and renders countless city dwellers housebound when they might otherwise be shopping or socializing. On the other hand, without it, we might not have style-treasure.com. It was the paralyzing gridlock of the Egyptian capital, after all, that in 2007 inspired two young recent university graduates, Mona Afifi and Sherifa Mahmoud, to open “Egypt’s first online boutique,” where you can purchase an Om Kolthoum emblazoned handbag (LE 395), a Bedouin-inspired necklace (LE 480) or a linen dress embroidered in the Suhajan style of Upper Egypt (LE 880), all without getting off your sofa. From slingbacks to pillowcases, the overriding theme of the site is youthful, hip and Egyptian—in keeping with a certain post-revolutionary spirit of the times. “I know people who a few years ago wouldn’t be caught dead in a local brand,” says Afifi. “Now they’re proud to wear it.”

Among the trends that emerged following the January 25 revolution is a wave of new e-commerce. A number of local, online enterprises started mostly by young entrepreneurs have capitalized on a dramatic increase in Internet penetration since the 2011 uprising, which was famously enabled by online social media. Recent figures show that some 31 million Egyptians—nearly 38 percent of the country—are now online, a nearly 40 percent jump from November 2010, when the number was less than 23 million.

When they started style-treasure.com five years ago, Afifi and Mahmoud were told that Egyptians simply would not buy things online. In those days, the country’s relationship with the Internet was still quite new.

Other than takeout menus on otlob.com, “online shopping in Egypt did not exist,” remembers Afifi, who was then working as a journalist at a fashion magazine. She and Mahmoud, a master’s degree candidate in political science at the American University in Cairo, were convinced that with more Cairenes moving to farflung satellite cities and traffic ever more unbearable, online shopping was sure to take off. The fashion-forward pair—who had both been pioneering wearers of local designers since their days as undergraduates at AUC— also had a hunch that “made in Egypt” was a label that would sell, says Afifi, now 31, who favors skinny jeans and chunky jewelry.

So Afifi and Mahmoud pooled their approximately $5,000 in savings and hired a website developer. They contracted with six designers and did everything else, from PR to accounting, themselves. Today, the site caters to what it calls a “young, class-A clientele,” featuring collections from 82 regional designers, 75 of them Egyptian. Style-treasure.com fields between 40 and 50 daily orders for monthly sales of LE 350,000 to LE 500,000. Eighty percent of this business comes from within the country, with the rest hailing from other Arab countries or from people elsewhere “wanting a piece of Egypt,” says Afifi.

She and Mahmoud, 28, recently launched style-treasurekids.com, a sister website offering kid gear from crayons to high end strollers, including a Dora the Explorer musical keyboard (LE 379) and an Evenflo infant car seat (LE 1,035).

Among the biggest initial challenges facing the startup was the issue of payment. Online shoppers in the United States and other more established e-commerce countries usually pay for online purchases by credit card or via a virtual payment service like PayPal, but Egypt remains a heavily cash-based society. Research suggests that only four percent of Egyptians have debit cards, and less than two percent have credit cards.

And those who do carry plastic are often leery of sending their financial data via the Internet. Style-treasure. com, like other savvy local e-commerce operations, has dealt with this problem by offering a cash-on-delivery option. (Customers can also opt for credit-on-delivery, in which a delivery man swipes the customer’s credit card upon arrival.) “That really helped,” says Afifi, who says more than half of the firm’s clientele pay this way. The site also makes a point of being flexible regarding returns and exchanges. “You buy a shirt and it doesn’t fit, you know you can return it,” she says. For purchases made within Egypt, the company covers re-

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turn shipping costs. Some customers even try on their new outfits as a deliveryman waits, one of an army of eight employed directly by style-treasure.com to whisk goods to Cairene customers quickly via motorcycle.

Kholoud Zakaria, a 36-year-old editor at Al Arabi magazine in Kuwait, says she prefers shopping style-treasure.com to Kuwaiti malls. “I can get creative and unique pieces,” she says. Zakaria, like many other styletreasure regulars, learned about the site through Facebook, which Afifi calls a “major” advertising and marketing tool for the young firm. It was the January 25 revolution, of course, that made Egyptians realize the power of social media outfits such as Facebook and Twitter, which functioned as indispensable organizing and communication tools during the uprising. Egyptian entrepreneurs have now recognized that the medium’s potential goes beyond politics and protests; it can exponentially speed-up and improve a new venture’s exposure.

Egypt currently has nearly 12 million Facebook users, meaning nearly 40 percent of Egyptians who access the Internet are on the social networking site.

Nahed Azab, an assistant professor at AUC’s business school and an e-commerce watcher, recalls when the only things Egyptians shopped for online were cell phone ringtones. While there are still just a handful of successful Internet-based firms here, Azab says the breadth and quality of startups in Egypt is “very promising.”

Google’s Ebda2 competition, a nine-month-long contest launched in September 2011, aimed to identify and nurture the best of them. It included some 4,000 fledgling Egyptian entrepreneurs competing for a grand prize of $200,000 (LE 1.2 million) in seed money. Among them was iqraaly, which was one of 20 startups that made it to the finals. Iqraaly takes the idea of capitalizing on Cairo’s traffic congestion problem a step further, targeting commuters themselves. Some people, after all, have no choice but to face the rush hour gridlock, twice daily. Iqraaly, or “read to me,” is essentially a podcast of news and opinion journalism culled from major Egyptian newspapers, thus far including Al-Ahram, Al-Shorouk and Tahrir, recorded by narrators. The articles, delivered in Arabic, can be listened to anywhere, but the startup’s target audience is Cairenes stuck in their cars.

“Iqraaly is addressing a real problem that will not go away,” says investor Khaled Ismail, a 53-year-old Egyptian financier raised in Germany. Ismail learned about the site when he served as a judge in the Ebda2 competition and thought it was “an interesting model I haven’t seen before.” He thought of the 90 minutes a day he himself spends sitting in traffic and decided to invest.

Iqraaly was developed by Abdelrahman Wahba, a 28-year-old computer engineer, along with a college buddy from Ain Shams University, Abdallah Ehab, 26, and 33-year-old Ramy Gamal, who Wahba knew since childhood from his local mosque in Maadi. Wahba now lives and works in the desert town of Fifth Settlement, which is at least a half hour’s drive from the outermost edge of central Cairo, and he knows a thing or two about the frustration and boredom of being stuck in traffic. Wahba has long been a fan of the audiobook as a method of staying entertained in the solitude of commuter gridlock. He thought about Egyptian taxi drivers and others who like to listen to verses of the Koran while driving and realized there weren’t any audiobooks available in Arabic. What’s more, he knew that drivers lose radio signals just outside of greater Cairo.

Wahba’s firm, which is called Innovolve, recently teamed up with akhbarak.net, one of Egypt’s leading online news aggregators, to produce morning and afternoon audio news digests. Wahba says these several-minutelong updates are currently getting as many as 50,000 daily “listens.” The content can also be downloaded, so listeners, who are mostly in Egypt with a smattering of customers abroad, don’t need to have a live Internet connection in order to hear the news.

Recently, a lot of talk has centered around the growth of Internet use via portable wireless devices. There are some 11 million mobile Internet users in Egypt, with an annual growth rate of nearly 14 percent, according to government figures. Innovolve is in the process of developing smartphone apps. Eventually, the group wants to establish an audio platform called Menassah, meaning stage, which will function like an audio version of YouTube for mobile phones. It already has the backing of several investors, including Ismail. Another startup he’s invested in called Edukitten, which offers online animated stories for Arab children, uses iqraaly’s tech-

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nology to record audio versions of the tales. “We are an auditory culture. Through time we have passed stories through this medium,” Wahba says.

Like style-treasure, nefsak.com, another Cairo-based startup, counts on social networking sites to increase buzz and attract new customers. Nefsak.com’s Facebook page has so far earned more than 270,000 “likes.”

Customers can even use Facebook to contact nefsak.com employees for help with the purchasing process, support that can be key for e-commerce newbies. But in contrast to style-treasure, with its upscale, urban clientele, the Amazon.com-inspired idea behind nefsak is to offer goods from computers to clothing—in Arabic—to a broad customer base in remote, rural areas that tend to lack well-stocked retail outlets. “The customer is seeing and buying something that would have been a challenge to buy offline,” says the firm’s 39-year-old founder and CEO, Sherif Nassar, a former marketing executive for IBM. There’s the resident of Baheira who bought an automatic espresso machine; the customer living outside of Suez who purchased a Samsung digital camera; the man between Alamein and Marsa Matruh who bought a Hewlett-Packard laptop. About 30 percent of the site’s clientele comes from outside the capital, “where streets have no names,” says Nassar.

Originally from Heliopolis, Nassar started nefsak.com in late 2008 amid the same kind of skepticism faced by style-treasure’s founders. People told him: “Egyptians don’t buy products online.” Also, a multiproduct regional website with a similar concept, Dubai-based souq.com, was already accessible to Egyptians. Nassar decided to distinguish nefsak.com by only offering products from trusted, licensed manufacturers. Customers could hold vendors accountable if they weren’t satisfied with a purchase, and products came with warranties and legal documentation. “We are committed to customer service,” he likes to say. Like style-treasure, nefsak. com also offers a cash on delivery option (for items under LE 4,000), which accounts for 80 percent of sales.

The site now works with 150 distributors and manufacturers and offers some 23,000 products. It enjoys a 10 percent average monthly growth rate and has gone from three to 35 employees in four years.

In 2011, nefsak.com secured a LE 10 million investment from local venture capital firm Ideavelopers, which funds enterprises including a firm offering MRI image analysis and an online learning venture. But Ideavelopers ultimately wanted to invest in e-commerce, says Ziad Mokhtar, a partner and board member. With increasing access to high-speed Internet connections, more and more 20 and 30-something Egyptians with discretionary income going online and payment methods tailored to Egypt, he predicts that “E-commerce is going to be one of the fastest growing markets in the next two to three years.”

1-Galal Amin, Whatever Happened to the Egyptians (AUC press, 2000), P.9.

2-. Americana Group is a famous regional company that imports and exports food products and has the franchise of several fast food restaurants including Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Chicken Tikka and previously Wimpy. In the Nineties, it was also famous for its PR campaign in offering giveaways with its meal that ranged from different designs of hats, plastic toys, coloring or magical books, kites, waist bags or Frisbee Flying Disk. < Http:// www.americana-group.net> 3-One of these songs is Hamdy Batchan’s renowned song “ Eh El Hekaya...Eh El Astok Da”, in which there is a line saying “ Eh Ya Cazanova Da. Eh Ya Michael Jackson Da.... Eh Ely Enta labso da ...”( Hey Cazanova, what’s that... Hey Michael Jackson ,what’s that. What’s that Which You Are Wearing).

4- Andrew Hammond, Popular Culture in the Arab Word (AUC press, 2007), P. 14.

5- Rachel Greene, Internet Art, Thames & Hudson,2004,p.14.

6- Ibid.,p.17.

7- Rasha A Abdulla, The Internet In The Arab World, Egypt and Beyond, Peter Lang,2007,p27.

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Internet Cafe in Ard Ellweia

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In VHS We Trust: Special Dedication To Hany Jordan Chapter Two

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In VHS We Trust: Special Dedication To Hany Jordan Chapter Two

Although Egypt is thrived with heritage that dates back to ancient times, documentation and historical analysis of recent history such as the remnants of late 19th and 20th century history remains lacking. In-fact, there are several restriction concerning finding an objective history of modern Egypt, one of which is the over dominance of physical archival research as the only reliable factual resource. This has made memories, oral testimonies and autobiographies, always dismissed since they fall under the auspices of fiction rather than informative knowledge.1 Another important issue has been the lack of transparency and accountability in the past authoritarian regimes that made many information censored. Especially during state-building era post the 1952 revolution, documents that did not promote a certain view of Egyptian history and the new ruling system were either discarded or destroyed. And with the continuation of the military rule over the past sixty years, the National Archive of Egypt continued to be run within the state’s coercive grip where the State Security (Amn-Al-Dawla) played as an arbitrator & collector of information, restricting the access of documents to everyone except few privileged using it as a means for the state’s manipulation.2 For that, a huge part of the nation’s memory and conscious were kept in the hands of police officers who became gatekeepers of Egypt’s past and the regime’s professional historians that determine what should be revealed or what should be censored. Another issue is the eradication of huge collection of public and private documents due to several issues such as several cataloguing problems, disorganization, theft, conflict, lack of funding or interest.

In fact, it is believed that the 1952 revolution was responsible for ending the Belle Epoque of late nineteenth, early twentieth century Egypt by ending the cosmopolitan elite and ensuing benefits for the proletariat. Apart from the classist segregation of this period into Effendi, Bek and Basha, many scholars thought that Egypt before the officers’ revolution had an enriched liberal experiment and was a hub for many foreign nationalities and workers like the Greek green grocer, the Italian cabinetmaker and the Armenian photographer.

Still, references to this era are either too romanticized or in other cases demeaned to give credibility to the post-revolution’s project. This has changed the demographics and the urban structure of the city, for example, downtown area that was built by khedive Ismail to be a commercial centre and a political nexus. Later many middle class inhabitants moved out of the city center and into more modern suburbs such as Nasr City, the process by which downtown lost its residential character. Generally speaking, the foreigners that came to work in Egypt after the 1869 Suez Canal was built, had their property nationalized later in 1956 by Gamal Abdel Nasser.

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This explains why most of the heritage that are remnant of pre-1952 whether tangible or intangible usually were left neglected with no preservation or documentation, as it was thought that acknowledging it would losen the new regime’s credibility and weakness its legitimacy. With the nationalization project, several palaces were transformed into governmental offices or schools. Some of which, were privatized again with the open-door policy and were replaced with huge residencies of multiple apartments. On the other hand, several intangible heritage or historical archive are scattered in open markets, private collections, museum storage areas or galleries.

Post the downfall of the ex-president, many Egyptians felt that their continuous sense of defeat and selfaccusation was broken and many started cleaning and painting the streets. This sense of belonging and responsibility has been always under attack from the authoritarian regime in order to dictate people and increase their sense of despair. It is said that the regime worked a lot to undo this sense of empowerment that January revolution inspired in the past 15 months.

Archiving and digging in old collections became the interest of many in the past years and especially after the 25th of January revolution, as people started looking for their national identity in old photos, magazines and books. People who work in the arts, writing or academia were the main initiators in that field. Many also started to look at archives as an artistic medium in itself, while collectors and archive owners started to collaborate with people in the creative field such as art galleries, filmmakers or writers to develop their artwork. An example of that is Essam Fawzy, who worked with several filmmakers to create documentaries on various issues for El Jazerra documentary channel or Amaged whose collection was exhibited in Townhouse gallery. While, Ola Seif who is responsible for the American University of Cairo’s rare books, has curated a lot of exhibitions for their archives such as Van Leo or Ramses Wissa Wassif.

Generally speaking, since illiteracy in Egypt is high, Egyptians interest in history was usually known from oral testimonials or autobiographies. For example, stories narrated by Mohamed Hussninen Hiekle were always looked at as a creditable source of information and have much popularity than a paper produced by research institute or faculty of history in any university. Especially in a country were people have faith in the supernatural, appreciate gossip and knows well how to spread information via world of mouth, a story by a narrator or eye-witness would be more credible than a journalistic report or book that could be written with a hidden agenda.

Not only creditability but also the artistic presentation of the factual history made a difference in the perception of a piece of information than another. For example, a narrated story provokes imagination and a photo would give a documentation of a specific moment, and thus they provide the historical incidence not only with evidence but also with an aesthetics presentation. With the same logic, websites, blogs and facebook groups or any archival venue on the internet gained popularity.

Online Institutional Archive: One of the ambitious project on the web was the portal www.eternalegypt.com, which was developed by the The Supreme Council of Antiquities, CULTNAT or Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage and IBM Corporation. The project was developed to digitize Egypt’s heritage and provide an access to the archive of images and information of important and rare antiquities. With a grant from IBM, Eternal Egypt became an example of how partnership between a governmental institute , an NGO and a multinational private company can yeild in an interactive cultural project that provides a multimedia display for cultural artifacts, places and history for a global audience.

Few month after the 101 the anniversary of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the project was launched to enhance the expierience of viewing the local monemounts with the help of new technology by providing a three-dimensional reconstruction of Tutankhamun’s tomb that is similar to its situation when discovered by Howard Carter and his colleagues who wiped the dust of the 3000 years old grave. Beside that are handheld

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digital guides available in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and another for the cell phone for visitors of the pyramids at Giza or the Luxor Temple in Upper Egypt; all this beside the 3D expierence through the Eternal Egypt web site.

Documenting the histoical era’s of ancient egypt , each period has high-resolution images, three-dimensional reconstructions of Egyptian monuments and antiquities, as well as virtually-reconstructed environments, panoramic images, and panoramic views of present-day Egypt captured by robotic cameras located from the top of Karnak Temple to the streets of Old Cairo. Cartography too was used in that project as an innovative, interactive map and timeline will guide Eternal Egypt visitors through Egypt’s cultural heritage, while a “context navigator” presents the complex relationships between objects, places and personalities of Egypt’s past.

On the other hand , Egypts national archive is one of the oldest and a lot of the local heritage are preserved in National Archive or Dar El Kotb. The National Archives of Egypt are among the oldest in the world, for while the National Archives of France were established in 1794 and the Public Record Office, London, wasn›t established until 1838, the National Archives were founded in Cairo in 1828. It dates, therefore, to the 19th century when Mohammed Ali Pasha constructed a place in the Cairo Citadel to preserve official records and named it Daftarkhana (House of Documentation).

Another notable venue is Dar El Kotb or The Egyptian National Library and Archives inCairo, which is the largest library in Egypt. The second largest are the libraries of Al-Azhar University and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (New Library of Alexandria).The National library, the oldest government library, houses several million volumes on a wide range of topics.

Another notable venue is Dar El Kotb or The Egyptian National Library and Archives in Cairo, which is the largest library in Egypt. The second largest are the libraries of Al-Azhar University and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (New Library of Alexandria).The National Library, the oldest government library, houses several million volumes on a wide range of topics. It is one of the largest in the world with thousands of ancient collections. It also contains a vast variety of Arabic-language and other Eastern manuscripts. The main library is a seven-story building in Ramlet Boulaq, a district of Cairo, while an annex beside the building contians Dar El Koteb. However, none of these has digitaized their archives or has an accessable website.

On the other hand, Alexandria Biblotheque has a well digitized archive of Egyptian history that includes speeches of president Gamal Abd El Naser , Al-Hilal Digital Archive, Arabic Papyri Collections at the National Library of Egypt, Digital Manuscript Library, The 100,000 Manuscripts Project, The 100,000 Manuscripts Project. All that beside a webcast for all the lectures that occured inside the liberary and their project (DAR) The Digital Assets Repository is a system developed at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Library of Alexandria, to create and maintain the Library’s digital collections.

Beside that they have a Digital liberary that has several websites that document and display a local archive.

One of these is the previously mentioned “ Eternal Egypt” , however I highly important project was The memory of modern Egypt that aims to digitize material of modern Egypt in the site “http://modernegypt. bibalex.org/collections/home/default.aspx”.

Scaning a scoop of years of 1800 to 1981 , from the rule of Mohamed Ali pasha to Preseident Anwer, Memory of Modern Egypt is like a visual chronolgy that documents about minstories, presidents, rulers,events,subjects ,public figuers and sociol issues through images, soundclips, films, speeches, papers, books, maps, stamps, coins,posters and cover pages. According to the website, the interface and the underlying infrastructure of the repository allow the user to browse by facets, thus allowing for optimum data filtration and a more precise browsing. The repository is structured around five main themes with each of these divided into subtopics, thus creating an index of over 500 dimensions.

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Each item in the repository is classified according to one or more of the theme subtopics as well as a certain material type, resulting in the creation of a multidimensional web of materials and themes interrelating with each other to enable the user to explore the connections between the different sources in the repository. This offers an exceptional informative visual tool for the user to overview Egypt’s modern history. Additionally, the repository’s infrastructure was designed to accommodate expandability, thus allowing continuous addition to the content. MoME website won Al-Kindi Informatics Award as the best cultural website in Arabic in 2009.

The BA has taken the initiative to digitize and avail online for free, the 200-year old original masterpiece Description de l’Egypte. A 20-volume book that was produced during Napoleon Bonaparte’s military expedition to Egypt in 1798.

L’Art Arabe is one of the most important books on the Islamic monuments of Egypt. It consists of four volumes compiled by the French orientalist Prisse d’Avennes, one of the greatest pre-20th century Egyptologists, and was published in 1877. To preserve this valuable collection, ISIS has digitized the three–plate volumes (222 plates) and the text volume (388 pages).

Initiated by Carnegie Mellon University, the primary long-term objective of this project is to transfer books into digital format, in partnerships with other scanning centers internationally, in order to create a Universal Digital Library (UDL) which will foster creativity and free access to human knowledge. On 21 April, 2009 and in UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, the world witnessed the launching of the World Digital Library.

The project has been initiated by the Library of the Congress with the technical assistance of BA as per the signed agreement between both parties back in 2007. This massive project aims at bridging the world cultures, where the World Digital Library provides unrestricted public access, free of charge, to manuscripts, maps, rare books, films, sound recordings, prints and photographs in 7 languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish).

Global Egyptian Museum Website Over 2 million objects from ancient Egypt exist in about 850 public collections, dispersed over 69 countries around the world. The Global Egyptian Museum website aims to collect objects from this scattered collection into a global virtual museum, that can be freely accessed at any time, from any place. This website is a long-term project, hosted by CULTNAT under the auspices of the International Committee for Egyptoogy (CIPEG). Mediterranean Memories Project (Med-Mem) led by the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA) France and financed by the European Union (EU) as part of the Euromed Heritage IV programme, the Mediterranean Memories (Med-Mem) project seeks to make available online the audiovisual archives of 18 partners, including 10 Mediterranean television networks, 3 professional bodies, the BA, as well as cultural and scientific specialists working in the audiovisual world.

Gamal Abdel Nasser Digital Archive, The collection has also been expanded with new material including 43 speeches in video and audio, 29 greeting cards, 13 pamphlets released by the Free Officers Movement, and 22 documents containing meeting minutes of the Egyptian Cabinet in 1,176 pages. While , Sadat Digital Archiveis a collaborative effort between ISIS and the Special Projects Department . It provides the collection of late President Sadat in a searchable form for historians, politicians and researchers to analyze and study one of the most important transitional periods in Egyptian history. Memory of the Suez Canal contains a huge number of digitized documents, images and other media related to the Suez Canal and donated by the Association of the Friends of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the BA, and the Suez Canal Authority.

National Archives of Egypt, The BA Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage has embarked upon the digitization of more than 90 million documents kept in the National Archives of Egypt, with the aim to preserve the physical condition of national archives by producing watermarked, high-resolution digital images of 130,000 valuable documents, thereby reducing the need for physical access. The Memory of the Arab World is concerned with developing a specialized portal on the Internet, applying the latest software to introduce the Arab civilization to the world and to contribute to the Arabic content on the Internet.

The Project “Re-issuing the Classics of the Islamic Heritage in the 19th and 20th centuries (13th and 14th Hijri centuries)” aims to introduce selections of modern Islamic heritage and the writings of prominent reformists in

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this period, chosen specially to refute the prevailing misconception that the contributions of Muslim scientists and thinkers did not go beyond a certain period of time. In cooperation with the Wellcome Library and King’s College London Digital Humanities Department, the BA launched the Wellcome Arabic Manuscript Cataloguing Partnership (WAMCP) with a fund from JISC Islamic Studies Programme and the Wellcome Trust.

Online with an Agenda : With all the efforts to spread computer literacy by the previous regiume , their pescence on social media was limted and their use of it was still authoritarian. On the other hand, muslim brotherhood have been created several portals to document and archive their data and promote their idology. Before the 2011 uprising , they had already had their “ http://www.ikhwanwiki.com”, “ http://www.ikhwanonline.com/ “,“ http://www.ikhwantube.com/” and “http://www.ikhwanweb.com/”. These were their portals before the revolution when they were just an underground and titled by the regime as the “ Restricted Group” , their online increased even after they became a party with the title “ Freedom and justice “ they launched a web magazine and other verions under the name of the party , the group and the presidency.

The Brotherhood’s efforts to penetrate social media, specifically Facebook, arise partly out of its rapidly growing subscribers. There are 11.5 million Facebook members in Egypt, up by almost two million in the past six months alone, with 86% of them in the 13-34 age group. (Compare this to a paltry 215,000 active Twitter Users in Egypt). But more than its growth, Facebook has proven to be a barometer of Egyptian political dissent. In the lead-up to the January 25 revolution and then in the months following it, Facebook was the space where activists and independent citizens deliberated and debated Tunisia’s uprising, the pros and cons of an Egyptian revolt, the Egyptian Constitutional Referendum (March 2011) after the fall of Mubarak, and every election since then. In the “People’s Republic of Facebook,” citizens have taken more critical and revolutionary positions than in the outside society. This fact became abundantly clear when, according to Facebook polls, Facebookers rejected the constitutional referendum by some seventy percent, whereas on the ground only 22.7 percent voted “no”.

For a time, Facebook became synonymous with the “voice of the revolution.” It was common, for instance, for a taxi driver to ask a young rider, “so, what’s Facebook saying today?,” another way of asking, “what do the revolutionaries think about this or that issue and what are they going to do about it?” The Muslim Brothers started to see Facebook as a precariously independent space. Just as the Brotherhood mobilized its ranks to occupy and appropriate Tahrir Square, it also intensified its efforts to appropriate and shape the tenor of debate on Facebook The Brotherhood’s presence on social media is slippery, hard to pin down with precision since much of its activity is camouflaged. It appears that the MB operates on five tiers. First, there is its official presence, as represented with the page of their political party, the Freedom and Justice Party. Second are the pages that initially appeared to be independent, but turned out to be orchestrated platforms with complete loyalty to the Brotherhood. RNN (shabakat rasd), a news network that is approaching two million “likes,” fits this category.

When RNN was first launched on 25 January, 2011 at the start of the Egyptian revolution, its Administrators were anonymous and the page appeared to be an independent entity, though a highly professional and well oiled one. Its masks have since come off and the page is known as a Brotherhood page in all but name. RNN has grown into a regional platform with branches in Libya, Syria, Morocco, Turkey, and Palestine. The third tier are pages with sympathies to the MB whose Admins post or do things in support of the Brotherhood line.

Fourth are concealed pages, ones that on the surface do not appear to have anything to do with politics or the MB, but in a critical moment, like prior to the presidential runoff elections, expose themselves as pro-Brotherhood pages. Finally, the fifth tier are the E-militia foot soldiers who—using both real and fake profiles—scout out pages and Facebook discussions to interject points to influence opinion towards the Brotherhood position.

Take for instance identical posts by the clearly fake profiles of, “Masrey Masrey” and “Hind Arabeya” (Egyptian Egyptian and Arabic Hind).

In the lead up to the presidential runoff election between the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi,

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and former Mubarak Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, Facebook pages were ablaze with political commentary.

Many people touting the pro-Morsi position on Facebook seemed to be pulling lines straight out of a prewritten script. Identical phrases appeared throughout a vast range of Facebook pages, from those dealing with arts, sports, and culture to human rights and revolution. Examples of the more commonly circulated lines were: “I’m not Muslim Brotherhood but I respect them;” “I hate the Muslim Brotherhood but I have to support Morsi to get rid of Shafik;” “I know they’re looking out for their own interests but they were my companions in Tahrir Square;” “Don’t let your hate for the MB blind you;” “the MB are selfish but they’re not criminal;” and so on. Veteran journalist and writer Mohamed Salmawy is but one commentator who has shone a spotlight on the Brotherhood’s “Electronic Militias.”

A former member of the Brotherhood who maintains close ties with the group asserts, “the electronic campaign for Morsi was very strong on Facebook and Twitter. I have reason to believe that every major and [medium size] Facebook page was infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood members, and I strongly suspect that many of the major Egyptian Facebook pages are being run and controlled by the Brotherhood.” He confirms that MB leadership distributed a Q&A document to their younger online members by the title, “Shobohat wa Rodud” (Accusations and Answers). This document provides members with talking points about how to address critics of Morsi and the MB on social media.

Web Archives With Special Intrest: Apart from the governmental and institutional expierments of archives, several intrest groups or individuals had their own private collections that they used to share on their page. This intrest pages ranged from an archive of photos and information for Egyptian Cienma to a memorial site for jewish in Egypt.

One of these highly ambitious and sustianble sites was « www.elcinema.com» founded by Bassem Hefny and owned by Damlag company, ElCinema.com is the largest Arabic Movies Database on the Internet. The site has news foe local and international cinemas or trailers. However, its most important achievement was a rare photos for almost every actor, actross or filmmaker in egyptian cinema. El Cinema in a very short time became the sole refrence for history of cinema on the web and alternative museum while Egypt lacks a physical one.

Architecture and heitage remained the most popular genres in privare collections and many intiatives occured to document and promote the knowledge and history of these such on the web arena and several social networks such as facebook groups.

One of these sites was “ http://www.egy.com/” , which is created by Samir Raafat who offers a variety of old and new articles, photos and references dealing with 19th and 20th century aspects of a 1000 year old city.

Chaptered according to districts, sites, important figuers , historical or argumantitive events ,the site is an adequate refrence to the history of ancient and moden architecture in egypt. Each subdivision has a chronological sequence of an area, beside the availabilty of maps and rare photos for a lot of places. For example,Raffat a hiorian and architect himself, wrote several articles about the history of modern buildings in Maadi , Heliopolis, Zamalek, and Garden City and had illustration of development in urban planing in these areas through maps and photos. The site has also articles written by Rafaat from the ninties untill 2011 , creating a virtual encyclopideia for the history of architecture and urban planing in Egypt.

Another highly viral site or blog with the interest of architecture and urban planing is “ www.cairobserver. com” that was founded by the PHD candidate Mohamed ElShahed , after the egyptian revolution in April , 2011. His site was successful to make the topic an intrest for many and in favor of the site he gave several lectures and travelled around to art or architectural fesitvals.

The idea of the blog, and of the initiative of taking it from a virtual space into the city, as it were, is conversation. Rather than closed conversations among ministers, or experts, or bureaucrats, if the people who live in

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and breathe the city participate in discussions about Cairo, the blog’s creator hopes this will be part of the solution for the city’s future. Having complaint sessions — conversations that are also, in a sense, closed — among friends go nowhere. Elshahed believes that making them public might lead them somewhere. Officials have no incentive to be accountable at this point, but if there were real, open and involved public conversations, this might change. He successfuly made the topic a subject of demand and with his blog he gave several lectures , particpated in an important think tank events such as Homeworks in Lebanon and produced a publication with the content of the blog.

El Shahed not only had the blog www.cairobserver.com, but he also manages other blogs such as Vintage Egypt and Picture Masr. Both are picture base websites in which picture masr is like a gallery of recent photos of various places arounf the country that he recently captured. From kitsch window shops to abondoned places , ElShahed zooms into intreguing spaces and he upload it on his web. El Shahed also has another hobby which is collecting old photos , magazines and papers, through Vintage Egypt he manages to create a virtual museum for his rare and important archive.

In a time when history seams to be blurred or not well taught , visual sources become the only venue for crediable knowledge. Especially, when it comes to a senstive issue such as the community of jews in Egypt before and after the excudos in the fifties. One of these important sites is the site of Historical Scociety Of Jews From Egypt, “ http://www.hsje.org/”.This site is designed to gather, and provide historical and current information on the Jews From Egypt, one of the most ancient established societies in the world. “ We will attempt to cover the period from Joseph Saadia el Fayoumi (Saadia Gaon) to the present day.” the site explains.

For a number of years, a handful of Jews in the New York City area who had origins in the land of Egypt had privately discussed the possibility of forming a historical society in order to document and preserve the heritage of an illustrious community which once numbered over 80,000 people. Beginning this fall (September 1995) the time proved ripe for the project to pass beyond the realm of mere discussion, into reality.

On October 22, 1995, the newly-formed “Historical Society of Jews from Egypt” held its first organizational meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the Ahaba ve Ahva Synagogue at 1801 Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. The name “Jews from Egypt” rather than “Egyptian Jews” was chosen since the Jews of Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities in early twentieth-century Egypt had represented an unusually varied and cosmopolitan community.

Attendance far exceeded all expectations. Organizers had publicized the meeting by word of mouth to family and friends, and through flyers placed in strategic synagogues and stores. Estimates that as many as forty people might come were dismissed as being unrealistic. However, approximately 175 Jews from Egypt, as well as some originating in Syria or Lebanon, actually showed up that first evening.

Mr. Desire Sakkal, a resident of Brooklyn and the first president of the new HSJE, gave the opening address.

He welcomed the group and described how a small group of Jews from Egypt felt the need to organize themselves as a Society. He introduced Prof. Victor Sanua (a research professor in psychology at St. John’s University in Jamaica, Queens), who had been appointed Vice-President and Chairman of the Program Committee.

Prof. Sanua in turn introduced Rabbi Shimon H. Alouf, Honorary Chairman, who spoke of his vision for the society’s mission. He emphasized that it was important for members of the community to learn about their past “in order to preserve it.”

The Executive Board at present consists of: Desire Sakkal, president; Victor D. Sanua, Ph.D., vice-president and program chairman; Menahem Y. Mizrahi Ph.D., treasurer; Joseph E. Mosseri, secretary; Albert de Vidas, Ph.D. and Marianne Sanua, Ph.D., historians; and members-at-large Joseph Malki, Elie M. Mosseri, Nissim Roumi, MD, and finally Nissim C. Sabban, who was instrumental in bringing the executive committee together.

Also, another very important archival portal is www.ElCinema.com by Bassem Hefny, which has an inclusive storage of images, news, photos, videos and information for every egyptian film or TV series. Thats beside a

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guide to whatever is happening in cinema theatres and how to reserve tickects.

Photography Clubs and Portals for Preserving Collective Memory : An increasing awareness of Egypt’s photographic heritage may be damaging that very legacy, as flawed archiving systems benefit those in power at the expense of the public.The state, the academic community and the general public understand photographs predominantly as images ‘of something,’ valued for their visual ‘content,’ and not as social and cultural objects.

But a photograph’s visual content is inseparable from its materiality — a digitized copy is cut off from the object’s history. It cannot be turned over or magnified. Tests to determine how a photograph changed over time cannot be made on a copy, while its author, relationship to other images, and changes in ownership are much harder to trace. Good archiving, however, helps to ensure that the image is still useful after being translated into digital form. This involves careful scanning, labeling and indexing of copies, while caring for and providing access to originals.

Although a great level of interest is demonstrated by the sheer number of “websites and Facebook pages devoted to old photographs of Egypt,” Ryzova pointed out that it is worrying that they are “deprived of any basic identifying information that is otherwise standard in comparable projects; information on author, date, medium, technique, size, of any context of their original creation, consumption and circulation.”

This problem is not limited to the Internet, but also occurs in print publications and respected institutions.

Al-Rawi (“Egypt’s heritage review”) and the art magazine Contemporary Practices, for example, do not cite pieces’ provenances or media; this newspaper, too, often offers minimal information about the images that accompany articles. Ryzova cited Maria Golia’s rigorously researched book “Photography and Egypt” as an exception to the rule.

The scholar recounted the difficulties she has faced in gaining access to photographs while working on an ongoing project about the social history of photography in Egypt. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which has a level of stature and foreign funding that allows it to acquire photograph collections, does not show originals and apparently told Ryzova that it is not obliged to.

Although many feel they no longer need to worry about Egypt’s historical documents now that this library exists, Ryzova said that from her perspective, it “appears as a black hole for artifacts.” She suggested that its archiving system is actually destructive.

Memory of Modern Egypt is the Bibliotheca’s giant online database, created and maintained by a sub-organization called the International School of Information Science and divided into quite arbitrary and overlapping categories, so it’s difficult to know where exactly you might find something. A browse through it, however, shows that it mixes up scans of the library’s physical holdings with scans from books and images found on the Internet, all stripped of basic information.

Ryzova showed various examples of missing data, which she said is systematic. The “source” for every image is listed as the Alexandria Library, even for a reproduction of a painting of Mohamed Ali by Scottish painter David Wilkie held in the Tate in London. The date for the image is Mohamed Ali’s life, 1769-1848, while the author is stated as unknown, and the fact that it’s a painting is not mentioned — but you can find all this out by using Google.

What is dangerous is that a document stripped of its context can easily become a vehicle for propaganda, and for rewriting history, Ryzova says: “Such images are then often used to support vastly varied contemporary social and political positions that might often have very little to do with the actual ‘old’ photograph itself.”

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Indeed, the archiving problem in Egypt is not one of ignorance — in fact, many people are well aware of the difference between copy and original, she says, adding that “Cairo is the site of a vibrant private market with vintage objects. This market is fully internationalized.” Ryzova argues that if the value of these original photographs is known, then the failure to preserve them is often a “deliberate strategy.”

The shadowy leeway between understanding the importance of the artifact and seeing a copy and an original as of equal value can be exploited by institutions and collectors for their own benefit, especially as nostalgia and a desire to “save” Egypt’s heritage, and thus the market value of artifacts, have increased. Benefits custodians reap by treating collections as private estates that must be guarded can include selling off originals and decontextualizing images to put them in the service of an agenda.

Meanwhile, some collectors in Egypt — of both art and artifacts — fear dispossession by the state and so don’t discuss their collections. Ryzova said that both the Nasser regime’s nationalization project and the Mubarak regime’s heritage laws were used by the state to lay its hands on people’s property. Aside from plundering, collectors want to protect their collections from the state’s historical revisionism, a mistrust Ryzova said extends back to colonial history, “a history that is always written by someone else.”

Because public archives tend to be closed to the public and private collections are often jealously guarded, normal people have little access to their heritage and academics are frustrated. An internationalized elite — Bibliotheca management, private collectors, art world administrators — claims to be saving Egypt’s heritage from the people, just as an internationalized elite has been claiming to save the country from the people (as Omar Suleiman said during the uprising last year, Egypt was “not ready” for democracy). Meanwhile, they can profit from what they are saving and further fence off knowledge from the potentially dangerous masses.

Ryzova volunteers as an academic consultant with CULTNAT, affiliated with the Bibliotheca, which is also mapping material connected to the history of photography. She claims that “all information CULTNAT collects is available to the public, currently on the premises and soon on the web.” Meanwhile, CULTNAT is preparing an exhibition about the history of vernacular photography in Egypt, to take place this fall. Perhaps projects like these can trigger more open discussions about how and why old photographs are being kept out of reach.

Facebook Groups in Quest For an Identity: Nostalgia marks the drive of most of Facebook groups and especially after the revolution , many groups appeared to search for a collective identity through historical photos. Even before it , several groups appeared to restore the lost history of kingdom of Egypt through photos of the dynesty . The eighties and ninties photos or videos of Egyptian TV commercials, soap operas or music videos is also an obcession of many of these clubs and groups.

Yet, it is no coincidence to find several Facebook groups created to assemble people who were born in the 1980’s or archive memories and events, such as: “Mawaleed 80-90” (The progeny of 80-90), Memories of 70’s till 90’s, “Ahla Ayam Omerna” (The best days of our lives) or “Al Maokoseen Mawaleed Al Fatra Ma Bein 80-85” ( The unlucky who were born in the period of 80-85) , Bimbo memories or even fan pages for old Egyptian entertainment shows and products One of the most popular and viral page of these intiatives , is the group Antika run by wassim Eid . “When I started working on a page ‘Antica’ on Facebook since almost two and a half years, was revered in my mind for a moment, that the page will achieve what has been achieved popularity and success, and it will be a catalyst for the creation of dozens of similar pages, comic interested in memory of the Arab countries, wrote Eid in El Safir neswpaper. “ Breed page on the past, and the attention of young people, and put me in front pressing question: Why do we consider often that the past was the most beautiful and better than the present, and we use the general terms

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and loose such as «the last beautiful», for half the historical stages were not all sparkling or beautiful?”, added Eid in the same paper.

When Eid started working on the page , his goal wasn’t to devote a form of worship of the past, but to understand the present, and think ahead, in order to return to the past, to see the picture in its entirety and destruction.

Highlighted what caught his attention during his work on the page ‘Antica’, it was overwhelming nostalgia for the past, and the almost complete conviction that in the past, at all levels, better than the reality in which we live. And is often mixed with the nostalgia with the ignorance of the history, accompanied by a reduction of the facts of history in one form or information false or carving out of context the public, as is the case, for example, with some publications that abbreviating era monarchy in Egypt, with pictures of streets and squares organized and clean, to show that the era Royal had pm golden. Many believe those images speech and publications.

It seems to Eid, they are like the character Zaki Dessouki (Adel Imam) in the film «The Yacoubian Building», when he says in one scene: « This Country was better than Paris, the fashion down here before they descend Paris, the streets were add it Btaatgusl every day, shops were luxury and people were polite. Zaki ElDesoki, the scion of family Alepeshawat, was not lying but he was not talking about the whole of Egypt, but from a certain center was live. Fshara Suleiman Pasha, Downtown, and New Cairo, were not like most of the slums and rural areas where illiteracy rampant epidemics and diseases, because of caste discrimination and neglect and the influence of feudalism.

This example is a sample of shorthand and surface which govern our view of the public-to-date. The image of a clean street in the country in a historical period, does not mean that all of that country’s streets clean. And the image of healthy, happy people in the country, in what historical period, does not mean that all the people of this country were healthy and happy at that time. The liberal image of a woman studying or working or exercising their natural rights in the country, in what historical period, does not mean that all the women of that country Be enjoy the same rights.

What is true of Egypt literally applies to most other Arab countries. In Lebanon, for example, centered Nostalgia about the ‘good old days’, thats to say the historical period between Lebanon’s independence in 1943, and the beginning of the civil war in 1975. In that period, known for Lebanon as a tourist destination and global banking, in addition to a thriving arts and culture and the arts. Take a nostalgic ‘good old days’ of pictures of beaches, hotels, and upscale boutiques, and celebrations of the election of his beauty queens icons.

But it does not address the problems of poverty, sectarianism and state neglect of many areas.

Those tragedies witnessed by the ‘good old days’, was the cause of the outbreak of war later, as mere nostalgia to the ‘good old days’ makes civil war the diabolical born of the vacuum. country in all its details and events, and not be reduced to the repercussions of those events, which no doubt they are still affecting the lives of the people of this country.

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Selected photos from Memory of Modern Egypt, Bibilotheque Alexandria ,http://modernegypt.bibalex. org/collections/home/default.aspx

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Selected photos from Memory of Modern Egypt, Bibilotheque Alexandria , http://modernegypt.bibalex.org/collections/home/default.aspx

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Selected photos from Memory of Modern Egypt, Bibilotheque Alexandria , http://modernegypt.bibalex.org/collections/ home/default.aspx

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Selected photos from Memory of Modern Egypt, Bibilotheque Alexandria , http://modernegypt.bibalex.org/ collections/home/default.aspx

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Selected photos from Memory of Modern Egypt, Bibilotheque Alexandria , http://modernegypt.bibalex.org/collections/ home/default.aspx

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Cairo In the eighties, http:// egyptoldphotos.blogspot. com

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Vintage Magazine posters, http://vintageegypt.tumblr.com/

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Vintage Magazine posters, http://vintageegypt.tumblr.com/

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Selecteed photos of phalestine , pre 1948, Facebook Antika.

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Selected photos from Iran in the 1970â&#x20AC;&#x2122;, Facebook group Antika.

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Elizabeth Taylor In Iran, facebook group Antika

Selected photos of iran pre the revolution , Facebook group Antika.

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Selected photos of Egypt in the FiftiesŘ&#x152; Facebook Group Antika.

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Selected Photos from memories from a past era.

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Online Activism & Cyber Wars Chapter three

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Online Activism & Cyber Wars Chapter three

For an ancient country like Egypt, political activism would date back to thousand years, especially with a long history of successive colonialism and suppressive regimes that made Egyptians capable of always finding a way out. After the 25th of January, many articles and books started to appear in praise of the Internet that helped in “ galvanizing the youth” and “empowering them” in their plight for more freedom and independence. Several words started to appear to emphasis this tribute to social media such as the “Facebook revolution” referring to the Egypt’s 25th of January events in 2011 or “Twitter uprising”, which took place in Iran in June 2009.

This even extended that many commenter’s on news channels described the 28th of January as the day after which the revolution was transferred from “Facebook” to “Nasbook” (people’s book), a description that was used later by Media guru Hala Sarhan as a title for her new TV show after years of shut off. Even some of the protests in Tahrir Square held banners with gratitude to Facebook and social media during the 18 days of the revolution. Later, Wael Ghoniem was chosen by the Time magazine as one of the most influential people of 2011.

This praise to these branded social media sites might be justified, however it still also overlook the actual battle in the streets after which several were injured and many became martyrs. Note also that many of the e-activists such as the early bloggers were the progeny of a renowned political family whose activity is a continuation of the older generation such as Nawara Negm the daughter of the famous poet Ahmed Foud Negm, Allaa Abd El Fetah ‘s family or Wael Khalil who is the son of political activist Ahmed Khalil (He also blogs in http://khalil1932.blogspot.com/) and the prominent actress Mohsena Tawfik whose shouting in the ending scene of Youssef Shahin’s El Asfour became an iconic imagery for opposition.

Since the cyber space is an arena were anyone can enter or leave without registration or entrance fee, online activism became not restricted to a group of people or selected few but extended to anyone who owns an account or a personal space. Especially after the 25th of January, most Egyptians became politically active on the cyber space. Everyone would exhibit an opinion, participate in the virility of a post and even have followers. For that unlike the offline activism, political engagement in the virtual world can’t be all grasped in one story, as its documentation will be exclusive and limited to the subjective choice of the narrator or writer.

Still not every profile on the www has an impact on the events or the capability of massive mobilization.

Activism in the virtual world has various forms, as it is a feasible mean for mass mobilization, creating awareness and reacting with damage or reform as a statement. In the early stages of the Internet , it was still in the stage of web 1.0 and interactivity was limited. For that taking an oppositional stance was made through attacking or forced penetration by hacking another server, vandalizing a website, uploading Trojan Horses 1, sending a spam or e-mail bomb (mass e-mailings).

Hacktvism is an illegal attack on computers or networks to prove a statement or a political stance using tools such as web site defacements, redirects, and denial of service attacks, information theft, web site parodies and virtual sit-ins. It was very common in the early stages of the Internet as means of protection were not advanced

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and anti-virus not very common. Egyptian technology gurus used hacking to steal a password or account, especially when Internet accessibility was restricted to privileged few. Also programs were expensive and cracking them was the only way to own the software despite of the copyrights. And with the introduction of online banking and marketing, hackers were able to penetrate sites or crack a password of an account. However, hacking for political statements are not very common and are rarely documented, as usually it is a temporary action that in most of the cases are either fixed later or dismissed by another alternative.

Screenshot of the Algerian Shorouk Newspaper hacked by an Egyptian activist, Oct 2009.

One of the most popular incidents was hacking Algerian websites, which turned to be an intense electronic war between Egypt and Algeria after the football match. As several turbulence occurred between the Egyptian and Algerian football teams pre the final match that qualifies for the World Cup in South Africa of 2010, which caused in playing the match in Sudan as a neutral ground. This was translated into an electronic war around October 2009, where an Egyptian started by hacking the website of the Algerian El Sherouk Newspaper for its bias in writing wrong news that according to him offends the Egyptians. He left a message on the site saying that Egypt won’t accept anything the ruins its reputation or any harming opinion that is similar to an imaginary punishment, since Egypt is the “mother of the world” and the “womb of civilizations”.

Later the Algerian side replied in return by hacking the public newspaper El Ahram and the Presidency’s website and then another attack was made by Egyptian hackers on the website of the Algerian Ministry of Broadcast. Such manoeuvres and hassle caused the interference of both presidents, however it is said that the Egyptian cheerleaders were exposed to harassment, intimidation and violence , which caused a political boycott of both countries.

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The website of Egyptian Armed forces being hacked by an Algerian Like everything in the country, Hactvism reached its peak during and post the 25th of January. The upheaval became an international concern, especially after the shutdown of the Internet that led to the interference of some international activists such as Anonymous. Anonymous is online collective of hacktivists that aims to revolt against corrupt and authoritarian entities by attacking them in their virtual world such as several political parties, figures or governments including.

One of these operations was their solidarity with the Arab Spring by attacking public websites and releasing the names or passwords of the email addresses of Middle Eastern governmental officials in countries like Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. One of these projects was “Operation Tunisia” in which they attacked several eight Tunisian government governmental websites leaving an online message disapproving the crack down on recent protests.

They also showed solidarity during the 2011 Egyptian revolution by hacking into several governmental websites with the page of the ruling National Democratic Party and taking it offline until President Hosni Mubarak stepped down. The group issued an online press release of warning stating the following: “Anonymous challenges all those who are involved in censorship. Anonymous wants you to offer free access to uncensored media in your entire country. When you ignore this message, not only will we attack your government websites, Anonymous will also make sure the international media sees the horrid reality you impose upon your people”.

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However during the 2011 Libyan uprising that turned into civil war, Anonymous was divided as some hacked into public websites, and pressured the host of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s personal website to shut it down. While others lead what they called “ Operation Reasonable Reaction” that didn’t oppose the dictator and unsuccessfully tried to take down few opposition sites temporarily.A year later and under the same operation #OpEgypt, Anonymous took down Egyptian Governmental Sites to deliver a message to the New president Mohamed Morsi by using DDos attacks on 30 web pages such as The Egyptian Presidency , The Egyptian Cabinet, Trade Agreement Sector (TAS), the parliament, Maritme Transport site and other. (Check The list of sites on http://pastebin.com/2xvWYw95) After The revolution pride and strength became the main characteristics of Egyptians of Egyptians An Egyptian hacker managed on Sunday to hack into the website of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and placed a picture of Egyptian soldiers raising the Egyptian flag in Sinai during the October, 6, 1973, on the sites’ homepage.

On the other hand, hacking can sometimes have a good cause such as warning for a defect or pulling the attention for something. An example of this goodwill penetration, was when a hacker attacked the site of the higher constitutional court to show defects in the site that could be stalked from the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafies, as its building was under siege from these groups at that moment. oday hacking is immediately connected to computer technology, yet the first hacking practices date back to when calculators still used punch cards. In general, the origin of hacker culture is set in the early 1960s, when the first PDP- 1s began circulating in MIT laboratories in Boston, and a research committee was set up at the Tech Model Railroad Club which then created the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In the 1970s hacker practices acquired identity thanks to the use of ARPANET,

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ُThe first high speed transcontinental computer network, to the point of intervening in the creation of the Silicon Valley phenomenon, paving the way for those who would later build empires, taking advantage of the institutions that emerged from down low.In various texts we can read the history of hackers at length and reconstruct this path. The most reliable source for correct definition of the term hacker is “Jargon File” <www. catb.org/~esr/jargon/>, the most famous hacker dictionary (recognised as such by them), originally written by Raphael Finkel (Stanford University) and currently maintained by Eric S. Raymond. In The Jargon File (the first version dated 1973) eight definitions are given for the term hacker.

[1] A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users’ Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.

[2] One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming; [3] A person capable of appreciating hack value2; [4] A person who is good at programming quickly; [5] An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in ‘a Unix hacker’.

[Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.]; [6] An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example; [7] One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations; 8] (deprecated) A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence password hacker, network hacker. The correct term for this sense is cracker.

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Blogs Between Personal Journals and Public Spaces Writing a local history about blogs , will not necessary be an accurate one. By now, some bloggers have became public figures and different consecutive generations existed who had various roles in the political arena since the early 2000’s and until the Egyptian revolution. Some actually, consider blogs such as Manal and Alaa’s, Hawalyat Saheb El Ashgar, Mohamed Al Yousssef, Tak Hanak and Gar El Amer, among the first generation of this movement and to many they set the rules of the game or became role models. While the second generation would feature blogs such as “ Gabhet El Tahyess El Shabaya” , “ Ana Ikhwan”, “ Tahaya Nedalya”, “ El Seadi”,“ Saudi Jeans” and others.

According to “Internet Archive” , Omar Gharbaia was the first or among the first bloggers in Egypt and the Arab world , as he created his page in 2002 and it was in English Language. While, his brother Ahmed Gharbaia was among the first Arabic blog with his page “ Tay El Moatasel” that he created in 2003. ( Source Ahmed nagy). On the other, a blog like “ Hawadet” or stories was registered by Rehab Bassam in 2000 , but it didn’t become active until year 2004. ( Source).

Still, Blogs back then were just pages created randomly on the web and only the lucky ones would have a their page viral with high interactivity. For that, many of them added links on their page to other blogs and other such as Ahmed Helmy or “ Hell me” created a collective for all Egyptians blogs that existed between 2004 and 2005 and with the help of Ahmed Gharbaia , buttons were added in each blog to create a link to the collective site. Later, blogs from various Arabic countries started to appear, after which Ihath organization started an initiative blog that tried to feature all the Arabic blogs exclusively.

In his Arabic book “ Blogs from the post to the tweet”, Ahmed Najie explains that these collectives have also faced several challenges, where they started to question the space of freedom and seriousness of the blogs.

Najie, narrates the story of the page “ Ibn Nawas” which had the slogan “ Sex is the instinct that most creatures agrees about” with most of the posts had a sexual nature that links social sarcasm and pornography together.

After some discussions, the collective blog by Ihath decided not to include “Ibn Nawas” in their directory.

Alaa Abd El Fatah’s entry was so revolutionary, not only for his daring opinions after which he was sent to prison several times, but also in how he chose to use a domain with his name rather than use a free website.

The site, which was named after him and his wife, also had links to other sites and their page became a directory to other sites besides their frequent political posts. After the appearance of their site, blogs took a different perspective.

Blogs back then, still had limited viewership and most its readers were university students or early graduates and using sources from them for academic papers was still not accepted in many educational institutes. This can be reviewed in Milad Yacoub’s survey in 2005 , which proves that young readers who are mostly in college or know how to use the Internet were the frequent visitors to bloggers.

Blogs appeared in the midth of a politically active period, with the appearance of the oppositional movement Kefaya and Mubarak change of constitution in 2005 to adopt other candidates, the boom of talk shows and the independet newspaper. Some used objective criticism such as Tak Hanak or blunt words such as Manal & Alaa’s blogs. Later, some blogs gained the care of the international media such as the Iraqi blog “ Khaled Girar”, journalist too started to mention these pages such as how Mohamed Hussnien Heikle mentioned the blog “Bahaya”.

Usually bloggers are anonymous or work under unknown names, however some bloggers were treated as stars, especially those who didn’t mind revealing their identity and usually participate in demonstrations or join a political entity. Change didn’t really happen that quickly, which made some more frustrated and decided to change the subject matter from political sarcasm to social issue such as sexual harassment, the position of women, secularism, the religious discourse, human rights or even literature. This even increased, after the enthusiasm of several publication houses about transforming famous blogs to literature such as the famous series of Sherouq or the publication house “ Dwen “ or blog that was created especially to publish blogs like that.

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With the introduction of 3G generation to cell phones, a link between the internet and the mobile became more accessible after which videos of torturing that depicted the inside brutality of the police stations. ( add police strike). This actually wasn’t restricted to Egypt only but to Morocco, where a blogger named “ kanas” ( the shooter) revealed the corruption of policemen who took ( rashwa) from citizens.

Beside all that, lovers seeking affection , found a good outlet in the blogs. others like promoted social work and started to meet in philantropy visits such as cancer patients, orphanges, or other good will acts and upload the photos of the outreach on the web.With the appearance of facebook, some thought that the blogs are going absolute and discussions about thattopic took place on the venue itself. Days proved that this was wrong and currently bloggers reached 6000 and several campaigns occurred in them had a successful effect on reality such as the campaign to return Heba Naguib to Egypt which was viral on both facebook and street banners.

After the change in the cabinet in 2004, around 300 intellects signed a paper to reject whatever was happening and request change, this later became the first initiative for “kefaya”, the oppositional movement. Kefaya didn’t introduce a complete vision for change, but it focused on small demonstrations surrounded by the police, like an open optional call under the name kefaya with no specific goals.

Still, their main achievement would be how they raised the bar of freedom and broke the fear of objection and demonstrating within the rigid emergency law. The positive side in kefaya was how they raised the bar to change the president and ask for the judgement of officials close to the presidency.

The spread of Kefaya lead to the appearance ever was happening and request change, this later became the first initiative for “kefaya”, the ekhwan generally were active online, such as their site “ Ikhwan Online” or “ Ikhwan of Sharqia”. In 2007 , after Ikwan announced an argument about their program, a lot of arguments occurred about that program to an extent that few created an alternative website called “ Ikhwan offline”.

However, although many thought the youth, started this site to become detached from the main group, the trio who did this site including Mohamed Adel who had the site “ Mayt” or “dead”, wrote that they didn’t separate from the larger group. After this most bloggers reduced their criticism to the Muslim Brotherhood and their site became a mere platform to advertise about their activities and ideology like the rest of political parties.

Many small movements that appeared 2005, 2006 such as “ Workers for changed”, “ Youth for change”, “ Journalists for change” or even “ Students for Change” and obviously a lot of bloggers were attracted to it The role of the blogger in the political activism in the period extended from participating in secretive oppositional groups , calling for street demonstrations ad organizing it, documenting the violations of elections in photos and world , revealing nationally and internationally whether happens in Egypt, opposing the figures of the regimes and breaking all red lines. Omar Gharbia initiated ways of demonstrations such as using balloons, using musical instruments, this was clear in the call “ lets weep on them the Sayda”, were several movements such as the political movement for change, Egyptian mother, Manal & Alaa, Nora Younis , Omar gharbia and el Ghad party to demonstrate infront of Sayda Zeineb Mosque and featured new ways of demonstrations.

Since media has little exposure to these demonstrations, the Internet became the only venue where these incidents are recorded and documented. Later, the media became embarrassed about ignoring these facts and even . when they were exposed that they used to steal from bloggers their photos such as Wael Abass. This surely, led to the friction with the government and many bloggers started to be arrested and prisioned for their writings and actions. Especially, bloggers who were active in the streets and participated in demonstrations were taken from the crowed and some stayed for a limited time in the prison , which was a way to distract the strike.

The peak of this was the demonstrations around the lawyer’s club in 2006, when they decided to demonstrate against the forgery of the elections and after which Hisham El Bastwasy and Mahmoud Mieki to the ( magles

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eslahy). Kefaya with several other bloggers decided to join the lawyers in their strike in front of the court’s club and they contributed through distributing flyers of articles to passengers in the street and documenting the event in their pages. On one side, many bloggers were arrested in that period, but at the same time their influence in creating pressure to change or release thinkers under arrest in that period and creating a propaganda against violations of freedom after which international media and was successful in revealing all the prisoners. A good example of that is the Saudi blogger Fouad Farhan, in how he was released after many adopted his cause. Several means were used to create a political campaign such as Google bomb, Internet banners, designing bottoms, email communities, sending petitions to Egyptian ambassadors or signing a collective documents.

Abd El Moniem Mahmud and his blog (Ana Ikhwan), beside several blogs with the same name. Others be came an alternative media that defends and reveals the cases of Ikhwan that were arrested in several prisons such as torah.In an organized manner, Ikhwan produced several blogs to defend 40 members of Muslim brotherhood such as khairet el shatter, who were under military judgment. These blogs acted like reporters from the prison of torra to reveal what happens inside the prison. This was adopted by international writers too such as Mark Lynch who defended military judgment of civil people and Ikhwan in his blog (Abo Khanzer el ard ) or the pig of the word. Ikhwan generally were active online, such as their site “ Ikhwan Online” or “ Ikhwan of Sharqia”. In 2007 , after Ikwan announced an argument about their program, a lot of arguments occurred about that program to an extent that few created an alternative website called “ Ikhwan offline”.

However, although many thought the youth, started this site to become detached from the main group, the trio who did this site including Mohamed Adel who had the site “ Mayt” or “dead”, wrote that they didn’t separate from the larger group. After this most bloggers reduced their criticism to the Muslim Brotherhood and their site became a mere platform to advertise about their activities and ideology like the rest of political parties.In April 2006, Wael Abass participated in a strike to support the issue of the basement citizens of Imbaba, there they showed him a video of policemen who beats one of the citizens of the district and this became the first video posted on the web to reveal torture inside this institutions and was famous by the “ kafa”. This video was re-uploaded by some with the tag “ a comedy extract of an Egyptian being beaten” , however bloggers presented it in a way that draw the attention of the danger of it.

Many adopted that issue such as El Fager newspaper or the journalists kamal Mourad and Wael Abd El Fetah.

This is beside the lawyer and human rights activist Nasser Amin, who interferers in the issue and raised a case at the court against Islam Nabieh the policeman who committed the case of torture. The issue of Emad El Kiber became the first issue that reached public opinion and successfully the court released a statement with the prison of “ Islam Nabieh” and “ Reda Fathy” another police officer with three years of prison. While Ali Emad , also known as Emad El kbier, had another three years for his resistance while being arrested in another case in 2006. This case encouraged many victims to reveal their character and open a case in the court for being exposed to torture.

In the midth of the objective reports of human rights organizations that used a scientific description to condemn the policemen acts, blogs revealed these violations explicitly and were blunt in their language of description. Perhaps, the direct exposure to this type of torture after being arrested after the demonstrations made them more daring than any report from the mass media or non-govemental organization.

Still, the case of Emad El kibier proved the importance of the collaboration of all entities together such as mainstream media, NGO’s, and alternative media, in making a propaganda about any issue. For example, El kbier wouldn’t have known about the spread of his case and the supporting campaign by many except when he found his face on the cover of El Fager newspaper. While , his appearance on the famous talk show “ El Ashera Masaen”, made the case reach a larger number of people.

Another important blog about that issue was “ Torture In Egypt” that was initiated by Noha on blogspot. Later, with the help of Omar Gharbieh, the site became more sophisticated and had links with Nadime centre to help the victims of torture and it was also hosted by the site “kateb “ that was related to the Arabic network.

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.several bloggers wrote about the issue including Radwa Osama and Nora younis who posted a video of harassment a year before during the feast. Mainstream media and ministry of interior refused to tackle the issue except Saher el mogy and nabil sharf el din, through elaph and middle east online , the issue reached international media such as “ El Arabia net, the French news agency, BBC,” still the official media accused bloggers for lying until the ministry of interior admitted the incident and the bloggers didn’t stop the campaign . this incident increased the credibility of the bloggers and showed how they had several privilages on the mainstream media such as intimation (due to the bureaucracy within the system & censorship) , interactivity ( objectivity and using emotional language and breaking taboos ( idealistic image of the society).

After the harassment of downtown , it was shocking how many accused the victim rather than the one who committed the act and blamed the way women dressed, to counter these arguments , several blogs such as “ Lesto Adry “ ( I don’t know), “Egyptian girl”, “ Shaymma”, “ Arabesque”, “ tabtaf”, made a campaign entitled “ Kolena Laya” and they chose the name Laila from Latifa El Zayat’s story the “open door”.

Like most of the campaigns, a poster was designed and a specific time was chosen to write about the problems of situation of women in Egypt. Women didn’t have any hinders in saying their testimonials on the web and many stories revealed of the violations and how they are vulnerable in Egyptian society, whether in the family, or in the street or in the rural areas at work. The campaign extended to reach different stages such as doing Internet services is exceeding the research outside the Internet to reach old or poor people with computer illiteracy. Surely, its hard to document the influence of the campaign on Egyptian women but the change of opinion of few men can be depicted in how they used to view women wearing short sleeves as the reason to be blamed to accusing whoever commit these acts.

These campaigns had an eco in the Egyptian streets and few girls started to defend their right and ask for puishment . In 2008, a minibus driver harassed Noha Roushdy sexually, but after struggles she managed to take him to the police office and successfully he was sentenced three years of prison with a penalty of 500 Egyptian pounds in 21st of October 2008.This case was the first of its kind and the effect of the campaign on the blogs had its influence. Later, some retrieved to stand on the side of Noha after knowing she belongs to Arab 48 and has a foreign identity. This anti Campaign was initiated by a lawyer Nagala Badr and made several local newspapers take an objective position in this case.

Using blogs to initiated debates became one of the most important aspects in blogs, some noticed that feature and decided to invest on it such as the project that was initiated by Mohamed of Tak Hanek and Ramy of “ lented tab3y in 2004. The duet were from two different religious backgrounds and decided to make a blog to open discussions about issues related to Muslims and Christians in Egypt. Later the campaign was changed from together in front god “ ma3en amam Allah” to “Mosalha o Mosar7a .

Sectarianism started to grow in Egypt in the last decade and the accident of massacre infront of churches increase. The government and the official media took a diplomatic stance as they neither mentioned them an covered the issue with a photo of a persist and Shiek shaking hands . blogges started to open these issues and narrate the incidents explicitly such as how Haytham jar el kamer revealed the story of killing of a Christian infront of El kedsien church in Alexandria and how the police asked the people not to interfere or prevent him.

The minster lied about the case by using the lame excuse of the killer being mentally sick.

In general , taboos related to minority found an alternative hub on the web. Especially in a country where people still move with a section for religion in their Identity card and official papers. However not all religions were accepted such as Baha’i , who for a long time were mentioned as Muslims in their ID. These issues were escalated when a Bahi asked the civil ( masla7et al segel al madany ) for papers but they refused to give him official documents referring to the decision 49 for year 2004 that state officials religions are only Islam, Christianity and Judaism .

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Bloggers adopted this cause, supporting these Egyptian citizens who suddenly found themselves without papers. And as usual mainstream media created a negative propaganda against them and considered them as apostles and against Islam to the extent that the head of syndicate of journalists “ Gammal Abd El Rahman” called for killing them on television.

One of the most important pages on that cause was created by a Bahii himself and was called “ Egyptian Bahii” also non Bahii bloggers such as sheriff Abd El Aziz, Mouktar el Aziziy adopted the cause to the extent that they went to the court on the 11th of December 2006, on the day where the official statement of whether they could have official papers will be announced. Bloggers like Nora Younis and sheriff Abd El Aziz organized a strike infront of the states’ court to support the cause of Bahii.This battle continued between the acceptance of the government and the refusal of the ministry of interior until the judicial court decided to write dash (-) beside the icon of religion in their ID. Sinai was under the Israeli occupation for a long time and because of the historical, social and political circumstances, the area stayed under supervision and from security censorship from Gehat Sayadya) and this is because of the sensitivity of the area. Later when Hamas took over Ghaza the situation became complicated between Hamas and Israel, a lot of bombing occurred on the borders of Sinai, after which the government replied with a series of arrests for Bedouin people. Since then, the novelist Mosad Abou el Fager decided to create a blog and movement “ Wednane3ish.Katib.org” and the cause of the movement was to release prisoners who were taken without guilt, to arrest the policemen who were committed a killing crime an receiving “ a7kam 3’yabya molafaka”, stopping the policemen from shooting at people, not to yakta7em houses at night without asking the maybe, not to be exposed to women and take them as raha2en and to stop using torture inside security and police stations or fake proofs under pressure by using electric shocks in sensitive areas , hitting aggressively , hanging in the ceiling upside down.

Since then Mosad Abo el Fager used this situation expose all these problems that were always considered as taboos or red lines in a lot of magazines and journals. Especially the lower part that is under censorship and authority from a higher (gehat amnya 3olia ) > The page attracted a lot of Bedouins , especially those who have family with such a cause and Mosad organized a lot of stands to attract attention about Bedouins of Sinai.

That’s beside his attempts to organize a conference between Bedouins’ and political parties. However, his cyber activities beside his political actions, led to his arrest in 2007 and he was not released until now. However, many Bedouins of Sinai started blogs like “Sinai Hayth Ana” that had a lot of sections such as “ eyes on Sinai” that had a lot of archives of photos and lastly “ Sinai outside the museum” where Mustafa singer the journalist and reporter had a lot of posts that updates the Sinai news.

Although there was no law that discriminates against homosexual relationships, it is still not accepted socially and is rejected due to religious and cultural backgrounds. Some bloggers appeared who took this topic as their main issue of discussion such as http://gayweekly.blogspot.com, http://black-blackgayarab - Gay And Proud, ay-arab.blogspot.com/, http://3ashaa.blogspot.com/ http://kareemazmy.blogspot.com , http://gaybynature.blogspot.com and http://mthlykaweyy.blogspot.com/. Most of the posts were courageous and their topics varied from emotional memos to impressions about how this issue is dealt with in the Arab world , and surprisingly gay rights or political problems were the least discussed. It is also noticed that Palestine has the largest numbers of homosexual bloggers and they are connected through “ Voices of homosexual Palestinian women”. It is also noticed, how with the spread of the homosexual bloggers, most of the comments were about advices to change themselves or using curses and demeaning words. Throughout the years, the comments started to be less judgemental and more positive.

Egypt and the Arab world passed through several circumstances that flourished fundamentalist groups, who gained power and became ready to kill whoever was different from him such as what happened to Farag Fouda or Nasr Hamid Abu Zayed in the nineties who were assassinated for their secular views. For that, the Internet became a golden chance for these ideologies on the perfiery. Some even were more courageous to refuse the veil and read Islam in a critical manner that is different than the views that are taken for granted. These topics were very common in most forums and later they became popular in blogs and later in Facebook groups.

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Some decided to create a homage for famous secular thinkers such as Farag Fouda and Nasr Hamid Abou Zayed to use the blog as a platform to spread his views, ideas, writings and interviews. While others used the platform to objectively promote the ideology, while very few like Ben kardashian decided to talk about it from a personal point of view. Anonymity was the most important aspect of blogs with secular inclination to avoid interrogation.

Anonmity was the major important aspect of the blog with secular views, so that they wouldn’t be integrated.

This wasn’t the case of bloggers karim Amer who was prisioned for insulting the president and religion. Karim was a blogger and a former student of sharpie in an Azhar University. In October 2005, he was arrested after an article he wrote about sectarian events that occurred in Meharem Bek in Alexandria, but he was released after 12 days. Later, he was kicked out from Al Azhar after he criticized el Azhar and sheikhs and was arrested in 2006. Later he was sentenced 4 years of prison in 22nd of February 2007 for insulting the president and religion. Karim used provocative worlds that could be categorized as hate speech that’s besides putting his photo, name and address, which made it easier for others to catch him.

Several publishing houses started to adopt this project and the beginning started with “ Malameh” the publishing house that was created by the blogger Mohamed el sherakawy and published for three bloggers such as Ahmed Janie, mina Girguis and Omar Mustafa. Later the Sherouk followed and produced a series with the title “ El Sherouq blogs” this series started with “ Hawadetet” of Rehab Bassam, “ I want to get married” for Ghada Abd El Al” and this is my chance for Ghada Mahmud. Other blogs tried to promote literature by adding the icon “ I am reading now” to promote a book and write reviews about it.

Later several newspapers started to create their own blog, such as the experiment with El Dostor, which is an independent oppositional newspaper that is managed by Ibrahim Eissa, some of the journalists and writers decided to open a blog to demand rise of salary and disappeared later.

The experiment of El Dostor was developed to another one which is the blog of the Arabic journalist scene, that was created by Ashraf of Shehata & aimed in the beginning to be a mean to connect all journalists together and defined their rights but because of misunderstanding between shehata and the El Masry El Youm Team especially Magdy El glad the blog became only a focused on attacking the paper. Later, Shehata produced The Journalist Arab, yet still these two experiments of el Dostor & El Wast were not free from personal issues that were shared publically & had a content of gossip & Rumors. Another similar experiment was blog “El Sadie” which also shed the lights to corruption inside the syndicate of journalism. He accused the managing council for giving all work papers that state security and some thought that state security were able to reach the fundamentalist organization inside the Naqaba after they signed for volunteering to fight against American occupation of Iraq in 2003, which was a call initiated by Sameh Ashour. “Tadamon” because the only venue that covers El Mahala’s Protest & Strikes in the Midth of a silent mainstream media.

The Arab Israeli conflict has been always an issue of conflict and many intellect considered exposing to Israel or dealing with it is a from of normalization. For that, knowledge about Jewish culture, its history or society remained unknown. The blog “This is what happened to Cohen” became the only alternative or venue that is concerned with translating Israeli literature to Arabic.Governments rarely collaborated with Egyptian bloggers but with them with censorship & arrest. This was not the case for international governments, who were more cooperative with local bloggers & even welcomed them in receptions & events such as the American, the Canadian, British embassy who organized several casual meetings with Adel Iskander the Egyptian Canadian media profesion in Georgetown, that only aimed to exchange chats. Some blogger refused to meet up with in these meetings such as karim El Behery who thought that such meeting supports Canada’s back up war on Iraq, while others such as Sand monkey didn’t that any problem in sharing this.

Several NGO’s and bloggers had several collaboration together, especially for their concern about Human Rights and they engaged together in several things such as conferences, workshops, panel discussions and others. One of the most important of these was the Arab Network for information of Human Rights, that is one of the first entities that adopted the case of Karim Amer produced yearly reports on freedom of speech &

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expression. Still, their major activity was to create a network for all bloggers and Human Rights activist. For example, they organized trainings & workshops through a bloggers such as Omar Gharbia, Manal Bahaa El Din, Alaa Seif, Nora Younis, & Ahmed Gharabia They also had the site “Kateb” that gave the chance to any blogger to post without limits except of for hate speech and successfully they were the Reason for the appearance of important bloggers such “El Saidie”.

However, bloggers received much of the care from foreign civil society. An example of that was the conference that was organized in collaboration with the American Islamic conference organization & Kito Initiative in Cairo in 2006. The conference did an open call for bloggers to write an article about the situation of Middle East or from the owners of pre-known sites a with liberal or neoliberal intellect. Among the participants was Sand monkey from Egypt, Ruba from Jordon, Mohamed from Iraq & others. Later a blogger called Dalia became responsible for the office of the Islamic Conference Organization in Cairo. Foreign civil society that used to collaborate with bloggers based on Human Rights declarations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, The International Federal for Human Rights, Hernish poll and others. This is beside foreign civil society that aims to spread ideas about liberalism & democracy such as open society institute, Freedom Newman & the most controversial Freedom House that let bloggers lead several trainings for their rights such as Wael in Abass and Nora Younis, who were more trained in this field.

Freedom House, started her activity with Egyptian bloggers through a program called “New generation, so that the organization chosen a group of activists, bloggers & invite them to the United States to receive a training from civil society organizations or media houses. In another situation meetings between Egyptian bloggers & congressmen were held to give a chance from decision makers know their opinion of the situation of the Middle East.

The history of Freedom House made several bloggers who were ready to work with it boycott it later, such as Weal Abass who though that Freedom House changed for being part of civil society to a political entity that was ready to normalize with Egyptian government referring to its visit in October 2009 to Cairo & met Several renowned figures such as Ahmed Kamal Abu El Maged.

On the other hand, several international & local scholars tackled the issue of bloggers by studying and analyzing it. Some even tweed to blogging such as Mark Lynch who wrote the book “ Voices of the New Arab public” & his statement about how youth of Ikwan will be the knights of change became highly controversial.

Other academic institutions took it from a professional perspective, by entering into projects such as global voices in 2004 in Perkman for Internet centre of the faculty of law in Harvard University. Global voices online was a portal connected several reports from around the world to write a report on the situation of human rights in the country.

Another important project was organized in 2008 by AUC in collaboration with Kamal Adham for media studies & was called “Donkey, Elephants & Crocodiles” eight bloggers were chosen for this program to supervise over American elections & write notes to understand the Rules of the game. Another group were sent to a visit Washington DC and New York to be trained in reworked news agency such as time magazine, Huffting post or American university.

How I Learned to Stay on Facebook or Who is Afraid of Likes and Shares : Ikhwan generally were active online, such as their site “ Ikhwan Online” or “ Ikhwan of Sharqia”. In 2007 , after Ikwan announced an argument about their program, a lot of arguments occurred about that program to an extent that few created an alternative website called “ Ikhwan offline”. However, although many thought the youth, started this site to become detached from the main group, the trio who did this site including Mohamed Adel who had the site “ Mayt” or “dead”, wrote that they didn’t separate from the larger group. After this most bloggers reduced their criticism to the Muslim Brotherhood and their site became a mere platform to advertise about their activities and ideology like the rest of political parties.

Facebook, is using virtual reality to combat corrupt and oppressive governments. Their nascent, tech-fired

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rebellion has triggered a government backlash and captured the world’s attention.In Egypt today, a gathering of five people or more without a permit is illegal and can result in arrests, beatings, or both. Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, has been in power for nearly three decades and has governed under emergency rule since 1981 .Facebook is the third-most visited Web site in Egypt, after Google and Yahoo. Wael Nawara, cofounder of the El-Ghad Party, has closely observed the site’s rapid ascent. (When I caught up with Nawara at his home in Heliopolis, his laptop had six browser tabs open, all of them Facebook pages.)

“The big bang was really this past January, with the Africa Cup,” he says. Egypt’s national soccer team had reached the final of the continental championships, and a Facebook group launched by fans suddenly swelled to 45,000 members. During the soccer frenzy, Nawara noticed that the number of Facebookers in Egypt jumped dramatically. Today, close to 1 million Egyptians are on the site, about 11 percent of the total online population.

Maher created the April 6 youth movement with a woman named Israa Abdel-Fattah. They had become friendly two years earlier as volunteers for the El-Ghad Party. Maher had already been politically active; he was arrested in 2006 during a sit-in alongside judges protesting state interference with the judiciary. Abdel-Fattah, 27, had never taken part in a demonstration. She worked in the human resources department of a Cairo company and had only recently begun volunteering at El-Ghad. They were both Facebook users, of course, busy posting in various political forums. But to Maher Facebook was an echo chamber, not a movement.

In March, he learned that workers in the industrial city of El-Mahalla el-Kobra were planning a strike on April 6 to protest paltry wages and soaring food prices. Maher and Abdel-Fattah were sympathetic to the cause and wondered whether Facebook might be a way to spread the word about the strike, arrange more demonstrations in Cairo, and enlist support for a nationwide shopping boycott.

The duo launched the April 6 group on March 23. They used their real names for their Facebook profiles, and they were both listed as administrators for the group. That night, they sent out 300 invitations urging people to join. By the next morning, 3,000 people had signed up. Invitees weren›t just joining — they were recruiting everyone they knew. It was the kind of viral growth Silicon Valley executives fantasize about, and the chain reaction was just beginning.

Maher was as stunned as he was delighted. This could be something, he thought. He set about encouraging new members to launch whole new subgroups, while also contacting bloggers and other politically oriented online forums — 800 people here, 2,600 people there — asking them to support the workers by joining the April 6 group.

On more than one occasion, Maher’s Facebook account was disabled — not by Egyptian officials but by the site itself. To combat spammers, Facebook automatically shuts down accounts that have large volumes of outgoing messages. But in this case, the messaging deluge was just Maher corresponding like crazy. By the end of March, the group was pushing 40,000 members. Participants began changing their profile pictures to the April 6 logo, which meant the logo kept popping up in the News Feed of anyone on Facebook who was connected to someone in the April 6 group. Adding to this barrage, the activists kept loading a link to the group into their Status Update fields, further flooding Egypt’s Facebook universe with connections to the group and its message.

Uniting 70,000 people is no easy feat in a country where collective action is so risky. Social networking has changed that. In turn, it is changing the dynamics of political dissent.

As dawn broke on April 6, residents of El-Mahalla el-Kobra — a city of some 400,000 about 75 miles north of Cairo — finished their morning prayers. Maher, Abdel-Fattah, and other Facebookers fired off last-minute emails and texts about their demonstration plans, still unsure as to whether anyone outside their network had heard or cared about the call to support the workers and boycott stores.

In El-Mahalla el-Kobra, where the strike was slated to occur, thousands of workers took to the streets. The scene turned ugly, with widespread rioting, scores of arrests, and at least three deaths. At one point, a group

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of agitators managed to trash a billboard displaying a picture of Mubarak. Censors suppressed video and photographic records of the incident in the mainstream media. But bloggers and members of the Facebook group quickly posted the images.

State security was aware of online dissidents but was completely caught off guard by the popularity of the Facebook group. In recent years, agents had concentrated intimidation efforts on individuals, especially bloggers with a significant readership. In 2006, for instance, a blogger named Mohammed el-Sharqawi was detained and sodomized for repeatedly participating in street protests. Another blogger, Abdel-Kareem Soliman, is serving a four-year prison term for insulting the president and Islam. But social networking was something new. Security officials, perhaps believing that Facebook was no more than a mechanism for kids to vent angst, paid little attention to the crescendo leading up to April 6, underestimating the network›s ability to galvanize opposition The April 6 demonstrations in Cairo were not well attended; the real fireworks of the day were the riots in ElMahalla el-Kobra. And that could have been the end of it — just another isolated, barely reported episode of social unrest in an overlooked corner of the Middle East. But Egyptian security made a major miscalculation.

That morning, they found Abdel-Fattah sitting with friends at a Cairo cafè9 popular with activists and intellectuals. As an administrator of the high-profile Facebook group, she was a valuable catch, and her arrest would send an unequivocal message to other aspiring cyberactivists.

Even before the smoke of April 6 cleared, Maher was planning another demonstration — target date May 4, Mubarak’s 80th birthday. He and his friends tried to replicate what had happened in April, urging people to stay home from work, hang black flags outside their windows, boycott state-owned newspapers — do something.Government retaliation against the youth movement has also embarrassed the regime. Many Egyptian citizens are rooting for the idealistic Facebook kids, and the international media look favorably on their cause, or at least tend to portray the activists as David to the regime’s Goliath: “fledgling rebellion on facebook is struck down by force in egypt” (The Washington Post), “crackdown on facebook activists” (Los Angeles Times blog), “egypt detains facebook activists — again” (The Christian Science Monitor), “egypt faces new media censorship” (Al Jazeera). Not exactly flattering headlines for one of America’s best friends in the Middle East.for one of America›s best friends in the Middle East.

Maher is on the run again in Alexandria, after the failed protest on the beach. He tries to mix things up, hopping into a store and switching between taxis and the city›s rundown tramway. Believing he has finally ditched the agents, he texts a couple of activist friends for a meetup at an outdoor juice cart.ّIt is thus intriguing to see how a platform creaed intially for connecting with friends and not losing trackabout their daily life news, has been transformed by the activists into a full use of internet based applicationsthat allow the creation or exchange of user generated content . This is beside the self managed activists like indymedia and mailing lists were the media of choice of antiglobalisation movement, contemporary activists are instead shamelessly appropriating corporate social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Quickly journalists started to coin terms such as “ Facebook revolution” and “ Twiiter revolution”. For example in his flamboyant account of what he calls the “ revolutions of 2009-2011”, BBC journalist Pual Manson listd the functionalities of the “ full suite of information tools” used by contemporary activists : “ Facebook is used to form groups, covert and overt-in order to establish those strong flexiable connections.Twitter is used for real-time organization and news dissemination,bypassing the cumbersome “ newsgathering”operations of the mainstream media. Youtube and Twitter-linked photographic sites-Yfrog, FLicker and Twitpic-are used to provide instant evidence of the claims being made. Link-shorteners like bit.ly are used to disseminate key articles via Twiiter. (Manson 2012:75) On the other hand, some argue that the internet is a mere commuication tool and that its contribution to the egyptin cyber activism has not exceeded trival operations of fixing dates and opening groups. Others painted a graffitii that stated “ the revolution will not be tweeted” , a pun on Gil Scott-Heron’famous song “ The

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Revolution will not televised” as they oppose a revolution with several martyers be labelled as a social media revolution.

This discource reached a climax with a blossoming of the Arab Spring in 2011. From CNN to the BBC, Facebook protest of Twitter protest became obessively repeated catch-phrases during the 18-day revolution that brought down mubarek. After mubarek fell, Egyptian Bloggers and tweeps like Gigi Ibrahim and sandmoneky wnwere instantly cst as the celebrities , or micro-celebrities of an otherwise supposedly “leaderless” social movements, Whilr new shows like El jessera Engglish’s the sted to applaud the emancipatory power of social media.

The celebration of the social media revolution also reached the higher echelons of politics. Some interpretted the moment as the long awaited and duly prophesised emergence of “ Facebook revolution” was read as a confirmation of the good work done by the US state deparment and its “internet” freedom agend. Topping the wave of self congratulation in June 2011, Alec Ross, Hilary Clinton’s senior adviser, called the interent the che guevara of the twenty-first century’. Thanks to the rise of new media, hierarchies are being levelled, he declared in a tone of an anarchist. The message that they wanted to deliver was although the revolution was made in Cairo , but it would not have taken place without the latest technolgies engineered in Silicon Valley. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO) and Jack Dorsey ( twitter CEO) may not themselves have been on the barricades, but they were operative in the virtual supply lines, as it were.

It is said that spatial dispersion and the crisis of public spae are not just western phenomena: just as neoliberalism Mubarak’s Egypt> In recent decades Cairo has witnessed a decline of the city centre locally Known as “ Downtown”, accompanied by the creation of new peripheral neighbourhoods for the rising middle classes. Since the 1990s huge shopping malls have mushroomed in the city’s surburs, catering for middle-class consumption,next to which extended the ashwaa’iyyat, the slums wherein reside those who provide laour for the needs of the middle classes.

During the 25th of January, logos of the website “ Facebook”, “ Twitter” were not only two words flickering on the computer screens but also on T-shirts, grafitti and banners in the square. Social media and in particular But it is precisely this awkwardness that reveals something important about the dynamics of the Egyptian revolution as a process driven by an internet-savy youth. Derided for years by the state-owned media as ‘guys of comment and like’, the internet generation became infused with a missionary spirit of national salvation, incited by Facebook pages, blog posts, and tweets.

Social media and in particular Facebook functioned as a training ground for this politically inexperienced but media-savy youth, and as a launching pad for the protests. The shabab-al-Facebook thus became street agitators of the shaabi, the lower classes which make up the great majority of Egyptian society. It was through this interaction with groups separated by the digital divide that the shabab-al-Facebook successfully turned into the catalyst of a process of mass mobilization. If social media played only a limited and very specific role in that process, it was nonetheless crucial in the coalescence of the initial revolutionary nucleus around which a number of ‘rings’ of participants would progressively cluster.

As we have seen, the uprisings in Egypt and before it in Tunisia have been celebrated in the media as ‘Facebook revolutions’, ‘Twitter revolutions’, or ‘wiki-revolutions’. These labels rightly highlighted the important role played by the internet and social media as platforms for protest communications. However, they overlook the fact that only a limited constituency was actually mobilized by such media, simply as a consequence of low levels of internet connection. For the great mass of participants in the Egyptian uprising, mobilization worked through more traditional channels such as oral communication and the mass media.

This evidence clearly urges us to be aware of the limited impact of social media as a means of mobilization during the Egyptian revolution. More positively, it also invites us to ascertain the specific contribution to the process of mobilization of that specific group for which the internet was indeed, alongside oral communication, the main medium of mobilization: the so-called Facebook youth. It is this section of the movement whose

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experience and media-use I will focus on in here. Among the several activist blogs and websites, a leading role was played by the Kullena Khaled Said Facebook page, which acted as a site of emotional condensating for a largely un-politicised Facebok youth prior to the protests.

More over, it served as a launch pad to create a sense of anticipation and an impetus prior to the material precipitation of the movement. This early online organizing was soon paralleled by an intense ground-level effort to agitate the “shaabi”: the popular classes. From the very first days of the uprising, face-to-face communication overtook social media as medium of choice for the movement. It was mostly geared at eliciting external attention, while also playing a role as a channel for tactical communication within the activist elite. Nevertheless, this medium has been seen by some activists as carrying the risk of isolation from mainstream Egyptian society, taking time away from street campaigning and more accessible forms of internet communication.

Desert in the Streets, Oasis on the Internet: Analyses of the role of the internet in the Egyptian revolution often overlook the fact that its popularity as a vehicle for protest organization was a consequence of the strict policing of public space under Mubarak.

Naturally the authoritarianism of the regime affected all basic civil and political rights. But of the three fundamental liberal-democratic freedoms – freedom of expression, of association, and of assembly –possibly the most repressed was the latter (Osman, 2010). In fact, under Mubarak a handful of opposition parties were allowed to exist including the liberal el-Wafd, the social democratic Tagamma, and the Nasserist el-Karama, through they acted for the most part as window-dressing for the regime, given that elections were systematically rigged. Also some opposition papers including Masry Al-Youm and el-Shorouq were formally permitted to operate, even though they were the target of constant legal harassment, and their editors were subject to intimidations. The regime half-heartedly tolerated their existence given that they reached only limited sections of the Egyptian population, and thus did not endanger its maintenance of consensus. What the regime could in no way tolerate were public demonstrations in the streets, which could create a dangerous interaction between the activist community and the lower classes.

State emergency laws maintained almost without interruption during Mubarak’s tenure in power especially targeted the right of assembly in public space. The secret police, the notorious ‘mukhabarat’, was an infamous presence whose phantom-like existence acted as a powerful deterrent for all those harbouring aversion towards the regime (Bradley, 2008). The use of torture, violence, kidnappings and sometimes arbitrary killings of political opponents was common knowledge among the populace. The presence of police informants bred a common feeling o distrust even among relatives and friends – a common experience under a totalitarian regime, Yet for all the regime’s attempt to silence dissent in public space, the thriving street life and thick social networks of Egyptian cities (Bayat, 2010) offered some room for the cultivation of defiance towards the regime. The tens of thousands of “ahwa” coffee shops in Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities provided a highly diffuse infrastructure for the nurturing of dissent at street-level. it was not uncommon to hear people insulting Mubarak in private conversations. But the fear of police reprisals limited dissent to very specific private or semi-public locations and circles. Open dissent in the form of public demonstrations was restricted to a small community of activist, bloggers, opposition politicians and NGO workers with limited connection with the broader populace.

The average demonstration during the Mubarak years would number a few hundred people. A typical venue might be the stairs at the entrance of he journalists syndicate, and other progressive syndicates acting as protest sanctuaries. People would gather for few minutes, unfold a banner, shout some slogans to a small audience of passers-by, before the police arrived to squeeze people in a tight containment cordon.

We were looked at as crazy people” recounts Sally Zohaney, a 27 “year-old political science graduate from Cairo University who regularly attended such demonstrations. “People weren’t really understanding, why we were doing that. They weren’t believing that it was possible to do away with the regime anyway.” The only major exception during the 2000s was the demonstration against the Iraq war in February 2003. Around 40,000 people, according to optimistic calculations, converged to Tahrir square but were soon dispersed by

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police charges and tear gas. It was only in the mid to late 2000s that a series of strikes and labour protests including sit-ins in front of parliament would set the basis for a popular ‘repertoire of contention’ (Tilly, 2003) which deeply informed the 2011 revolution.

Bearing in mind this ‘inhospitality’ of public space under Mubarak, we can better understand the reasons why the internet and Facebook in particular came to constitute such a popular platform for encouraging dissent against the regime. Using an admitted stereotypical but nonetheless apt image, one could say that if Egyptian public space had become a desert for dissenting groups where they could easily be identified and targeted, the internet came to constitute something like a diffuse oasis where oppositional identities could develop without being immediately crushed by the state.

In the 2000s the ICT sector experienced a momentous growth in Egypt (Abulla, 2007), Cairo witnessed a rise of web start-ups and the development of local telephone companies including Etisalat and Mobinil. One man became the face of this ‘Egypt 2.0’ with its promise of political liberatlisation. Ahmed Nazif, prime minister from 2004 until the revolution, and formerly minister of communication put much effort into improving internet connectivity. Between 2005 and 2010 the internet penetration rate went up from 9 per cent to 24 per cent of household, still quite low given that the United States had by 2010 reached almost 80 per cent, but also underrated given Egyptians’ intense use of internet cafes. Realising that it could not effectively censor the internet without unleashing an avalanche of disapproval from its Western allies, the Mubarak regime presented the relative degree of online freedom enjoyed by Egyptians as proof of its agenda of political liberatlisation (Hofheinz, 2005).

By leaving the internet relatively open, the regime also hoped to maintain the support of the young middleclass, that new generation of Egyptians which came to be known as the shabab-al-Facebook (Peterson, 2011).

The regime’s relative lenience towards internet access was not without its risks though. The expansion in ICT trained a workforce in the use of communication technologies which could, and did, become a dangerous weapon in the hands of the enemies of the regime. Moreover, blogs and Facebook groups became sites that were to breed a culture of irreverence and anti-authoritarianism, all the more explosive under the pressure of the authoritarian or ‘pharaonic’ system of government of Egypt.

In the last 2000s bloggers like Hossam al-Hamalawy (also known as Arabawy) and Alaa Abdel Fattah began drawing a significant following with their caustic commentaries on Egyptian politics. These and other bloggers were often arrested and harassed by the police, and the National Democratic Party of Mubarak even created a specific ‘Electronic Committee’ to counter internet activists, while other bloggers and Facebook users were paid to post pro-regime message (Ghonim, 2012: 69-70). Despite the repression of digital activism, Nazif often vaunted the opening of limited space of dissent on the internet as a consequence of his own policies. When heckled in January 2009 by a group of activists at Cairo University, the prime minister scathingly replied that the protesters were ‘the same young people who used the Internet to express their opinions!’

The Cairo activists were part of the ‘6th of April’ group which .led the experimentations in the use of the internet as a platform for protest mobilization. The group was mostly composed of young middle-class Cairenes and Alexandrians led by a young civil engineer Ahmed Maher. Many of them had joined the group out of disillusion with kifya (‘enough’), a movement formed in 2005 to demand an end to Mubarak’s regime, but which displayed a disregard for economic problems closer to the heart of the majority of the population. To address this issue;, the new 6th of April movement tried to build contracts with the labour movement.

The group took its name from the date of a strike by textile workers in Mahalla el-Kobra, an industrial town in the Nile Delta, with which it expressed solidarity, calling for a national general strike on 6 April 2008. The event was publicized on the 6th of April Facebook page and organized as a flash-mob. Supporters were invited to wear black clothes and line the public streets with their backs to the traffic to express their indignation at the regime.

The strike in Mahalla el-Kobra was brutally represented by the police, with one dead and hundreds wounded, while the supporting demonstration in Cairo had a limited degree of success. But the regime this time took

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notice and arrested Israa Abdel Fattah, the admin of 6th of April Facebook page , who came to be known in the Egyptian media as ‘Facebook girl’. The event added to a repertoire of protest practices which were progressively clustering around a common revolutionary identity, as summed up by Noor Ayman Noor, the activist son of prominent opposition figure, and former presidential candidate, Ayman Noor: The 6th April set foundations for the fact that you can organize big protests online. Kifaya set foundations for the fact that you can go down on the streets and say ‘Kifaya Mubarak’ [enough of Mubarak]. 25th of January didn’t happen overnight. It was years of things building up, of people setting things in stone,. And the best example of this is that on the 25th of January many of the chants that we were chanting were chants that we had been chanting in earlier demonstrations. Everything is a build-up, nothing happens overnight.

It was on this established ‘repertoire of contention’ (Tilly, 2003), not simply on the availability of powerful technologies of communication, that the conditions for the Egyptian revolution.

Khaled Said: A collective profile picture: It was summer 2010 and I wasn’t really into politics. I was reading the news, sometimes I would write something on Facebook. But that was it. I wasn’t really caring much about politics. Then Khaled Said’s page began, and it spread very fast. A friend sent me an invitation… and I started looking at the news and really caring about what is happening to my country. And I watched the pictures which were brutal, And the gay did nothing but ask why are you searching me. A lot of people like me started really caring about this after they saw the photo of Khaled Said’s face, which was very brutal, and I really though sometimes that this could happen to me.

For many young middle-class Egyptians like Mustafa Shamaa, a 20-year-old student at Cairo Nile University, joining the Kullena Khaled Said Facebook page was akin to a ritual of political initiation which facilitated their participation in the revolutionary movement. ‘That page is what got me into politics’ says Mustafa. The Kullena Khaled Said and other Egyptian opposition Facebook pages contributed to motivating and uniting a constituency of young people otherwise lacking in strong political identifications.

The page was created to protest against the death of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old middle-class Alexandrian with a passion for blogging who had completed part of his studies in the US. On the 6th of June 2010, Said had been picked up at An internet café by two secret-police officers and beaten to death on the street allegedly for having posted online a video which documented the implication of members of the police force in a drug deaf.

The image of his face completely devastated by blows began circulating on the internet, awaking many to the brutal reality of Mubarak’s Egypt. In reaction blog, posts were written, videos published, and Facebook pages opened. The Kullena Khaled Said page duly became an emotional rallying point for the Facebook youth, who not only felt compassion for Khaled Said but also ident6ified with him, thinking, as Mustafa himself did, ‘that this could happen to me’.

Conspiracy theories continue to abound about the creation of the Khaled Said page and who was behind it.

The ‘official’ version is that it was created by Wael Ghonim, a 30 year-old Egyptian working in Dubai as the Google marketing executive for the Middle East. The mystery surrounding the page was increased by the fact that Ghonim, in order to protect his identity, decided to use a fake account with the name ‘elshaheed’ ‘the martyr’ as Said was considered to be), and used the Tor software to guarantee his online anonymity.

Ghonim was a young liberal Egyptian and a devoted Muslim. He came from the Egyptian middle class and studied for an MBA at the elite American University in Cairo as did many other digital activists. However, compared to may, Ghonim arguably had a more direct understanding of the condition and experience of the lower classes in Egypt, having studied at the state-run and overcrowded Orman high school in Cairo. An ‘internet fanatic’ since an early age, Ghonim did not have the typical skills and charisma if a revolutionary leader.

As he himself admitted he found it easier to relate with people online rather than face-to-face (Ghonim 2012); 13). But he was not completely new to activism either. In 2009 he had set up a Facebook page to support the presidential campaign of the former chief of the international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed el-

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Baradei, who he had also met in person at his mansion in Cairo.

The response to the opening of the Kullena Khaled Said page was impressive. A whopping 36,000 user as joined the page on the first day, quickly helping it to become the most popular anti-regime Facebook page.

The massive participation registered by the page was testament to the degree of indignation many Egyptians felt, and indicative of the extent to which Facebook pages were one of the very few places through which it could be channeled. However, the popularity of the page was also the result of Wael Ghonim’s marketing skills and particularly of his ability to construct a compelling emotional conversation with the page’s users.

Ghonim exploited the techniques he had learned during his MBA and perfected through his management of a number of successful Arabic websites before joining Google. His model in planning the campaign was the class three-step ‘sales tunnel’: The first phase was to convince people to join the page and read its posts. The second was to convince them to start interacting with the content by ‘liking’ and ‘commenting’ on it. the third was to get them to participate in the page’s online campaign and to contribute to its content themselves. The fourth and final phaqse would occur when people decided to take the activism onto the streets. This was my ultimate aspiration. (Ghonim, 2012; 67-8).

The success of the page rested on its ability to attract a diverse public of users, beyond those who were already politicised. For this purpose Ghonim used the Egyptian dialect Ammeya rather than the high-brow st7andard Arabic, and employed abundant visual material, videos, pictures and the like capable of attracting people with low literacy skills. Moreover, he carefully avoided the kind of confrontational language used on other Egyptian anti-regime Facebook pages, which he thought could discourage unpoliticised, users, Finally, Ghonim tried to make users feel that they were not just ‘liking’ a page but were actually engaging in a conversation. To this end, he spent much time and effort answering user comments.

Through his posts – written in the first person, as if he were himself Khaled Said speaking from the tomb – Ghonim catalysed a process of emotional identification on the part of young middle-class Egyptians with someone with whom they had much to share.

Exemplary of this process of collective identification was the fact that many users adopted the photo of Said as their own Facebook profile picture. In anticipation of the 25th of January demonstration, the Brazilian radical cartoonist Carlos Latuff, at the request of Egyptian activists, represented Said in a youthful grey jumper, bolding a mouse-sized and scared-looking Hosni Mubarak. Said’s profile as a blogger and the story of his martyrdom’ made him a perfect hero for the shabab-al-Facebook; a dead leader that young middle-class people could rally around in the absence of living heroes. In this sense, Said was quite a different figure from Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor from the small town of Sidi Bouzid who by setting himself on fire on the 17th of December 2010 in protest against an episode of police repression would light the fuse of the Tunisian revolution, and thereby of the Arab Spring as a whole. In a heavily class-ridden society like Egypt, Said’s middle-class background played an important role in politicizing that part of the population which had been the most reluctant to voice its discontent at the regime.

If the figure of Khaled Said allowed this unpoliticized Egyptian middle-class youth to identify with one hero, it also allowed them to identify against a common enemy – not just the regime as a whole but more specifically the police. Different categories of peop0-le had different reasons for harbouring this anger. Football ‘ultras’ – fans of popular clubs like Zamalek and el-Ahly – hated the police because of the frequent clashes after matches. Microbus drivers hated them for being constantly targeted with arbitrary road fines, with which officers were topping up their miserly salaries. Young people resented them because of random searches and harassment.

The Kullena Khaled Said page became a stage for collecting and cataloguing the extent of the baseness of the regime, gathering all the evidence in one place and thus creating a ‘chain of equivalence’ (Laclau, 2005; 94) between the grievances of different groups of people. The call for a demonstration on the 25th of January, ‘Police Day’, would provide this convergence of popular sentiment against the security forces which had

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coalesced on Facebook with a date on which to matterialse.

RSVPING TO THE REVOLUTION The organizational challenge faced by the admins of prominent anti-regime Facebook pages was how to transform the vocal publics gathered online into protesting crowds. While this was a daunting task given the widespread fear of police repression, it is remarkable how many users of these pages were impatient to move from Facebook to the streets .

The fear of endangering users initially led Ghonim and the other admin of the page, Abdel Rahman Mansour, to ‘focus on online activities that we could promote, to instill a sense of optimism and confidence that we could make a difference, even if only in the virtual world for the time being’ . However, just a few days after its opening, the page was already publicizing street demonstrations.

At the suggestion of an Alexandrian user, a series of ‘silent stands’ were organized and publicized on the Facebook page (Ghonim, 2012; 70). The idea of the silent stands followed the format of the flash-mob, like those organized in previous years by the 6th of April group through its own Facebook page. People were asked to convene in a central area of the city at a given time to perform a small collective action. They would stand in silence in a public area, some of them reading the Koran or the Bible, as a way of expressing peacefully their indignation at the regime. In the first of these events, held on the 19th of June 2010, only a few hundred joined the gatherings in Cairo and Alexandria, a fraction of the thousands who had answered positively to the invitation on Facebook. This was just proof of the fact that Facebook RSVPs only rarely translate into actual attendance – a phenomenon we will see again in the different movements discussed in this book. Despite the relatively low turnout, the event was considered a moderate success by Ghonim, and a confirmation of the possibility of transforming Facebook publics into protesting crowds. In the following months, a number of other ‘silent stands’ were publicized on the page, even though after a while the format seemed to be wearing out through force of repetition.

Compared to the ‘silent stands’ of 2010, the call launched by the page for a mass demonstration on the 25th of January 2011 was understandably a much more daring act. In his autobiographical book, Ghonim explains the fixing of the date as a decision taken alone in a rush, on the evening of the 29th of December. He had just been discussing the options with Ahmed Maher, the leader of the 6th of April movement, on an internet chat.

But Maher had asked for time to consider the date, and did not seem too enthusiastic, given that his group wanted to concentrate all its effort on the 6th of April. A couple of days later, the Islamist bombing of a Coptic Church in Alexandria on the 1st o January, which killed 21 peop0le, shifted attention away from the idea. It wasn’t until the 14th of January, the day Ben Ali escaped from Tunisia, that Ghonim floated again the idea of an action on the 25th. This time the message attracted 3,022 likes and 1,748 comments, giving a clear sign that users enthused by the events in Tunisia were ready for action.

It is evident that the organization of the 25th of January demonstration, which was to mark the beginning of the 18-day revolution, was not undertaken on the internet alone. It required a complex and laborious groundwork to sort out the logistics and publicize the protests among the populace. Seeing the event as a ‘political opportunity’ not to be missed, a ‘Revolutionary Youth Coalition’ formed on the ground, encompassing 6th of April activists, revolutionary socialists, members of el-Baradei’s group the National Association for Change, and young dissidents from the Muslim Brotherhood. As Ahmed Sabry puts it, the demonstration ‘was much more organized than people in the West think. Therefore were several meeting places and phone numbers and mobile number for the lawyers.’

The 6th of April Youth Movement played a particularly important role in coordinating events on the ground.

They set up a ‘war-room’ in an office nearby Tahrir square from which they would coordinate on the phone activists in the different marches. Moreover, in anticipation of the 25th, the organized a series of rehearsal demonstrations in popular neighborhoods to experiment with different tactics and test the reaction of the people on the streets. Activists also tried to convince established opposition groups to join them. While the

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Muslim Brotherhood and all other opposition parties initially turned down the invitation, key figures in the ultras pledged their support.

The Kulena Khaled Said Facebook page progressively acame to function as a sort of megaphone through which, from its safe base in Dubai, Ghonim would relay to a broad and diffuse public the decisions taken by activists on the ground in Cairo and Alexandria. The Facebook page became a platform from which to share and streamline information, but more importantly to create a sense of anticipation about the upcoming event. A Facebook event was created titled ‘January 25: Revolution against Torture, Poverty, Corruption and Unemployment’. On Friday the 21st, four days before the first protest, the page counted 100,000 confirmed attendees and many others would join in the following days. Previous protest.

Fear of police repression, and mutual distrust among Facebook users, constituted two formidable obstacles on the way to achieving a good turnout on the day. Ghonim was aware of the risk. During the final day before the demonstration he put much effort into countering the defeatism reflected in some of the comments posted on the page, as epitomized by the following message: ‘no one will do anything and you’ll see. All we do is post on Facebook. We are the Facebook generation. Period’. To dispect this impression, Ghonim focused on positive messages emphasizing the people’s determination to take to the streets, exemplified by the statement: ‘we won’t stand and watch other people on Facebook’.

The same urge to dispel people’s fear and uncertainty underscored the action of young activist Asmaa Mahfouz, who in anticipation of the protest posted a now-famous You Tube video in which she incited people to join the protests: If you think yourself a man, come with me on 25 January. Whoever says women shouldn’t go to protests because they will get beaten, let him have some honor and manhood and come with me on 25 January. Whoever says it is not worth it because there will only be a handful of people, I want to tell him, ‘You are the reason behind this, and you are a traitor, just like the president or any security cop who beats us in the streets.’

This call to heroism cleverly used the machismo prevalent in Egyptian society as an expedient through which to mobilize young men, who would fear being ridiculed for having been surpassed in bravery by a young girl.

On the eve of the protest similar videos and status messages confirmed the impression that ‘it was going to be big’- as Ahmed Sharqaui, an Egyptian activist from the town of Zagazig, reflects. The last status message published on the Kullena Khaled Said page on the morning of the 25th, a few hours before the time set for the public gathering, took the tone of a generational challenge: ‘today we are going to prove that we are not guys of “Comment and like” as they claim. We are REALITY on Earth we are demanding our rights and we are all participating.’

‘OUR PEOPLE COME DOWN! If on the eve of the revolution Facebook groups played a crucial role in organizing dissent against the regime, as soon as the movement ‘landed’ on the streets its communications shifted drastically. For all the sophistication achieved by the revolutionary movement on mobilizing effort relief on a creative reinvention of the ancient are of face-to-face agitation. Facebook had proven a useful rallying point precisely because of the obstacles to communication imposed by the authoritarian regime on the streets. But for the revolution to gain sufficient support a direct interaction with the lower classes at street level was imperative, especially given the huge digital divide in Egyptian society where three quarters of the population have no internet access.When the day came, the physical passage of marchers across different areas of Cairo provided the movement with an opportunity for agitating among the shaabi, many of whom resented the regime for the economic hardships they were suffering. Taking to the streets was the only way for the movement to break the double barrier of the digital divide and the censorship of the state-owned news media.

In order to maximize the movement’s visibility on the streets and the possibility of contract with the local population, activists directly in Tahrir square, protesters were invited to join up at four separator meeting points in different areas of Cairo, including the working-class neighborhoods of Shubra and Imbaba. The exact

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locations were announced on the Kullena Khaled Said Facebook page only three days before the protests, in order to give the police little time to prepare. Before heading towards Tahrir, the marchers would make several turns in small residential streets in the neighborhoods close to their initial assembly point, so as to gather more people along the way. The tactic was concisely explained in a small booklet distributed online in advance of the protests on Friday the 28th: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

Assemble with your friends and neighbours in residential streets away from where security forces are.

Shout slogans in the name of Egypt and the people’s freedom (positive slogans).

Encourage other residents to join (again with positive language).

Go out into the major streets in very large numbers in order to form the biggest possible assembly.

Head towards important government buildings while shouting positive slogans, to take them over.

To invite people to join the demonstrations, the marchers continuously repeated ‘positive slogans” like ‘aysh, hurreya, wa adala egtimaya’ (bread, freedom and dignity), and the more famous ‘el-shaab ureed iskat el-nisam’ (the people want the fall of the regime). These were slogans many Egyptians could easily identify with. They avoided ideological language and instead concentrated on simple political and social demands particularly targeted at the plight of working-class people and the poor. The slogans were accompanied by direct exhortations to joint the protests, like ‘inzil, inzil, inzil’ (ome down! come down! come down!) and ‘ya ahlina andamulina’ (our families join us), addressed to bystanders on the streets and people watching the marchers go by from their windows and balconies. With these forms of street-level communication, the Facebook youth created a face-to-face contact with ‘those Egyptians who don’t have the internet’, to use Ghonim’s words. This involved a learning process, since for many people like Mohammed Saidi, a 22-year –old political science graduate, ‘it was the first time that I’d done this, talking politics with strangers on the streets’.

On the 26th and 27th the movement continued to make itself visible in Cairo and Alexandria, while fighting between demonstrators and police raged in Suez. All the attention was now focused on preparation for the 28th: the ‘Friday of Anger’, Meeting points for the feeder marches were once again publicized on the Kullena Khaled Said Facebook page. However, by this point the website had become just one among many poles of mobilization and coordination, among which featured established organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood which had eventually pledged its support.

NEVER MIND THE KILL SWITCH Overnight on the 27th, in anticipation of the ‘Friday of Rage’, the Egyptian government had taken the unprecedented step of switching off all internet and mobile phone communications in the country (Dunn, 2011). Just after midnight all major internet service providers such as Telecom Egypt, Link, Etislat, and others were shut down in a matter of minutes. The government exploited the presence of a series of infrastructural bottlenecks in the Egykptian network. Only one ISP, Noor Data Networks, which serves the Egyptian stock exchange, was unaffected by the attack. In the early hours of the 28th, mobile phone services (Vodafone, Mobinil and Etisalat) were also shut down in most areas of the country.

The regime clearly hoped that the move would disrupt the activists’ capacity for coordination and scare most people off the streets. And indeed, my interviewees concur in describing the sense of disorientation which the unavailability of internet and (more importantly) of mobile phones caused on that day. But the shutdown did not prove a fatal blow for the movement. In fact, on the day, many more people took to the streets than they had done on the 25th. The fact is that the government’s move was ‘too little too later’, The internet shut-down made it impossible to maintain a safe distance by following events on the internet or talking on the phone to one’s friends on the streets. The government’s decision thus eliminated the possibility of a passive though sympathetic spectatorship. To get even a glimpse of what was going on, one had to take to the streets. The kill switch thus demonstrated the ambiguous role o modern communication technologies in the process of mobilization, and the extent to which they can also simply be used to maintain a virtual connection with activism without ever joining them physically.

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With the communications shut-down the occupation in Tahrir square became an immersive face-to-face communicative event. With the revolution the Facebook youth took to the streets and contributed to opening up a public space where different classes could interact, as thy could not do on social media, a preserve of the middle class. However, when Mubarak resigned on the 11th of February, that exceptional space of encounter which the revolution had created dissolved. The sit-in was almost immediately lifted, and the ‘Facebook people’ who had initiated the revolution went for the most part reluctantly back to the dispersion of their own mediated friendships. They would reappear only intermittingly during the various waves of protest that would later target the new power-holders: the military rules of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), headed by Mubarak’s former minister of defence, field-marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi.

Even if one does not buy into the class hatred which seems to underlie opinions like Saidi’s, it is evident that during the revolution the use of Twitter was for the most part restricted to a tiny activist community numbering a few hundred, and that it thus had a limited impact on the general mobilization. If, as Mustafa Shamaa puts it, ‘the revolution would have happened without Facebook’, the same applies even more strongly to Twitter.

The micro-blogging website’s penetration rawte in Egypt is very low, standing at only 0.15 per cent in November 2011 (Dubai School of Government, 2011b).

Naturally, the ‘uptake rate’ within the community of those participating in revolutionary protests is much higher than that. But of the 20 people I interviewed in Cairo, only around half were on Twitter (while almost all of them were on Facebook), despite the fact that my sample of interviewees exclusively comprised middleclass and upper middle-class activists, the demographic with the highest degree of new media connectivity.

Optimal Twitter use in fact requires owning a smart-phone which, given its expense, is materially inaccessible to the great majority of Egyptians, including many from the middle class. Moreover, it entails a higher level of education, and a better knowledge of the English language than does Facebook.

As Hannah El-Sissi points out, ‘you cannot use Twitter much if you are an Arabic speakers, things like hashtags, the main features of Twitter cannot be used if you only have an Arabic keyboard’. In fact, during the 18-day revolution itself, most of the tweets on popular hashtags like #jan25, #tahrir, #egypt were written in English (Wislson and Dunn, 2011: 1271). Since the fall of Mubarak, and the increasing popularity gained by Twitter in the wake of the uprising, more people have started writing in Arabic or the local dialect Ammeya, but the top tw2eeps continue for the most part to write in English.

Given the limited audience that could be reached at home through Twitter, its main role was thus mainlyas a means of eliciting ‘external attention’ (Aday et al., 2010), ‘as a key resource for getting information to the outside world, perpetuating the feeling that the world was watching, which was an important factor for morale. and coordination on the ground (Wilson and Dunn, 2011: 1252). During the days of the revolution, famous activist ‘tweeps’ like Gigi Ibrahim (@Gsquare86), and Mahmoud Salem (@sandmonkey) allowed people abroad to follow minute by minute the events taking place in the Egyptian streets.

Such tactical use of Twitter was to be further refined in the protests taking place after the revolution, aimed at the SCAF. For example during the clashes in Mohammed Mahmoud street in November 2011, in which over 70 protesters were killed, activists used the #TahrirNeeds hashtag to share information about medicine and other materials required by field hospitals and other logistical issues. Arguably more important than these tactical affordances has been Twitter’s role in creating a sense of emotional cohesion within the upper-middleclass activist community, as illustrated by the selection of messages published in the book Tweets from Tahrir (Nunns and Soueif, 2011). On the eve of the 25th of January protests, @TravellerW confessed ‘Yes, I’m worried about tomorrow. Which is exactly why I am going – we cannot, will not let them scare us-#25Jan’, while @monasosh condensed well the emotions of the eve in three words; ‘scared, excited and hopful #Jan25’ While providing a platform for generating a sense of solidarity within the activist elite, their intensive Twitter use has, however, run the risk of isolating these leaders from the feelings and experience of poorer and less internet-connected Egyptian. It is worth nothing the most of the Egyptian top tweeps are children of rich upper-middle-class families.

They almost invariably live in luxurious neighborhoods like Nasr City, Heliopolis, Maadi and Zamalek, and have been educated in English schools and then at the exclusive American University in Cairo. Their frequent

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visits to the US and the UK, to receive prizes or participate in TV shows, have drawn harsh comments from within the movement, and accusations that they are detached from the experience of common people in Egypt.

While some of these tweeps have become activist stars abroad, they are almost unknown inside Egypt, as testified by the fact that the bulk of my Egyptian interviewees had never heard of them. Indicative of this mismatch between global fame and relative local obscurity is the fact that those few Twitter activists who ran for the 2011 parliamentary elections were badly defeated. Among them was the witty blogger and tweep Mahmoud Salem (@sandmonkey), who enjoys a following of 70,000 people on Twitter, but managed to secure only 16,000 votes in the Heliopolis constituency.

In the months following the revolution, some activists have recognized this danger of disconnection from the broader populace and have developed new practices combining social media with street-level agitation. In fact, for some, the amount of time dedicated to maintaining their Twitter streams runs the risk of taking precious energy away from campaigning both on-the-ground and through more accessibly forms of internet communication. This problem has been explicitly denounced by the activist tweep Hassan Hamed, one of the promoters of Tweet Shara’a (#tweetshare3), which translates in English as ‘tweet the streets’. As part of this initiative young.

For Salma Hegab, 21-year-old activist and co-founder of #tweetshare3, ‘it is true that activists have been thinking too much about talking among themselves and that they did lose touch with Egyptian population at large. Many have enclosed themselves in a comfortable activist-only internet world.’ The fact is that, as Nour Ayman Nour observes, ‘internet circles become an echo room where everyone is hearing each other. They are hearing their own views being bounced back. And sometimes there is an increasing divide between the internet community and the people on the streets.’ In the aftermath of the revolution, as protests continue against military rule, Egyptian activists are still trying to find a balance between the use of social media and local street campaigning. In so doing, they are creating a hybrid of the two, a mediated public space, as signaled by the appearance of Twitter hashtags as graffiti tags on the walls of Cairo during any renewed wave of mobilization against the military council.

CONCLUSION Social media played a crucial role in the Egyptian revolution, but not an exhaustive one. They were crucial for motivating the core constituency of the movement, the so-called shabab-alfacebook and for constructing aq choreography of assembly to facilitate its coming together in public space. However, social media alone would not have ‘done the trick’ without young internet-connected activists also engaging in street-level agitation to cross the digital divide and engage with the lower classes. When social media are not used in interaction with face-to-face communication, they can exacerbate social tendencies towards fragmentation and seclusion as seen in the case of the ‘Twitter pashas’. In conclusion, it issembly during the Egyptian revolution, and on the digital activists who acted as the choreographers.

The revolution has often been described by pundits and journalists as essentially leaderless and spontaneous; and indeed this supposed ‘leaderlessness’ is what made it so attractive to anti-authoritarian activists throughout Europe and the US. The account proposed in this chapter suggests a more complex picture. Although the revolution did not throw up a singular charismatic leader who grabbed all the attention (even if Wael Ghonim came close to being one), it was characterized by the leading role taken by one section of s society, the shabab-al-Facebook, which came to act as the catalyst for the process of mass mobilization Besides social media and street communication, a wide range of other forms of communication also played a role in mobilizing participants. The television channel of course, in particular Al-Jazeera and its Egyptian spin-off Al-Jazeera Mubashir, which became a mass medium for the channeling of information about the events taking place (Miles, 2011; Cottle, 2011). More could also be said about the role of newspapers and street media like flyers and posters, which also had an important role in the ecology of communication of the movement. .

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Web Aesthetics, Cyber Kitsch & Sarcasm Societies

Chapter Four:

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Web Aesthetics, Cyber Kitsch & Sarcasm Societies Chapter Four:

The concept that networking is art is loaded with meaning, since it unites two seemingly different worlds: the practices of networking with that of art. In this context, however, the two are perfectly integrated. To network means to create relationship networks, in order to share experiences and ideas in the context of a communicative exchange, and an artistic experimentation in which the sender and the receiver, the artist and the public, act on the same plane.

The art of networking is shaped by weaving open relational dynamics that are coming into being, and, in many cases, difficult to define. Even those who produce this type of art (or have produced it) often do not define it as such, or rather prefer to not limit it with some agreed upon categorization.

Until recently, the term “art” has rarely been used to connote artistic activities on line. Instead an attempt was made to define these practices by creating micro categories, often sources of ambiguities (and vivid contrasts!) even among those in the know. A point of view that is perfectly rooted in the rejection of the concept of art belonging to the artistic Avant-garde; from Dadaism to Futurism and Surrealism, up until the Neo-Avant-garde of the 1960s, which, in any case, took place within the art circuits.

In general, there seems to be great confusion surrounding the various definitions, which go from net art (or net. art, with a period between net and art) to web art, hacker art, new media art, cyber art, electronic art and digital art. In many cases however the difference among these practices is real and can be documented.

Terms like net.art (with a dot between net and art) or hacker art refer to a series of practices and events that are created during specific phases of the development of a critical approach to the web, as we will see in the following pages. Sometimes however, categorical definitions run the risk of delimitating a scope of action on the basis of how it came into being, generating distinctions of belonging among those who recognize a term as more or less valid as another, on the basis of “community perception” or on one’s own artistic history.

Terms like net.art (with a dot between net and art) or hacker art refer to a series of practices and events that are created during specific phases of the development of a critical approach to the web, as we will see in the following pages. Sometimes however, categorical definitions run the risk of delimitating a scope of action on the basis of how it came into being, generating distinctions of belonging among those who recognize a term as more or less valid as another, on the basis of “community perception” or on one’s own artistic history.

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At the same time, it is no longer enough to define these practices in terms of the medium used. The art of networking is transversal to the arts that are characterized by a medium of communication and realization: it can travel through mail art, web art, video art, computer art, net.art, software art, ASCII art, media art in the broad sense. For this reason, it is possible to say, without reading too much into it, that Networking was an art and it still is.

The Net as Artwork, therefore freeing itself from the prejudices of the past and re- appropriating itself of a term that, in its conceptual vastness, allows it to embrace different practices, without forcing them into rigid forms, leaving them free to transform themselves through the inter-weaving of links that are always new. It is art outside the box, which comprises, as we shall see, numerous spheres of action.The term “art” can help to critically refer to a series of activities that hinge on the construction of connections, community networks and relationship networks between heterogeneous subjects. t is above all in contexts outside of the gallery and museum circuit that the possibility of experimenting with art as collective inter-action is truly materialized: moving the debate from the artistic realm to daily social reality. This dates back to the 1970s with the graffiti artists and with the punk movement and is carried through to the counterculture digital networks and the current hacker movement.

This network is comprised of activists, artists, and collectives that promote and apply the self-managed use of media in their own actions, defining self-management as the self-organization and self-production of communication media and artistic practices.

In punk, a movement which constitutes the basis for many practices of future artistic and technological activism in Italy, the concept of self-management (DIY) is manifested in the willingness to undermine the opposition between the amateur and the professional, showing that it is possible to self produce one’s own art (music, magazines, information material, etc.) outside of the market circuits.Within the sphere of the practices of the graffiti artists, DIY is manifested in the act of personalizing the walls surrounding their lives with tags, activating a moving communication between various anonymous identities.

This journey begins at the time of the historic Avant-gardes. During this era we moved towards constructing a mass society as a direct consequence of the metropolitan crowd affirming itself as a social object (clearly visible in the first Universal Expositions of the second half of the nineteenth century).

In the Cubist and Dadaist collages, fragments of daily life such as train tickets, newspaper articles, snapshots, common objects like bottles, hats, bicycle wheels, irons become part of the art world. In Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1917 work Fountain, a urinal becomes a work of art, simply through the artist’s “gesture” of legitimizing it as such, by signing it. The practice of “readymade” de-contextualizes an object, attributing new and different meanings to it. “Readymade” gives way to the beginning of those artistic practices that turn everyday objects into works of art; unhinging the traditional concept of the work of art itself. The work can also be a common object, which becomes art simply after the artist decides that it does.

The practice of “readymade” was advanced in the 1950s by the New Dada in the United States and by the Nouveau Realisme in Europe; not only giving life to compositions of daily objects, which are reconnected to the collages of the historic Avant-garde, but also inserting discarded objects. For example, the Poubelles series

by Fernandez Arman reminds us of the work of the Dadaist Kurt Schwitters, who composed assemblages with used and degraded materials. Instead, Robert Rauschenberg associates the gestural painting of Action Painting with fragments of the everyday.

The same presence of the everyday is in the Pop art of the 1960s, in which the standardization of industrial production takes on an artistic value. The idea of reinserting life within art is also found in Piero Manzoni, who worked in the wake of the pop wave in the 1960s. In 1961 he produced a work composed of a numbered series of tin cans of the now famous “Artist’s Shit” research on the “art-life” relationship is reconnected to the performances and to the happenings of the end of the 1950s. Work-events that affirmed themselves especially in the following decade, determined an ever increasing bond between artistic practices and concrete experiences

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The work of art materializes until it becomes an event, following the path initially laid by Giacomo Balla and Fortunato Depero in the Theatre of Futuristic Objects and with the Dada evening shows. With the happenings, a form of art gained ground and it continued to develop, almost completely, eliminating the objectual component. Art becomes action and the spectator is invited to personally intervene; to participate in the process. In these artistic practices the non-predictable is played upon: art wants to be discovery, experience, compartmental practice, interaction.

During the “actions” of Allan Kaprow, the creator of the happenings as work- events, the collaborators acted by following a script. Even though the starting point was known, the work resulted from the combined action of the artists and spectators. With the practice of the happenings we see the beginning of a form of Intermedial art that unites theatrical, musical, literary, pictorial and sculptural expressions. Fluxus has tried to eliminate the barriers between composer and those who listen, between the artist and those who observe, actively maintaining a constant dialogue. The birth of the Fluxus movement is set in the period that dates from the end of the 1950s to the beginning of the 1960s.

Mail art is a network of relationships constructed through the postal circuit, and in practice it is exercised by sending and receiving letters, cards or anything else one wants, from all over the world, establishing “virtual” ties with many other individuals, united simply by the interest in communicating. Mail art, especially because it remains outside of the artistic business circuits, has always been considered the Cinderella of art, but in the end, this was its fortune, because no one ever really historicized it and it has always preserved that character of originality and novelty that today makes it unique and always current.

An important aspect that emerges from this reflection is precisely the meaning of gifting, the idea of making art to then give it away. It is the capacity of creating horizontal networks not based on profit, but based rather on the notion of creating spontaneous relationships and therefore central to mail art. Even for this reason, mail art is also alive today, for it is based on relational mechanisms part of our daily living and feeling, which go beyond the fashion of the moment1 During the 1960s and 1970s there grew the desire to progressively open art up to everyday life, with the intent of examining the concept of the Avant-garde. The latter was seen as an elitist phenomenon confined within the walls of museums and galleries. At the end of the 1970s, the movement that best distilled the idea of breaking away from the tradition of art and music, was punk, which, in Italy, was most prominent in the early 1980s. A rebellion “made up of intolerance and refusal, but also of urgency for freedom - giving a communicative sense to one’s own life” The point of departure is the opposition to the idea that the 1980s were to be considered nihilistic and indifferent to every type of antagonistic political practice. The main theme that ties these actions together remains the idea of Do It Yourself (through self-produced magazines, independent labels, radio programs, records, video, movie reviews), making them promoters of concrete actions on the political and social level, with the goal of creating horizontal networks and communities (at least ideally) which give life to a new form of procedural and collective art. Do It Yourself means to personally create, in an independent manner, outside of the commercial and market environment. Do It Yourself is contrary to the traditional logic of parties, to delegating, to leadership and it offers itself up as a form of direct governance, unconcerned with party leaders, bringing the idea of collectively producing something to the creative level; often thanks to a network of friendly, cultural and political relations. For this reason, whoever has gravitated towards the panorama of Do It Yourself has often had some reservations about joining leftist political movements, even when they were extra-parliamentary formations, due to the rejection of the concept of delegation and leadership, which are instead the products of these contexts.

These considerations, that view the work of art as a pattern of relationships and “resource transfers” between persons, collective projects and institutions, have developed today in Tommaso Tozzi’s activity on historical documentation of the hacktivism practices and new media art, over the Hacker Art site <www.hackerart.org> and the WikiArtPedia project, the Free Encyclopaedia of Art and Cultures of the Networks, produced with the contributions of students in his courses at the Fine Arts Academy in Carrara (where Tozzi is the Director of the

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Department of Multimedia Arts), the Faculty of Formation Sciences, University of Florence and RAI Master course in Multimedia <www.wikiartpedia.org>.

Today hacking is immediately connected to computer technology, yet the first hacking practices date back to when calculators still used punch cards. In general, the origin of hacker culture is set in the early 1960s, when the first PDP- 1s began circulating in MIT laboratories in Boston, and a research committee was set up at the Tech Model Railroad Club which then created the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In the 1970s hacker practices acquired identity thanks to the use of ARPANET, the first high speed transcontinental computer network, to the point of intervening in the creation of the Silicon Valley phenomenon, paving the way for those who would later build empires, taking advantage of the institutions that emerged from down low.

In various texts we can read the history of hackers at length and reconstruct this path. The most reliable source for correct definition of the term hacker is “Jargon File” <www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/>, the most famous hacker dictionary (recognised as such by them), originally written by Raphael Finkel (Stanford University) and currently maintained by Eric S. Raymond. In The Jargon File (the first version dated 1973) eight definitions are given for the term hacker: [1] A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users’ Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular.

[2] One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming; [3] A person capable of appreciating hack value; [4] A person who is good at programming quickly; [5] An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in ‘a Unix hacker’.

[Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.]; [6] An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example; [7] One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations; [8] (deprecated) A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence password hacker, network hacker. The correct term for this sense is cracker The Netstrike is an on-line strike, a means of collective participation for web surfers, aimed at carrying forth demonstrative actions on, but not only on, the Internet, a way to make the most of the network’s social and political potential. The first Netstrike took place on the 21st of December 1995, conceived and promoted by the Strano Network group, against the nuclear experiments by the French government in the Pacific Ocean, at Mururoa.

The operation of ten of the French government’s sites was considerably slowed down thanks to the joint action of various net-demonstrators who simultaneously concentrated the activity of their browser on the Internet addresses that were the object of the protest, repeatedly reloading the pages and clearing the cache so that the pages had to be completely reloaded every time. Participation was good and connection to the server of the “incriminated” sites was slowed down considerably, making clear the social and political protest action of the net-demonstrators.

The first Netstrike in 1995 was followed by many others: in 1996 a Netstrike for Chiapas and later against the American legal system for the cases of Mumia Abu Jamal and Silvia Baraldini (the White House site was blocked for twelve hours); in 1998 the Electronic Disturbance Theatre promoted a global Netstrike against

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Zedillo, the Pentagon and the Frankfurt stock market; again in 1998 there was a Netstrike in Italy against the clearance of the CPA Social Center in Florence; in 1999 a Netstrike was organised against the war in ex-Yugoslavia; in 2000 there was a protest against the OECD and a few months later against the site of the Comune of Milan because of the clearance of many Milanese social centres and the site was blocked for more than three hours. In fact, over the years Netstrike has become a widespread practice on the web to combat various forms of oppression. Along with the fight for protecting cyber-rights, this enters in the group of practices that see the web as a territory for carrying forward libertarian strategies and social battles.

From the second half of the 1990s up to today, there have been three basic passages in net art practices: the mass diffusion of the Internet as a chance to make the preceding computer utopias real, the progressive identification of networking practices inside well defined communities and the use of the Internet as a reinforcement platform for everyone’s own artistic work.These passages are quite evident if we consider the difficulty in finding definitions for the practices of networking art that took shape in the second half of the 1990s and today already begin being inserted in a historical context through various curatorial or publishing initiatives.

A Movement of Images From the 20th to the 22nd of July 2001, during the three days of the G8 in Genoa, the media focused their attention on a new political and social subject and immediately labelled it “Anti-Globalisation”. This term was used by many journalists to identify an anticapitalist battle and opposition movement against the main world powers, increasingly pervasive on the political and economic level. Actually the term “Anti-Globalisation” is an approximate construction to find a name for practices that are hard to define with just two words and to superficially lump together different social and political practices, with very different histories, going from pacifism to battling for human rights, from militancy in the basic organisations to anarchy. These subjects have in common the will to resist the capitalist interests of industrialised countries that decide for the rest of the world and oppose the consequent economic and political levelling of the planet dictated by the dynamics of power.

The actions of these collectives, groups and individuals, closely join and intersect during various world events, the first one in Seattle in 1999. The World Trade Organization meeting took place here and for the first time a global movement took on international visibility to the extent that journalists called it “the Anti-Globalisation movement”, and later in Italy, “the movement of movements”.

There would be a lot to say about this, and much has been said. In particular, if we pause on the networking dynamics that interest us in this context, and that relate to the practices described in the previous chapters, one factor seems to characterise these experiences strongly: the capability of developing media strategies, acquiring visibility starting from grassroots and, in particular, the “tactical” use of information and the Internet as a networking platform. Various associations are starting to use the web to distribute information and coordinate protests, and the Internet becomes one of the main media platforms to describe the Genoa events. “Don’t hate the media, become the media”, becomes the slogan of one of the most highly participated events at the end of the 1900s and the early 2000s, which was to be a very important information tool in that enflamed July 2001 in Genoa: Indymedia <www.indymedia.org>.

On an international level, Indymedia was founded in 1999 in Seattle during the WTO protests. The collective that started the first Indymedia node, named Indymedia Seattle <http://seattle.indymedia.org>, comes from the experience of a group of Chicago activists called Countermedia and the tradition of the London project Reclaim the Streets1. Indymedia then spread from Boston to Washington in the US, later involving many other countries from Europe to Australia2.

Indymedia soon made a name for itself as the “activists medium”. It is still a broad platform where one can read information directly from the activists and demonstrators during the protests, get daily updates on world events described from “another” point of view, display videos, images, photos, listen to audio files and create networking. This is possible locally, using the site’s newswire, the open publishing space where anyone can post, and internationally in connection with the other Indymedia sites shown in the links of each national site.

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The spread of these memes is quite rapid.

It’s always fascinating when a cultural artifact, for unspecified reasons, gets the attention of an audience it wasn’t initially conceived for. Surprising things can happen. Oceanic statues were mainly conceived for cultural means, without aesthetic issues in mind, but when they got into the hands of that cultural élite known in Western countries as the “avant-garde,” they inspired Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, among others. Similarly, when talented geeks like Quentin Tarantino understood that B-movies, from Spaghetti Westerns to Korean kung-fu films, were more useful than Antonioni or Kurosawa, in order to give birth to a refined, intellectual yet engaging postmodern cinema, a bunch of good artisans working for a mass audience with bad taste turned into “authors” and subjects of devotion for a new generation.

In both these cases, we see a cultural élite appropriating an offspring of a given popular culture. But what happens when it goes the other way around? When, generally speaking, a broader audience starts watching and commenting a cultural artifact originally meant for a small group of happy few? This is something that rarely happened in the past, and when it happened, it usually took a long time. However, today, mainly thanks to the Internet, this process is becoming more and more usual. And it can even happen that a work of performance art, played in front of a small audience and recorded with a video camera, makes its way on YouTube and gets the attention of about 200,000 people in a couple of days (and many more in the following weeks), suddenly turning into what is generally called an “Internet meme.”

The concept of “meme” was first introduced in 1976 by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene.1According to Dawkins, Darwinian principles could be used to explain the proliferation and circulation of ideas and other cultural phenomena. Thus, a meme is an idea that behaves like a gene: it has no purpose beyond its own reproduction, it evolves by natural selection, and it spreads through human brains via a process of imitation.

After Dawkins, a whole memetic theory2 was developed to explain how popular culture works. More recently, the Internet has proven to be the ideal ground for the contagious circulation of ideas, to the point that the very concept of meme revealed memetic qualities, evolving from a hard academic concept into a catchword and adapting to the peculiar social structure of the Web. Thus, even if theorists like Henry Jenkins criticized the term and proposed to change it into “spreadable media,” which underlines the role of the user in the circulation of memes instead of describing her as the passive host of an idea that self-replicates, the term is still successful in online communities3.

An Internet meme is any idea that “goes viral” and is propagated through the Web. It can take the form of an image, a hyperlink, a video, a website, a phrase or even a practice, and it can spread via social networks, blogs, forums, emails, etc.

It can travel between different media and it can evolve in surprising ways. One of the first Internet memes ever was the Dancing Baby, a 3D rendering of a baby performing a cha-cha type dance. Developed as a product sample source file in 1996 by the same firm that released 3D Studio Max, it became the subject of plenty of videos, static images, and animated gifs, populating homepages and finally making its way into mainstream media (from commercials to the popular TV series Ally McBeal). Google it and you’ll still find hundreds of iterations.

An Internet meme can be easily monitored in its circulation: if it’s hard to say how many people are whistling a popular tune from a TV commercial, it’s relatively easy to check out how many people accessed a YouTube video, or browsed a given keyword in Google. Furthermore, even if many Internet memes are still rooted in mainstream popular culture, many of them aren’t. For the first time the Internet is providing a publication platform where almost everything can become a meme if it responds to certain needs. Thus, the amateur video of a fat teenager dancing and singing “Numa Numa Dance,” or using a golf-ball retriever as a laser sword, may (unintentionally) reach wide popularity, while many videos made by other people doing similar things don’t.

Even if rooted in mainstream media or popular culture, some ideas may need further elaboration in order to start their new life as a meme. Everyone uploads funny pictures of cats on the Web, but LOLcats became an Internet meme only when many people started adding words on these pictures to make them speak. Similarly,

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the more recent “Handsome Face” meme was started when some guy on an online forum made and shared a blank template derived from the DC Comics animated film Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. This effeminatelooking Superman was later turned by other users into a plenty of different characters, from Pikachu to the “Finder” face icon so familiar to Mac users.

This starting point is usually provided by a large online community of people sharing common interests and jargon. For example, both LOLcats and the “Handsome Face” meme-like many other Internet memesflourished out of 4chan,4 an image-based bulletin board started in 2003 by the American teenager Christopher Poole, who until 2008 was only known with his 4chan nickname, “m00t.” 4Chan defines itself as “a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images.” Its loosely designed platform features many boards, on issues such as Japanese culture, video games, television, technology, weapons, fashion, and sex. You don’t need to register to post on boards. That’s why “Anonymous” has become the main character playing on 4chan, and the signature behind many of the “raids” perpetrated by 4channers both online and offline. With a critical mass of users (the site is among the first 600 most visited websites, according to Alexa Traffic Rank), 4chan is, still, almost invisible to search engines. This makes it a strong online community, where bad behaviors and collective practices are rooted in a radical sense of freedom.

A screenshot of Google Images displaying 241543903 Head in a Freezer, by David Horvitz. But why has 4chan become such a successful meme generator? The first reason is, no doubt, the number of its active users.

If the community gets interested in a YouTube video, it can easily influence its popularity just by visiting it.

Furthermore, it’s because of the high range of hacking capabilities of such a community. An example may be useful to understand this. In 2009, Time featured m00t as a candidate for 2009’s 100 Most Influential Person online poll. The 4chan community used all its hacking abilities in order to manipulate the poll and bring him to the top of the list. The hack was so successful that it not only brought m00t “to handily beat the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Oprah Winfrey,”5 as the Time staff wrote, but it also managed to order the top 21 people listed in the poll in such a way that their first names spelled out a secret message: “mARBLE CAKE ALSO THE GAME”.

In September 2010, “Anonymous” published an article in the online magazine Art Fag City, with the blunt headline: “What Relational Aesthetics Can Learn From 4Chan.”6 The article, lately claimed by artist Brad Troemel, discussed 4chan as possibly the best embodiment of the concept of relational aesthetics, proposed by art critic Nicolas Bourriaud in the late nineties. According to Troemel, while artists like Rirkrit Tiravanija or Liam Gillick failed in making true relational art because they operated in “institutions that must place emphasis on individual creators to maintain their financial well-being,” “a better example of the theory of RA succinctly put into action can be seen in anonymous group activities on the Internet, where people form relations and meaning without hierarchy.” Thus in 4chan, anonymous, non-hierarchical collective activity does not only express itself through posting, commenting, and manipulating internet content, but also through collective performances such as “mARBLE CAKE ALSO THE GAME” and many other raids.

It must be noticed that the links between 4chan and contemporary art practice are not limited to its relational structure. Even if 4chan has never been claimed as an art project, the way it lets you share, comment, and manipulate Internet content has a lot in common, as Troemel noted, with so-called “surfing clubs.” Surfing clubs are group blogs started by small groups of Internet artists, where they share with their peers not only the findings of their daily Web surfing, but also fragments of their own art practice. Furthermore, a surfing club is a collective art project where the single artist’s contribution to the ongoing dialogue is formalized in the shape of a blog post. As artist and curator Marcin Ramocki noted: “The older, the club, the more convoluted, the semiotics of communication between surfers becomes. This communication entails posting organized content by a challenger, and a decoding of it by other participants, who respond with a posting where both syntagms and paradigms of the challenge post are identified and playfully manipulated.”(Ramocki) Group blogs started appearing online around 2002. The first surfing club (Nasty Nets) was launched in 2006,

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soon followed by many others, including Supercentral, Double Happiness, Loshadka, and Spirit Surfers.7 Though most of them are still active today, new developments in Web 2.0 technology fostered, in following years, the development of new forms of “productive systems,” as Brad Troemel addresses them in another article.8 One of them is dump.fm, a Web-based chat environment started in 2010 by a team of four artists, which “allow[s] pictures to be used for realtime communication and collaboration.”9 Today, dump.fm is used by a relatively small community of artists actively involved in the development of a new vocabulary consisting exclusively of images. Another recent productive system is Canvas, Christopher Poole’s new project, now in its beta release and accessible by invitation only. Canvas is a venture-backed startup, working “to create the best place to share and play with images.”10 If it isn’t, or doesn’t want to be, an “artists’ community” is fair because “share and play with images” is no more an artists-only activity.

This short overview of things that should deserve a better explanation is just meant to show how 4chan, though not meant as an art project, shares a lot of elements with a long tradition of online collaboration between artists, who some way brought it to new developments. Furthermore, the practice of raids finds its roots in an even longer tradition of online massive performances, mainly developed by artists and activists through events such as the first, pioneering Netstrikes11-massive attacks on a target website developed by simply accessing, at a given time, the same website-and Toywar (1999-2000)-an online war against the Internet toy retailer eToys.com, caused by its attempt to stop the activities of the art group etoy on its domain etoy.com. In this latter case, etoy was able to coordinate around 2,000 “toysoldiers,” each fighting against eToys with her own instruments: writing articles, circulating press releases, creating banners and a complex iconography based on the manipulation of Lego puppets, entering eToys investor forums, and circulating fake information or attacking directly the company’s website.

Finally, artists are interested in 4chan because of their interest in the ways Internet content is generated and spreads. One of the first attempts to study “contagious media” and apply to art its peculiar dynamics was started as early as 2001 by New York-based artist Jonah Peretti. His platform, contagiousmedia.org,12 provides analysis of contagious media phenomena as well as some of the artist’s projects, including Black People Love Us (2002), “the homepage of two white people bragging about having black friends,” which provoked an extensive debate on racial politics. Another artist strongly interested in memes is Jamie Wilkinson, one of the founders of The Know Your Meme Database (since 2008), which discusses and documents most Internet memes.13 Occasionally, artists contributed to launch or spread some widely known internet memes: thus, dump.fm had a central role in the circulation of Deal With It, “an image macro series and catchphrase used as a retort when someone disapproves something,” and consisting of “a picture of someone looking smug with sunglasses.14 Artist David Horvitz started the successful meme 241543903 Head in a Freezer (2009) based on a very simple set of instructions: “Take a photograph of your head inside a freezer. Upload this photo to the Internet (like flickr). Tag the file with: 241543903. The idea is that if you search for this cryptic tag, all the photos of heads in freezers will appear. I just did one.”15 You just have to paste the number in your Google search bar to see how this Fluxus-like instruction-based performance made its way online.

Another example of how artists are eager to contribute to the online elaboration of a shared culture has been provided recently by the artists duo Eva and Franco Mattes. In 2010, they made a sculpture consisting of a small yellow taxidermy bird perched atop a birdcage that imprisons an angry-looking taxidermy cat. The sculpture was later shown at Inman Gallery Annex, in Houston, TX, as a work by the well-known contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan, and praised and discussed as such until the artists sent out a press release claiming the authorship of the work. In an article published on Rhizome in December, 2010, they explained how they came up with this idea: “I was in the middle of one of these epic arguments with an artist friend of mine. He was saying how this generation of Internet addicts and geeks is wasting his time online. I, on the other hand, was advocating Internet creativity, saying how in any given moment the Internet creates more art than any artist will ever do over his entire life. Such art is created by anonymous for anonymous and circulates freely. As often happens, I got pretty upset and decided I wanted to prove he was wrong. So we made a bet: ‘We open 4chan.org, and the first image that appears will become a work of art by one of the biggest artists in the world.’ What will come out

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of the experiment will determine who is right. We did it, and the first image that appeared, unsurprisingly, was a Lolcat.” (Mattes) What they did was simply to turn this product of Internet creativity into a sculpture, and to repurpose it into another discursive context: the art context. In the meantime, the photograph of the sculpture made its way online, where it was obviously understood as a Lolcat and modified accordingly by anonymous Internet users.

INTERIOR SEMIOTICS This seemingly eternal dialogue between two different discursive contexts can be seen in action in another infamous example, the so-called SpaghettiO’s meme. The starting point was the video documentation, posted on Youtube, of Interior Semiotics, an art performance staged by the young artist Natacha Stolz, a student at the Art Institute of Chicago, on the occasion of a group show in March, 2010.16 In the eight minute video, the artist opens a can of SpaghettiO’s, pours its content into a pan, and adds water while reciting a nihilistic poem.

Then, she mutters her poem backwards while rubbing the SpaghettiO’s onto her shirt, cuts open her denim leggings, and puts her dirty fingers into her vagina. Finally, she urinates into the empty can of SpaghettiO’s and takes off her shirt, using it to wipe up the mess. When she exits the room, the audience applauds.

Interior Semiotics is the kind of content that can lay on YouTube for years without getting more than 30 views.

And that’s what actually happened until August, 2010, when someone posted the video on 4chan. In 48 hours, the video accumulated over 200,000 views, entered the “Most Viewed” page on YouTube, and was posted on many other blogs and content aggregators. On 4chan, the video elicited some extreme responses, a reaction caused not only by the performance, but more often by the people watching it, described as “hipsters.” While image macros and many other kinds of derivative content were created and circulated online, some 4channers were able to find Stolz’s Facebook account and befriend her, in order to appropriate and manipulate personal content and threaten her by email and by phone.17 Yet, 4channers weren’t the only responsible party for all the reaction materials that the video produced. When it went viral, many other people started posting comments, reaction videos (videos in which a YouTube user records herself while watching a given video), mash-ups, and parodies. While I’m writing, the original video has been watched on YouTube by 1,112,221 people, and gained 1,539 “I like it” and 15,680 “I don’t like it” clicks.

This visibility, along with the number and kinds of reactions the video produced, is pretty amazing for a work of contemporary art, and much more for a student’s artwork. And, together with the previous examples, it raises many questions, most of which remain unanswered at the present time. What does it mean for contemporary art to be viewed and discussed on such a broad platform? What happens when it gets out from the safe niche culture that produces and supports it? Can this reception be considered an art practice in itself, a perfect example of relational aesthetics, as Troemel suggests? Or, possibly, a new form of art criticism? Can a video or an image be turned into a form of public art just by publishing it on the Web? Can all this change the source code of contemporary art, making it less a thing for hipsters and more a thing for broader, less passive, and more participative, audiences? And, last but not least, can all of this make us forget the context-based definition of art-it is art because it happens in the art world-that takes course through the XXI century and opens a new era in which art could take place everywhere, involve everybody, and enter everybody’s home at zero costs?

To those savvy with specific communities of the internet, a meme is easily recognizable, but at this juncture two understandings will have to be made. The first is of the meme as the “internet meme”, that of the “inside joke” passed on through the web (Such as Dramatica’s definition I will outline later). The second is of the meme as coined by Richard Dawkins, which I will return to later. This distinction will allow for a more understandable analysis of the two concepts later on in the study. While the internet meme is a subject that could fill a book with a thorough analysis, I will attempt to assess the concept in a manner that provides a detailed outline of some of the key issues surrounding it. Essentially, this case study will boil down to an analysis of the legitimacy of the term meme as a descriptor for the notion of the “internet meme” and find that a better framework is needed for analysis of these cultural objects as merely placing the notion of the “internet meme”

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into current frameworks becomes problematic.

Being that this is a gaming culture website I will attempt to justify this essay beforehand. Often within gaming culture memes will become commonplace within gaming culture, and reside on gaming forums and other make way into other gaming locales. Because of this I feel that an analysis into “internet memes” is a justified one for this blog.

To those savvy with specific communities of the internet, a meme is easily recognizable, but at this juncture two understandings will have to be made. The first is of the meme as the “internet meme”, that of the “inside joke” passed on through the web (Such as Dramatica’s definition I will outline later). The second is of the meme as coined by Richard Dawkins, which I will return to later. This distinction will allow for a more understandable analysis of the two concepts later on in the study. While the internet meme is a subject that could fill a book with a thorough analysis, I will attempt to assess the concept in a manner that provides a detailed outline of some of the key issues surrounding it. Essentially, this case study will boil down to an analysis of the legitimacy of the term meme as a descriptor for the notion of the “internet meme” and find that a better framework is needed for analysis of these cultural objects as merely placing the notion of the “internet meme” into current frameworks becomes problematic.

Being that this is a gaming culture website I will attempt to justify this essay beforehand. Often within gaming culture memes will become commonplace within gaming culture, and reside on gaming forums and other make way into other gaming locales. Because of this I feel that an analysis into “internet memes” is a justified one for this blog.

Firstly, why the internet? While the memes in this case have a specific locale, the internet, that is not always the case as will be seen later. However I want to focus on the memes that have originated from specific cultures on the internet as to avoid branching out too far and causing confusion. So what is an internet meme? To begin to answer this I will first turn to a look at what I have found through my experience traversing web sites that carry an understanding of the “internet meme” in their culture Before continuing I want to warn that the two websites I am going to mention are very not safe for work or “NSFW” as it is known. The websites are known for containing racism, sexism, pornography and many other forms of offensive material. Please only follow the links to these sites at your own risk. Any further “not safe for work” links will be tagged with (NSFW). Links to these sites will not be given unless specific reference is made to their content. The two sites I will speak of are known as 4chan.org, specifically the /b/ section. 4chan is an “image board” where users may post images and comments, which often results in the formation, propagation, and replication of internet memes. The /b/ section is the “Random” section of the website, which I have found to be the most referenced in my travels on the internet. In this section users may post random things to the site, which can often be offensive content, leading the board to have an adult’s only disclaimer prior to entering the site. The other site is Encyclopedia Dramatica (henceforth referred to as Dramatica) which according to Wikipedia is a wiki site that catalogs, among other things, the memes of 4chan and other sites.

I want to mention these sites for two reasons. One is that some may feel that these are the most important sites when discussing internet memes and that leaving the sites out of this case study would raise concerns from others. The second reason is to analyse their appropriation of the notion of the internet meme. The point of this will be to ultimately exemplify how the internet meme has forms and structures of distribution that are separate from the internet culture that surrounds it and as well, a culture surrounding memes. It has recently come to my attention after writing this that Greg Urban also wrote of “structures” in discussing cultural transmission, but the definition used by me here is separate from that of Urban’s and is only used to describe how I see the phenomenon working to the reader, rather than provide any concrete theory about it. Any other terms found in my consideration of the composition of an internet meme should also be considered as such.

Meme Culture

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Some internet websites such as 4chan and Dramatica have specific language surrounding the use of memes.

While I cannot for certain maintain the link between Dramatica and 4chan on the specific language used surrounding memes, I want to stress that this is not the important issue. The references to what language belongs to what website on Dramatica is ambiguous, it could be specifically the language of Dramatica or 4chan, as 4chan is often referenced (NSFW) in articles as one of, or the dominant site of meme production. However, Dramatica stresses that it is not an “extension of /b/” (NSFW). What can be gained from a look at this particular language is not only a first look into internet memes as defined by others, but an example of how the culture surrounding internet memes is separate of their form and structure of distribution when compared to other sites that make use of internet memes. In this case, the comparison will be made to Neogaf, a popular gaming forum on the internet.

Dramatica has a number of ways of talking about memes that would be useful for a breakdown of the basic notion of the internet meme however I cannot cover all of the language for obvious reasons. Dramatica defines a meme as (NSFW) a simple word for describing an internet phenomena or idea, an “inside joke” passed around the internet. Dramatica also defines the notions of old, forced memes and “in real life” memes, which will be looked at briefly. Dramatica notes an old meme (NSFW) as a meme that has been overused, noting these as “tired old jokes” that continue to spread through the net. Forced memes (NSFW) are ones that are intentionally started by someone for the purpose of the meme gaining popularity. Finally they note an “in real life” meme (NSFW) as one that exists socially among small groups, commonly referred to as “inside jokes” that aren’t passed through the web.

What can be seen from this language is that the Dramatica community has an understanding of memes that defines its role within the community, integrating internet memes into its culture. As Malin Sveningsson Elm notes “the internet has become more diversified” . What is meant by this is that online environments and the users of these online environments are “diverse and multifaceted” (Sveningsson Elm 5). She notes that the internet has became an “infinite” amount of differing subcultures which overlap each other (Sveningsson Elm 3). The significance of Svenginsson Elms point can further my argument that the language used by Dramatica is insufficient for analysis of internet memes. While as exemplified previously, the language does explain some basic concepts of internet memes, it fails to realise that the understanding of internet memes does not transgress its own specific community on the internet. Further understanding of this however would be best understood after an analysis of the composition of an internet meme.«lolcats» are image based memes which form is known as a macro

The Composition of an Internet Meme Internet memes take many different forms, they can be images, text, even video to name a few. These internet memes are essentially “ideas” to borrow a basic word from Dramatica for now (NSFW), which are either fabricated for the specific purpose of becoming a meme, referenced for the specific purpose of becoming a meme, or an “idea” simply catches on and spreads throughout an internet community (NSFW) and possibly finds its way to other internet communities. An internet meme is either incorporated into the culture of the community or discarded. The success of the meme on the community seems to be a deciding factor of whether or not it will move to other communities. Internet memes can succeed for a number of reasons, but humour seems to be the dominant reason for a memes success. Here is an instance where Dramatica states “old memes” as unfunny (NSFW), which I consider a testament to humours role in internet meme propagation. Success of an internet meme however, is based on the consensus of a community, whether it is stated or not. If there is no reason to propagate a meme, then it will not be propagated, the participation of others in the “inside joke” is an essential motivating factor in propagating a meme.

This participation is based on the structure of distribution of the internet meme, the community it is being propagated to or within, the toolset and skills of the participator, the form of the internet meme and the meaning of the internet meme. The structure of distribution of the internet meme may influence how an individual may go about participating within the replication, or propagation of a meme. For example a video of Rick Astley singing “Never Gonna Give You Up” can be propagated through the internet by tricking users into clicking

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on a link leading users to the video. Those who clicked on the link were under the assumption the link was to direct them elsewhere. This is called Rickrolling, which is seemingly done for humorous reasons. Rickrolling will be returned to often in this essay as it transgresses many borders I wish to cover.

Thus an individual may participate in this meme by tricking others by linking them to the Rick Astley video.

This can be done across many sites, and is not necessarily restricted to one website, as the meaning can be universal. Participation however is also based on the community it is being propagated to or within, as some communities do indeed share inside jokes, such as this example of the Neogaf.com forum using image editing tools to manipulate the cover of Wolverine #60. Members of the community found this particularly funny and ran with it, creating a meme that revolved around edited images. However if this internet meme, both its structure of distribution and form, are propagated to another community it may or may not catch on as intended. It is possible however if all the members find something particularly interesting about the image (such as finding it humorous) and decide to edit the image in the same vein as Neogaf.

As a side note to promote further understanding of the cultural conception of the internet meme, editing images has long been a ritual of many internet communities, such as Fark.com. Why is it now that some communities decide to denotate these as memes? Neogaf does. It would seem then that the community or individual might not need to recognize the phenomena of internet memes in order to participate in their propagation. Infact, as some memes even cross over to other mediums such as television or even “real life” how could one expect the viewers of the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade who got Rickrolled to even understand what a meme is. What if they don’t even use the internet? Does this mean the term of meme used by some communities is irrelevant? Unlikely, as Dramatica notes (NSFW) it is a simple connotation, but this further demonstrates that the term is a specific cultural understanding separate from the motions carried out by the internet meme Limor Shifman notes as a new internet based humour type “maniphotos” which are humorous images which have been manipulated. For Shifman, maniphotos are separate from just simply a funny photo and it must be clear that the photo has been maniupulated to be a maniphoto. Shifman also notes the skill required to create maniphotos and further suggests that maniphotos became popular with the rise of tools such as Photoshop and as well, “much more humour oriented” . Editing images as I have noted requires specific software and skills.

This could be a hindrance to the individual’s participation, or an improvement, as worse tools combined with a lack of skills are used (Such as MS Paint instead of Photoshop or GIMP) Impact on viewers and participators of the internet meme may go up or down. Similarly with better tools and skills, impact may go up or down.

When noting this, I am referring to the humour I have experienced viewing a poorly edited image, and conversely a very well edited image. On this note, when discussing skills, some memes have a structure that allows individuals to produce “exploitables” (NSFW), as Dramatica would identify them, to aid others in the participation of the internet meme. Neogaf’s Wolverine internet meme original forum topic saw an individual create an image of just the head of “O face Wolverine” for easy editing onto other images. Further “exploitables” were made from this head as well, allowing individuals to be faster in creating edited images and require less skill to create those edits.

That is not to say tools and skills are a key factor in propagating internet memes, but an individuals tools and skills become crucial when considering the form of the meme in relation to the participation in the propagation of an internet meme by individuals. If many individuals in a community lack the skills to propagate an outside meme, such as Neogaf’s Wolverine “O face” if it were to ever leave Neogaf, it may not succeed as it did if it were say posted on a forum where individuals lacked the skills and tools to replicate and propagate it.

However, it should be considered if simply reposting images already created (as being done in this study) could be considered propagating a meme. I would argue that this is not propagation but replication, which could also become propagation when considering the structure and form of the internet meme. For example, if the first image of the Wolverine cover was simply posted and laughed at, it would not become a meme, until it has reached popularity and its structure has been defined. On Neogaf a common practice is to post images in

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response to an individuals posting that could be considered a response in itself. An example of this would be an image of a “shocked” individual in relation to a post that a user considered “shocking”.

The Wolverine #60 internet meme and Star Trek TNG internet meme merge on Neogaf.Thus the internet memes structure would become that of a response image and its form would be an image. As such, simply pasting an internet meme that has the form of an image in another community would have no meaning as an internet meme (unless it was specifically identified as an established internet meme) (NSFW) to the other community until they defined meaning for it, thus simply replicating an internet meme. Propagation here would be defined by success. The Rick Astley video is a simple replication where individuals are linked to a video.

Participators send the video, and participators watch the video, it is only propagated when those who watched the video found meaning in the video and choose to send the video. In theory participators could just post the same image over and over, but this might quickly defeat the memes popularity among communities.

Some communities are even based around specific memes, such as Icanhascheezburger.com with “lolcats” which are images of cats edited into “macros” (NSFW) as displayed earlier in the study. Macros are simply images with words on them that convey meaning. In direct opposition to this however it is also possible for internet memes to merge into one such as this picture of Wolverines “O face” edited onto Jean Luc Picard’s face. Star Trek TNG is a common internet meme on Neogaf. However, what can be inferred then is that an internet meme is subject to the mental processes of those in the community, where it may be appropriated by an individual, and then negotiated through interaction with communities.

Memes and the Mental Process What influences these mental processes? Why participate in the propagation of memes at all? To begin to answer this I want to look at the notion of commercial memes, ones that are propagated by larger corporations.

For example, Dramatica notices the memes propagated through television commercials as “forced memes” (NSFW), and points out some old popular ones such as the Budweiser “Wassup” commercials. Dramatica also notices this as viral marketing.

Mark Deuze, when talking about participation in relation to big media and the individual on the internet, noted a quote from the American Press Institute which argued that media companies need to “reimagine storytelling forms to vie for consumer attention… and they must react to the consumer’s creation of content with awe and respect” . This is in relation to a consideration of participatory news media by Dueze. He notes through Jenkins that this would create a “new participatory folk culture” for news media and allow individuals the tools to archive, annotate and the ones which I consider important to this argument at least, appropriate and recirculate content. He follows by suggesting that this generates low cost content for companies as well as consumer loyalty.

While Dueze may be referring to internet news when discussing these points I feel they refer to the notion of “internet memes” as viral tools of organizations as well, viral is a notion that will be returned to later as well with a discussion of Dawkins’ meme. For an example of the viral effect it is possible to see a new reference to the Wassup “forced meme” on Youtube with an updated version of the Wassup commercial (shown below) by 60Frames which is seemingly meant to promote Obama’s presidency.

The video has over seventeen thousand comments and over six million views as of this posting. It is hard to tell however whether or not this has to do with the references made to the “old meme” as Dramatica would put it, or the controversial statements made within the imagery of the video. However it can be seen how the video uses old references or “memes” to tell its story. Thus “internet memes” can be appropriated and re-circulated in a “new participatory folk culture”. Those that stand to benefit from this sort of participation are those who “forced” this “meme” and those who would benefit from the meaning attached to the propagation of this internet meme, that being a positive one for Obama. Thus it can be inferred that someone stands to benefit from the production of an internet meme.

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Another example of this is the production of the BBC Television show Doctor Who. Neil Perryman notes that within this show there was the phrase “Bad Wolf” which was used in every episode in some fashion.Perryman notes that Doctor Who fan sites were actively participating in discussions of the meme and even other media sources such as The Times was reporting on this.

The two previous examples of Doctor Who and “Wassup” are examples of reasons individuals may find to participate in an internet meme. For those participating in the discussion of the “Wassup” meme, the draw to the old references may have lured them in to the message which would promote Obama, and possibly triggered discussion. For Doctor Who fans, the meme became an interest of the individuals as it was directly related to their interest in the Doctor Who television program. Having explained possibilities for an individuals reasoning for participation in internet meme propagation, a move to analysis of the theoretical understandings of this function is needed.

Memes and Signs Author Matt Tomlinson outlines the notion of the meme of memetics fame. Through Blackmore, he notes that memes are “instructions for carrying out behaviour”, they are “selfish replicators” . These replicators are like genes in that they “survive” with differing levels of success within differing environments. He notes the more defined notion that Blackmore puts forward with the notion that “Memes are instructions for carrying out behaviour, stored in brains (or other objects) and passed on by imitation” .

A meme can be anything that can be reproduced or “replicated” between humans .The transaction has led to the use of metaphors of the meme as parasitic or virus like in nature .Tomlinson notes through Blackmore that the aim of memetics is to use the notion of genetics in understandings of social life. Tomlinson’s concern is raised by the notion of agency when he (in my opinion) rightfully notices the move of agency from human beings to the notion of the meme.

He suggests that memes are supposedly interested in their own survival. This notion leads Blackmore to argue that the internet is merely a creation by memes and not humans to ensure the memes reproduction . Tomlinson also points out the trouble with the concept of the meme. As he is analysing the spread of the meme “failed businessman” he wonders if it is really a meme, or if perhaps the notion of failure is a meme, and as well the notion of businessman.

He then questions if those two terms are indeed the meme and that the notion of failed businessman is a “memeplex”, an “agglomeration” of memes, an example of which, used by Blackmore and noted in Tomlinson, could be a political ideology. Tomlinson then points out the notions that are inherent in the terms failure, businessman, and the notion one must understand when combining the two in regards to the specific Fiji case he is examining, that George Speight threw over the government in Fiji because he was a failed businessman.

This is an unstated association .

Thus he argues that memetics does not understand the specific cultural complexities that exist to give meaning to metaphor by analyzing the lack of success of the meme within Fiji itself to it’s success outside of Fiji.

Tomlinson returns to his concern with memetics lack of agency and lack of place for innovation. He suggests that a successful theory of the “circulation of cultural products” needs to seriously consider notions of human agency as well as desire. With this, Tomlinson turns to Urban’s notion of metaculture. He suggests that metaculture is an understanding of the “cultural commentary” on the products (formerly memes) that move through cultural discourse. Tomlinson suggests that it is cultural commentary because the commentary would be “informed” by culture.

Tomlinson argues that metaculture is a “product” that comments on facets of culture and that this action moves notions through discursive space. With this he uses the example of positive film reviews helping ticket sales,

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and in turn affecting the way individuals incorporate that film catches on in public life . Things are deemed successful or not when compared with prior examples in relation to “cultural criteria” . It must also be evaluated, which would help circulate the “cultural product” commented on, circulate itself and also other related “forms of discourse” . With this he argues that success judgements are “fundamentally metacultural” .

Tomlinson makes a strong argument for the notion of metaculture in explaining the circulation of cultural products. I feel however that this may also be supplemented by the notions found in semiotics/semiology, as the notion of “internet memes” carry much information not only through individuals, but through products of those individuals as well. Take for example the Wolverine images on Neogaf. These images speak through the cultural understandings of the viewer. While comments may be made about the image which may very much influence the interpretation of the image, this possibility cannot always be assumed. Thus something must be said about how the cultural objects interact with our cultural understandings. I first want to look at an argument made by Erkki Kilpinen.

Kilpinen argues that the notion of the meme is an inferior notion to that of the sign from semiotics. He notes semiotics as a discipline that could unite the studies of both culture and nature. Through Thomas Sebeok, he points out that this is possible when understanding language or linguistics as being born of signs, and not the other way around. In further comparison to memes, Kilpinen argues that semiotics reached the notion of evolution in culture prior to memetics and he further notes that the human mind in semiotics can be seen as a “creation of signs” as opposed to memes as memetics would have it. It is also pointed out how Susan Langer discusses something similar to what was mentioned earlier in this study, where signs make the avenue for distribution of cultural objects.

The rules to «the game», of which you apparently just lost. My issue begins where Kilpinen points out that Saussure’s notion of signified does not have an equal to the general semiotics notion of “object” . He notes different languages words for “dog” as having equal conceptual content in Saussures notion, but suggests that general semiotics goes so far to relate the sign to an object, such as a the living dog, suggesting that the importance of this lies in the fact that the dog could possibly bite you but the concept can’t.

Some internet memes such as “the game” (NSFW) do not refer to a specific object at all, but rather focus on individuals’ internal mechanisms, where the individual must remember not to think of the game, and when the game is thought of, they have lost the game. For perspective, Kilpinen then argues that reality is not a construction but its representations are .

While I do not want to get into a discussion of the notion of reality, I want to argue that these models (both memetics and semiotics) do not seem to point out the specific internet culture understanding of what an internet meme is or how internet memes function. For example they do not define the “structures of distribution” that I have pointed out. However, the terms in semiotics/semiology may still be useful in analysis of the “signs” “internet memes” produce. Thus an internet meme may be understood differently through different cultures as noted earlier and the notion of an internet meme itself, that is its structure of distribution and form I described is a specific cultural understanding.

Conclusion To conclude I want to look at the work of Alex Walter. He argues that memes are not like genes because they “do not create their own means of replication and so there is nothing for a virus to hijack” . He notes that “memes are dependant on representation content” .

This representational content is referring to ideas and suggests that when ideas are of a possibly “transmissible nature”, those ideas are memes. With this it is possible to see that there are avenues where memetics meets eye to eye with the notion of internet memes, thus providing insight as to why the metaphor was used for the notion of internet memes. But there are flaws in memetics that relate to the notion of the internet memes. Wal-

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ter points out that Dan Sperber objected to the replication thesis of memetics saying representations between individuals are not identical, and identical memes are required for replication that is similar to identical gene replication (6). Certainly this notion could be true for memes such as the Rickroll, but what of ones such as “the game”, or Neogaf’s “Wolverine”?

To conclude he suggests that disciplines should use the appropriate “toolboxes” for the appropriate tasks and I believe this to be true (18). I would argue that consideration needs to be made of internet memes further than applying the old traditional tools. Is the term “meme” useless? Not at all, for specific cultural groups it holds meaning to a process which is understood and sought to be defined for those specific cultural groups. For those wishing to delve deeper into the notion of the internet meme, I hope this study has shown that a specific “toolkit”, to borrow Walters word, will need to be composed.

Images draw the eye towards them. As soon as we see an image, we begin processing what its individual parts mean, then our brains put them together and start analyzing them as a whole. The image to the right is an example of an internet meme, showing some common elements within them: 1) Depicting a famous figure in an odd manner.

2) Expression of a serious idea in a ridiculous way.

3) Intentional misspellings, a la the Dolan memes.

In recent years, the internet meme has become ubiquitous, serving mostly as entertainment and partly as social commentary. This mode of expression has only begun to influence our culture in unprecedented ways. One is the rise of Anonymous, a collective of hackers that take their name from members of the 4chan image board.

In public, members wear Guy Fawkes masks as a symbol of their resistance to what they believe is tyranny.

Because of their deep affiliation with computers and the internet, these masks have become a meme themselves.

Those that frequent meme sites seem to have a hard time defining what a meme actually is. This is because memes come in diverse categories, and their effects are mental collectives of images and often require existing knowledge.

A meme is defined by dictionary.com as “a cultural term that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.” Basically, this means a meme could be anything. Memes have existed as long as culture. This image could be considered a meme, or even this one, since both of them have been repeated many times over the last century under different contexts.

In our modern culture, memes are growing increasingly more complex as different forms of media proliferate.

The more things there are to know, the more ways there are for those things to be depicted. The possibilities are nearly infinite. As with any form of media, memes both reflect and influence ideas in their respective societies.

What does this image mean to you?

To someone who has never read a rage comic, it is a crude drawing of strange characters sitting at a table playing poker. While it is exactly that, it has another layer of meaning to it. Each of these characters is an embodiment of a “rage face,” each with their own personalities, as determined by the thousands of users who create them from a simple template. The sneering figure on the lower left is a trollface, a cartoon parody of an internet troll or just a jerk in general. The swollen face on the lower right is the “forever alone” guy. He is distanced from the other characters because his sole character trait is being lonely. Nobody really knows why he is so lonely, but he probably deserves it. Each of the other faces have their own traits that wont be elaborated on here.

Again, an outsider wouldn’t view this in the same way as someone who has read enough rage comics would.

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Rage comics are created by users as a way to turn their frustrations with life into humor. The main function of memes is for users to communicate with each other through a shared experience, and in the process produce humor. This results in an ever expanding lexicon of memes and their corresponding meanings, which grow stranger and more esoteric all the time.

A great majority of memes, including rage comics, originated on the image board 4chan, a site dedicated to image-based forums. While the community of 4chan is active, massive and sometimes entertaining, nothing of true use can be said to come out of its message boards. Most users refer to each other as “plebs” and “fags.”

There is not much to be gained from becoming an active member, other than being mocked for your taste in movies or music, called a fag and occasionally seeing a funny (but often offensive or disgusting, depending on which board you’re posting in) picture. Author’s Note: Be warned about clicking on that link. It will take you to you. Internet culture has bred a new form of entertainment which creates new ways of looking at images. While often amusing and harmless, memes should be regarded as a kind of media junk food: shallow and satisfying, but you wouldn’t want to base your diet on it.

Memes the Egyptian version : Egyptian memes are very telling of the reality Egyptians are living while also functioning as a collective coping mechanism. Humor during times of crisis is not unique to Egypt. However, the extent to which it has become integral to the culture and language of Egypt’s changing identity through digital tools and social media is. What, if anything, do these memes tell us about contemporary Egyptian culture and what can they predict about Egypt’s uncertain future?

Media coverage of the ‘Arab Spring’ often credited social media for inciting the uprisings and helping topple regimes. While many skeptics argued the claim, technological tools undoubtedly played significant roles not only in spreading information at an uncontrollable speed, but also in providing the Arab youth with a voice they never had. Social networking, however, is not new to the region.

Middle Eastern youth have been using the Internet, and Facebook in particular, as a publishing platform for news and information far before the uprising started. Groups like the April 6th Youth Movement and the “We Are All Khaled Said” Facebook group gained mass media attention for cultivating a new wave of Egyptian activists. They, however, emerged from an already established movement of activists and bloggers who had been active online since 2006.

What changed was the sudden absence of fear; years of government threats, detainment and torture became insignificant as the anti-government sentiment expressed by a select few grew enormously over night. The political realm suddenly became personal as more youth, confronted by a bleak future, were pushed to express their anger and instigate change. In a region where state-controlled perspectives have dominated media airwaves, a more intimate voice surfaced on a much larger scale than ever before.

Interestingly, in the midst of uprising and widespread fear, Egyptians were not only using social media to mobilize an opposition but also for spreading images that dubbed it the ‘revolution of jokes’. Their online activity supplemented the daily protests, with some online jokes eventually finding their way into signage and chants at Tahrir Square and back online again. People found it within themselves to express humor publicly in a time of crisis, revealing a lot about how the Egyptian people have coped with decades of repression

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These initial days of the revolution set the tone for how Egyptians have been expressing themselves and dealing with the political uncertainty that has ensued since. Humorous renditions opened way to a visual culture of political mockery that was almost non-existent under the Mubarak regime. In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Bassem Youssef (Egypt’s Jon Stewart) says: “Basically, we are the drama queen of the world with everything happening. We are kind of the international political soap opera. So it’s a great time, and era, to have a political satire, to comment on everything that’s happening.” Indeed, Egyptian humor has existed before any revolution began, but it has now been unleashed through alternative platforms that put it front and center. The jokes, of course, have since changed due to the transfer of power but luckily, for now, the jokers have not been silenced.

Egyptian memes are very telling of the reality Egyptians are living while also functioning as a collective coping mechanism. Surely humor during times of crisis is not unique to Egypt. What is unique, however, is the extent to which digital tools and social media platforms have become integral to the culture and language of Egypt’s changing identity. What, if anything, do these memes tell us about contemporary Egyptian culture?

What do they tell us about the current Egyptian psyche, particularly in relation to other historical periods in Egypt? What can memes predict about Egypt’s uncertain future?

Where It all started : Egypt›s oldest newspaper today defended its decision to publish a doctored photograph that appeared to put president Hosni Mubarak at the forefront of key figures at the Middle East peace talks in Washington.The original photo showed US president Barack Obama walking in the lead on a red carpet, with Israel›s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Mubarak and Jordan›s King Abdullah II slightly behind.

But the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper altered the image in its Tuesday edition to show Mubarak in the lead, with Obama slightly behind him to his right, then placed it over a broadsheet article titled «the Road to Sharm El Sheikh», referring to the Egyptian Red Sea resort that hosted the second round of negotiations.Egyptian bloggers and activists said the picture was an example of the regime›s deception of its own people. Critics also said the photo was an attempt to distract attention from Egypt›s waning role in the Middle East peace process.

But the newspaper›s editor-in chief, Osama Saraya defended the decision in an editorial today, saying the original photo had been published on the day talks began and the new version was only meant to illustrate Egypt›s leading role in the peace process.«The expressionist photo is … a brief, live and true expression of the prominent stance of President Mubarak in the Palestinian issue, his unique role in leading it before Washington or any other,» Saraya wrote. The photo is still posted on the newspaper›s website.

Opponents of Mubarak›s near three-decade rule seized on the controversy to criticize the government, which is accused of widespread abuses aimed at suppressing dissent. Wael Khalil, the Egyptian blogger who first called attention to the altered photo, said it was a «snapshot» of what he called daily deception about a number of issues, including democratic change and social justice..«They lie to us all the time,» he said. «Instead of addressing the real issues, they just Photoshop it.».Saraya accused critics of launching a smear campaign against Al-Ahram, which was first published in 1876. The newspaper has enjoyed the widest circulation in Egypt but has faced a growing challenge in recent years from a new breed of private publications and the internet.It is not unusual for Egyptian newspapers to retouch pictures of senior officials to improve their appearance or light.

The doctored picture was exposed by the Egyptian blogger Wael Khalil and quickly struck a chord with Egypt›s vibrant network of online opposition activists. Spoof versions have since appeared depicting the 82-year-old Mubarak landing on the moon, breaking the 100m world record and hoisting a loft the World Cup. The publication of the photograph coincided with the arrival of Abbas and Netanyahu at the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh for the second round of talks under the current peace process. Spoof versions have since appeared depicting the 82-year-old Mubarak landing on the moon, breaking the 100m world record and hoisting aloft the World Cup.

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Al Ahram Experimental Photos of Mubarek Leeading the peace treaty.

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The controversy comes as the government gears up for parliamentary elections and amid rumours the authoritarian leader, who has ruled Egypt for nearly three decades, is seriously ill.“I think what’s significant is that Al-Ahram, the regime’s mouthpiece, is clearly very sensitive about the way Mubarak appears to the general public in the current climate,” Khalil said. “People have picked up on the photo because it’s such a good insight into the way the government operates in Egypt; whenever there are problems or failings they simply try and gloss over them – you can see that in this photo, and you can see it in the way they run the country.”

Al-Ahram is the most widely circulated Arabic newspaper in the Middle East and is known for its largely fawning coverage of the Egyptian government.Its market share has been challenged in recent years by an increasingly bold crop of independent newspapers willing to adopt a more critical tone towards the ruling NDP party, a stance which has landed many independent editors in court.

By contrast Al-Ahram and other state-run publications have a track record of subtly “improving” pictures of Egypt’s political elite, although usually in a less obvious manner than this week’s example.The scandal will come as a blow to Al-Ahram’s director, Abdel Moneim Said, a former Egyptian senator who was thought to have presided over a slight revival of the 135-year-old newspaper’s fortunes since taking the helm last year, following decades of mismanagement. Al-Ahram has so far failed to issue any response or apology for its actions, although the offending photo has been removed from the paper’s website.

Although the incident has caused plenty of mirth at the president’s expense, some are not amused. The antigovernment 6 April Youth Movement said: “This is what the corrupt regime’s media has been reduced to.” It added that the newspaper had “crossed the line from being balanced and honest,” and accused it of unprofessionalism.The publication of the photograph coincided with the arrival of Abbas and Netanyahu at the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh for the second round of talks under the current peace process.

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Various Facebook groups creats a photoshop version of them leading the leaders.

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Groups of intrest were the main online activities that were usually led by artists or art directors working in media and advertisment agencies. An example of these Facebook groups would be “I catalyst” which gained attention 2006/07. It was created by couple of Egyptian young designers/ artists where artists/designers/photographers would post their work receive critical feedback from the rest of the group and have a vote of whether it should stay or not. The group would even announce for creative competitions in creating a new Egyptian flag or T-shirts. Other art and entertainment groups include “ The daily sketch” , “Mirror” and others.

Mirror,on the otherhand , was a group launched in 2009 that satrically tries to find similarties between famous figures and iconic figures like football players, politicians and even carton charchters.

Selected photos from facebook group “ Mirror” !

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Egyptian Meme during the revolution

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Kentacky Egyptian meme during the rrevolution .

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Egyptian Meme about the speech decalring Mubarek steping down from power.

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Egyptian meme mocking the islamist taking iver power.

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Egyptian Comic about a rose robe found in Habib El Adlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wardrobe , a video shared on youtube .

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Facebook activists make fun of the spreaad of Hazzem abou isailâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s posters in Egypt.

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Facebook activists make fun of the spreaad of Hazzem abou isailâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s posters in Egypt.

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Facebook activists make fun of the spreaad of Hazzem abou isailâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s posters in Egypt.

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Even the opposition recieved cristism from facebook activists.

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Even the opposition recieved cristism from facebook activists.

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Asa7abi Charachtersin an Egyptian Family.

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An Egyptian Meme making fun of famous qoutes.

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An Egyptian Meme making fun of famous qoutes.

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Egyptian Comic about 30th of june revolution and the president Adly Mansour.

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Videos That Are Worth Thousand Photos Chapter Five

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Videos That Are Worth Thousand Photos Chapter Five

Today’s visual culture is no more the outcome of painting and sculpture, nor are artists the sole image producers of the society. Instead, commercial & popular visual media play a major role in shaping our psyche, taste and visual memory. In a plural and diverse culture like Egypt, it is not scarce to find something to gaze at, but in fact one can easily get elated and distracted with the multiple sounds, visuals, bizarre objects and absurd incidents. Especially, within a neo-liberal economy that makes commercialism, “market culture” and entertainment the center of people’s lives(1).

Enormous billboards shape the urban landscape of the city, television occupy a sanctified place in our lives and satellite dishes are spawned over the buildings rooftops even in slums and rural areas. And with the privatization of satellite channels and the financial support of the TV commercials, the entertainment industry is booming with a hysterical number of talk shows, variety and TV Series. Besides being a holy month for fasting, Ramadan has been also a competitive period for the spectacle that most of the country would encounter.

Add to the list, a mélange of graphic imagery that is the result of a rich national heritage, religious iconography, and available stock of kitschy computer graphics, exposure to western cultures or nouveau riche flamboyance …..etc.

Not to forget the effect of popular film and mainstream cinema on Arab culture, especially that Egypt was among the first countries that created a native cinema and was the oldest in the Arab world(2). Popular media and mainstream film industry, not only played a role in shaping the Egyptian identity, but was one of the reasons that made Egypt the ethnocentric of Arab nationalism(3). Besides, the audiovisual industry is also imposed, not only by the government but also by an agreement from the masses and thus it is in a way representational.

Today’s visual culture is no more the outcome of painting and sculpture, nor are artists the sole image producers of the society. Instead, commercial & popular visual media play a major role in shaping our psyche, taste and visual memory. In a plural and diverse culture like Egypt, it is not scarce to find something to gaze at, but in fact one can easily get elated and distracted with the multiple sounds, visuals, bizarre objects and absurd incidents. Especially, within a neo-liberal economy that makes commercialism, “market culture” and entertainment the center of people’s lives(1).

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Enormous billboards shape the urban landscape of the city, television occupy a sanctified place in our lives and satellite dishes are spawned over the buildings rooftops even in slums and rural areas. And with the privatization of satellite channels and the financial support of the TV commercials, the entertainment industry is booming with a hysterical number of talk shows, variety and TV Series. Besides being a holy month for fasting, Ramadan has been also a competitive period for the spectacle that most of the country would encounter. Add to the list, a mélange of graphic imagery that is the result of a rich national heritage, religious iconography, and available stock of kitschy computer graphics, exposure to western cultures or nouveau riche flamboyance .....etc.

Not to forget the effect of popular film and mainstream cinema on Arab culture, especially that Egypt was among the first countries that created a native cinema and was the oldest in the Arab world(2). Popular media and mainstream film industry, not only played a role in shaping the Egyptian identity, but was one of the reasons that made Egypt the ethnocentric of Arab nationalism(3). Besides, the audiovisual industry is also imposed, not only by the government but also by an agreement from the masses and thus it is in a way representational.

Within less than a year after the born of film as a new art in Paris on December 28, 1895, Egypt had the first showing of works by Lumière Brothers on November 5, 1896 in one of the halls of Tusun Pasha in Alexandria and another consecutive one on the same month in the hall of Hamam Schindler near the old Shepherd’s Hotel.

Since then, Egyptians mastered the craft of moving images and it became a leading pioneer in the region of Middle East and Africa. In a short time, film became part of the Egyptian culture that is not looked at as an imported genre or medium like other forms of art.

Egyptian cinema has a long tradition (70 years) with a production often amounting to 50 films a year. It has gained a dominant position within the Arab World, managing to break through language barriers by familiarizing other Arab countries with its particular dialect. Once Egyptian cinema became independent it was perceived as troublesome by the colonizers in the neighbouring Arab countries. The French in the Maghreb, for example, formed a “special department” on African problems that was “responsible for setting up a production centre in Morocco whose official mission was to oppose the influence of Egyptian cinema.”1 Although some traditional genres such as the sentimental melodrama remain dominant today, another cinema has emerged, built on the foundations laid in 1952. This new cinema is characterized by an attempt to tackle the political dilemmas and social problems of contemporary Egypt. Directors such as Salah Abu-Seif, Youssuf Shahine, Tawfiq Salah and later Ali Abdul-Haleq, Shadi Abd el Salam as well as critics such as Samir Farid, Sami al-Salamony, Hashem al-Nahhas (members of “The New Cinema Collective”) contributed to the development of apolitically conscious cinema.

The History of YouTube began in February 2005 when three former PayPal employees activated the Internet domain name “YouTube.com” and started to create a video-sharing website on which users could upload, share, and view videos. YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. Prior to PayPal, Hurley studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. YouTube’s early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California.

The domain name “YouTube.com” was activated on February 14, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months. The creators offered the public a preview of the site in May 2005, six months before YouTube made its official debut.

Like many technology startups, YouTube was started as an angel-funded enterprise from a makeshift office in a garage. In November 2005, venture firm Sequoia Capital invested an initial $3.5 million;[5] additionally, Roelof Botha, partner of the firm and former CFO of PayPal, joined the YouTube board of directors. In April 2006, Sequoia and Artis Capital Management put an additional $8 million into the company, which had experienced hugely popular growth within its first few months.The first YouTube video was entitled Me at the zoo, and shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo.The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site.

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“ Me at the Zoo” is the first video on Youtube by Jawed Karim, one of the founders of Youtube, in which Jawed stands in front of the elephants and starts commenting on their long trunk. While in fact, the video seams to be Jawed’s introduction to the Youtube ” ZOO” the he created to host all these bizarre videos from all around the world. Some of the early videos were without sound and most of them were home videos of funny incidents or domestic experimentations in the kitchen, the bedroom or in front of the laptop. A video entitled “ The 20 oldest Videos on Youtube” uploaded by “ 1nterwebs” lists them all such as “ Sleep Like Lumber?” by zubazpants and “tow chinese boys: i want it that way” by cow, however most of the originals don’t exist at the moment.

This type of everyday playfulness was also very common in Egypt, especially in the early uploads on the site.

One of these videos is “tahyees kolia tata” by tatamostafa with the caption “tahyees kolia tata handasa engineering ba7arina marine”, in which a group of boys sings and claps on their university’s benches: An act that is quite common between youth in schools and colleges.

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Video Uploaded 22 May 2007 It is also important to know that Tahyees is an Egyptian slang world, which means having fun or going crazy and a lot of the Egyptian Youtube videos hold that tag. Tahyees kolia tata might be one of the oldest videos that records the spare time of a group of young students inside the campus, but it is surely not the only one as students from various governorates would upload their chanting and dancing in the midst of their academic schedule.

From left to right: Video uploaded by patmero2010 on 23 Jan 2009 for Faculty of Commerce in Tanta, Video uploaded by Socrat22 on the 26 Sep 2008 for Faculty of Commerce in Ain Shams

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Although most of these on campus videos are spontaneous and casual, some are experimentations by professional actors or dancers such as the famous video of “Takh Boom” by the Atelier Theatre Group of Faculty of Fine Arts. Acted by Mahmoud Sami, Fahed Ibrahim, Shehab El Din Younis and Mahmoud Maher during their rehearsal time, the video is a re-enactment for a folkloric monologue from Port Said in which Sami narrates an incident and the rest of the group reacts on it while they are looking in different directions.

One of these old and famous “Tahyess” videos is surprisingly for a young army officer who sings and dances on the Egyptian cartoon’s song “Bakar” imitating the pop singer Mohamed Mounir with his friends. Although the video is playful and fun, a sense of despair is depicted from how the group of soldiers are having fun on one of the patriotic songs for kids that encourages national loyalty and pride. Other viewers saw it the other way, for example the video was re-uploaded again by DoNjEwan with the title The Sense of Humor of The Egyptian soldiers during their Break, while the comments were highly positive such as: “ Watch out! In serious times these men turn to lions and beasts, don’t get seduced by what are they doing now” or “ I swear the best thing in us is how we can steal a laughter in the midst of our worry” .

Knowing that the Egyptian army was still an unknown taboo back then, the video was quite a shock that later became a trend for a series of videos that feature either an army troop, policemen or a gang of an Egyptian air force officers dancing or singing. Another famous video of these was for a group of policemen going crazy after listening to the national anthem. The video starts with the three policemen saluting the flag properly as they listen to the national anthem and then suddenly start to dance as the music turns to a shabi remix. However, many viewers suggested that they are just stunts in their spare time after shooting a film or a TV series, especially that their background seams to be fake like Media Production City’s studios. Who knows, may be it wasn’t a mere leisure but another way to oppose police brutality!

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“Tahyess” by flyermoustafa, 5 Oct 2007. Also uploaded by keemobaghdady on 15 Oct 2007 , under the title “ Bakar in the Egyptian Army”

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People with extraordinary talents were also a good source for Youtube videos. One of them was a man from Upper Egypt who is able to produce melodies from his mouth. Here’s a group of colloquial men from upper Egypt smoking, singing and recording their friend’s talent in their cell phones, which is a different setting than the common stereotype of stubborn and aggressive people that Egyptian drama always portrait.

Random average people can turn stars from one post, surely if they have an extraordinary talent.

That’s why Adel Hiekel’s slapstick singing and dancing made him one of the most popular characters on Youtube. Heikel who is also known as AYE2 works as a waiter at Hamo Café in Suleiman Basha in Dokki district, but he knows how to entertain his clients well with his spontaneous and funny sprit especially when he acts the monologue about the fly or raps like an American pop singers. Youtube wasn’t his final destination for fame as he later appeared in the Sit-com “ Harmet Ya Baba” with the Egyptian comedian Hassan Hosni.

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Footable has always been the source of jokes and saterical commentary, for that it was normal to find a lot of edited videos with comic interpretations of football matches.. The voice of Sadat, for example can be added on a video to comment on a recent football match or clips of awkward moments in the statdium can be edited beside each other. However, the most remarkable and viral, was the video of Mido and Hassan Shihata’s fight in the famous African Cup in 2005. During that match, the famous football player, Mido, found himself kicked out at the begining of the match after a changing plan by the cauch hassan shehata and fortunetly in few minutes , Shehata proved his vision and the new player scored a goal. This has made mido nervous and utter several his anger in both verbal and phyiscal expression that we not clear to the viewer , which provked the curiosity of one of the youtube artists and soon imaged a conversation and juxstposed it on the mouth movemnts of both. The artist couldn’t imagine but curses and offensive words between the two and perhaps that what made it more viral and soon many reuploaded again to an extent that it becomes difficult to know the original one except from the logo TO SHADAWY at the begining of the clip. Although. the clip might have obscene languagee, but it is surely a cult know to many youth to the extent that it was renacted by Egyptian actor Ahmed Mikay’s film “ Tear Enta”.

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ُThe interexchange between known clips on youtube to pop culture or vice versa is a common trend on video sharing website. For example, the cult sound clip known as “ Heba Sex Call” that was passed on through mobile phones via bluetooth and soon was uploaded on Youtube to became a viral meme with the conversation repeated as satirical qoutations between many.

However, one of the most sucessfull examples on how underground culture can become a blockbuster piece was the original expirment of three engineer students in spoof “ Regal La Taref El Mostahel” ( Men who don’t know the impossible). Photographed by an amaturish camera , Ahmed Fahmy, Chiko and Hesham Maged, made a comedy version inspired by The Road To Elyat famous film of the seventies, where the three were in a mission to free their country. The videos became highly famous , although it was not screened in any place but went from a person to another by copying the CD with no intellectual property rights. With the introduction of of video sharing portals, the film soon was uploaded to on the web to become more vral to a larger audience and within a few years , the film was reproduced with a higher budget and was distributed on cienma screens.

Smartly, the three never get apart and together they produced several films together such as “ Samir , Shair & Bahir” and “Bafara’s Paper”. This successful expierment made many people use the internet as a place for producing their low budget creations , play with various tactics or build a base for an online audience. This exchange between pop culture and the online world has varied from online DJs turn to popstars , to seventies comercial films would be edited to become erotic clips for love scenes to celebrity’s scandlous moments with catchy titles such as “ very hot kisses of x & x celebrity “ or “ the naked legs of x actress” ....etc.

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ّIn general , old Egyptian films were source of inspiration for many Youtube artists or indie video makers, who used to fetch in 80’s and 90’s commercial movies or TV series and used them to remix things or create a collage of various scences that would produce an obscure moment or a an absurd social spoof. Although many uses this technique in their online playful videos , Yet Omar Adel was the master of this craft. Adel videos were not all necessary uploaded on Youtube by him, yet many downloaded his highly viral videos from facebook to Youtube and were shared again on Facebook.

One of his most famous videos that was reloaded several times on several social networks was the of a clip from Egyptian cinema for an officer overacting while shouting at a woman “ Why did you kill him “ with the title “ The best actor in Egyptian cinema” !

“Mohema In Telaviv” that is featured Nadia El Guindy ( also known as negemet el gamahir or the star of the masses ) has been a source for adel’s satirical videos were El Guindy’s blockbuster is dissected into banal moving images of a lady screeming or a man producing laser beam from his eye or a women asking a baby with ET face to hug her. By adding images from Hollywood such as MR Bean or ET face and re-editing with a pop music hit, his clips become like a visual jockey of all what he has swallowed from the media that could only meet or appear in a nightmare.

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In another piece Adel takes an obscene scene from a film by the 80’s strong but small build action star Saber El Hilaly, who enters into a gang whose boss keeps mocking him by asking if he came alone or with a baby sitter. This scene is edited and repeated several times in different way to create an aimless loop where you never see the climax of the action. From a scene of a Saidie gang called “ Tarbiesh “fighting for the authority to a father & son awkward conversation where the son feels superior for knowing computer after coming back from abroad.

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You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need to be informative or revolutinary , in order to become viral and famous on youtube. However all you need is to be provacative enough and sometimes silliness sells. This is how ARARSandoud became famous when he made a videomessage to his lover on Valentainesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;day , his video became viral only to make fun of. Yet , still this is didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop him from producing another video each valentine and stopped after a song

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Some of these expirments were highly artistic and stylized and quickly, such as the cult video of â&#x20AC;&#x153; El Anroub Meshmesh â&#x20AC;&#x153; that quickly became a cult with its versus repeated on every egyptian tongue. The video could be an expirmentation to moving images and visual communication or an absurd narration to a day to day story through a phone call between two ladies. The chocie of images that is juxtsposed with the story makes it more a kitch version of avant garde cinema.

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Yet still, Abla Fahita or to be accurate Shosho Abu Gahl and her daughter Caro Carolina are like a mini puppet show on YouTube that gained huge success among social network users since april 2010. It is hilarious show making from social issues. Its first video starts with Abla Fahita , trying to skype with a friend but the connections fails and she picks up with her on the phone. Abla Fahita trying to talking on the phone with a friend , while her daughter tries to distrub her , becomes the main theme and idea behind’s Fahita’s video.

Suprizingly, the fictional doll has a strong iconic charachter, known for a specific gestures, tone of voice and way of talking that is similar to several egyptian mothers that everyone would imitate later. Fahita comes from a certain class, she has a political opnion and prefers her son Boody to Caro Carolina. In her first video, she speaks with her friend , sharing a reciepe and advices about the family.

Abla Fahita’s first video , uploaded April 2010

Left and Right, Two different scenes of the video “ Ana Meen Ya Dada”.

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Voyerusim is also part of Abla Fahita’s videos In her two videos “ El Batrekh” and “ Ana Bent Meen Ya Dada”, a film from eighties’ Egyptian Cinema is in the background of her video such as La Tasaleny Men Ana” ( Don’t ask me who I am ) starting Shadia and Youssra in which Caro Carolina starts questioning her identity and imagines her self in the film. While in Batrkh, the video starts with a scene for the star of the masses Nadia El Guindy with Farouk El Feshawy asking about the place of El Batrekh , while Abla Fahita picks a phone with her friend and discuss the presidental elections with her. Fahita’s analysis of the candidates is arguable one of the best , as she saterically mocks the candidates and says that she might chose a different one, least it might be a revolution. In iconic short sentences , she describes each candidate away from the political agenda such as “ He is in the age of Joulviv” or she wonders why her friend would chose based on elegancy as if she is chosing a groom for her daughter.

Batarekh 2012, Abla Fahita

In another video called “ like today from a week” , Fahita speaks with her friend about her fear from the lack of security while she givers her daughter Carolina orders to cook the food.

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Another video that gained popularity was after the elections results between Shafiq and Morsi, it was a song “ Called Homa Arba3 Senina” (They are only four years), where abla fahita tries to comfort her daughter by telling her its only 4 years where we have to dure the results of the presidential elections. The video gained popularity, to an extent that a BCC presenter ended his political show with Abla Fahita’s song saying that its the most fitting song that describes the sorrow of the Egyptians.

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Abla Fahita’s fame didn’t stop at BBC, but it had various appearances on several program such as ONTUBE show with Ramy Radwan on Ontv as she entered in a skype call for half an hour with the presenter and also with the famous Bassem Youssed as she commented on the corruption of the media.

Following the trend of Ramadan in Egyptian media, Fahita wanted to enter into a competion with nelly & sherihan and through the holy month in 2012, it presented a series called “ Fawzir El Webba” that is a show with dance and quizes. Generally speaking, Fahita’s fans started to wait for her video in the main events and incedients such as her video on Mother’s day and her tweets on the Horoscopes of each mother.

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Aalam Wassef, a visual artist and musician, has been exposing the realities of the Mubarak regime through his videos since 2006 under the pseudonym Ahmad Sherif. Wassef participated in the Demonstrations exhibition at the Frankfurter Kunstverein museum in Germany, which draws upon the revolutionary spark worldwide.

They likend it to the popular movements of the 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

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Presidential speeches have been aways the source of mockery and generally speaking making fun of your president has always been fun. Internet then provided the best venue for this genre as you can criticize your president but keep your annonymity. Political satire wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t daring very much and videos like that were limited , especially the Mubarek & the army were still taboos. One of these videos was for a Mubarek look- a like , who tries to imitate his way of speaking. Sadat & abd el naser too were a source of mockery, Sadat would comment on the football match with Algeria that turned into a huge fight between the two countries or he himself would turn into a 3D charachter.

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Starting 2010, corruption started to prevail and the nepitism project started to be clear, while Gamal Mubarek’s gang such as Ahmed Ezz started to be more powerful. Video editing became one of the most telling message and with simple additions satire can be created. One of these videos is an extract from Mubarek’s speech at the national party confrence, as it starts with Ezz introducing Gamal Mubarek as the ignitor of the modernization revolution before Hosni starts his speech. The Shabii song of Tarek El Sheik “ Ana El Mealem yalla” or I am the boos” is remixed with Ezz’s introduction to show how he is a hyprocate and portrait Mubarek as arogant.

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The begining of 2011 wasn’t pleasant, as on the New Year’s eve started with a bombing in a El Kedisien chruch .

The officials didn’t have much to say , even when Mofied Fawzy interviewd minister of interior and an edited video of that interview showing El Adly hmuing and saing blahblah became viral back then.

Later , in 25th of january 2011, the uprising started and Mubarek had to step down after 18 days . During that , he flew to Sharm El Shiekh and some did a sarcastic video of him lecturing from the beach. It was Omar Soliman , who declared that he stepped down in an iconic speech and had a man standing behind him. Such Iconic speech had several replicas and many started imitating Soliman and the most famous “ The Man Behind Omar Soliman”. One of the most absurd video of these was for a group of chinese hysterically celebrating the step down of Mubarek.

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Still, El Gaddaffi â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s speech were the most edited, turned into a spoof and became viral. Disc Jockeys started remixing his speech on electronic music or on pop music such as Shakiraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s song Danja Danja of the African Cup. Other imitated the speech in a sketch of their own.

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Following the absurd and kitsch speeches of El Gaddafi, locals from shubra were inspired by the deconstruction behind his pedestal and the toktok

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During the 2011 uprising, there were several viral videos on social media that were either sketches or edited virsion from an interview in mass media. One of these was most shared videos , were a remix for Afaf Shoieb saying that people should stop revolting as her grandchild asked her to eat pizza and rayeish but didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find.

Other, very famous video was for a scene from Sparta with a voice over that ended up with the throw of the MB member in the deep hole. This exact scene had several versions according to various events.

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Locals commenting from tahrir square were a highly spread on social media, some were fake and sarcastic such as zalta who imitated Hosni Mubarek supporters who are against people in tahrir. Osta Zalta proved later that he is a just an actor and later he became a ruberstamp charachter that appears in drama series, TV programs and cinema. Another was an absurd scene for an old man questing about whats happening in the square , to recieve the answer that its a fight between a man and a woman and he answers that they should make them come together. However, the most popular was The Wise Baker or â&#x20AC;&#x153; EL Khabaz El Fasehâ&#x20AC;? who in a random interview with him in Tahrir said many insightful ideas and very analytical opnion. later, he became a public figure and appreared as a guest in several Talk Shows.

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Online commentors and virtual figures are very common on the web , they use their webcam usually, document their own statement and speak with authority expressing their opnion. During the 25th of jaunary revolution , an Egyptian girl living abroad saying her political views that was pro the revolution in a broken accent. Shooting from her house in america , Cassie Nabil’s videos became viral as a matter of fun probably because her looks and way of taking more than of what she is saying.Her analysis is simple , for example she would say to mubarek “ 30 years dude you are nadel awoy ( or traitor)”. Although the way she look and talk gave the impression of an airhead , she had a lot of progresssive opnions.

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On the other hand , some were highly progressive and influential such as Omar Afifi. Afifi is a true net hunter, his video statements always explain things before it happens. He explains traps, codes or plots and warns his fans from future risks and give orders for future demonstrations. Omar Afifi was a police officer who was kicked out of his work , whose book was banned in Egypt and insist that 85% of Policemen reject all these practices but they have to shut up otherwise they will face penalties including being transferred to Upper Egypt. Under the title of â&#x20AC;&#x153; lawyer of the peopleâ&#x20AC;?, Afifi resides in washginton and has links and contacts with several people from a network in his room titled by some as the operation room. For some he is a crediable source who expects everything before its occurance , while some consider him a suspecious character that his knowledge makes him seams like an agent to an unknown side.

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Another highly controversial comentator is Masry Molhed or Egyptian aestheist, who became famous post the 25th of January. With his blunet and obscene dirty language , Masry Molhed explains why he became an asethist in several videos and opposes political islam or Muslim brotherhood polices in another. As he also resides in a westren country, Masry Molhed doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have any limit to his daring arguments in a country who still outcast any non believer.

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Although the above figures had the courage while their residency in a country outside Egypt, the famous blogger ,Wael Abass, decided to neither be annonymous nor abroad. The internationally renowned Egyptian journalist, blogger, and human rights activist,who blogs at Misr Digital (Egyptian Awareness), reported an incident of mob harassment of women, and broadcast several videos of police brutality. His actions led to the conviction of police for torture, but he has been harassed by the Egyptian government, and his accounts with YouTube and Yahoo were closed. YouTube has since restored his account and most of his videos. Facebook had deleted Wael’s account but it has since been restored.

In September 2007, his YouTube account was shut down. All the videos he had sent to YouTube were no longer available. They included videos of police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government protests. About 12 or 13 were of violence in police stations.He was shocked by YouTube’s decision.Yahoo had shut down two of his email accounts, accusing him of being a spammer.Human rights groups said that YouTube was shutting down a useful source of info on abuses in Egypt just as the government was increasing its crackdown on independent and opposition journalists.Twelve Egyptian journalists had been jailed between September and November 2007. YouTube initially restored his account but not his videos, and said that his account was blocked because he failed to provide sufficient context about the violence.187 of his videos were subsequently restored. Abbas has posted on his blog that Yahoo has restored his email account.Abbas was a guest panelist on The Doha Debates’ episode broadcast on BBC World News on November 13 and 14, 2010. The motion was: This House would prefer money to free elections. Abbas was against the motion and he won the debate.

In 2008, he turned down an invitation to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush. He won several prizes such as being announced the winner of a journalism award by the International Center for Journalists, on August 24, 2007, the Human Rights Watch’s Hellman/Hammett Award 2008, was named Middle East Person of the Year 2007 by CNN, Was considered one of the Most Influential People in the year 2006 by BBC, Won the Egyptians Against Corruption Award 2005/2006

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Abass is not the only one who reached international fame, as in less than two years, Bassem Youssef, who started with an online political starical program on Youtube became on international televisions in a short while. Youssef is an Egyptian cardiac surgeon, satirist, and the host of El Bernameg (“The Program”), a satirical news program broadcast by Egyptian television station Capital Broadcast Centre (CBC).with more than 108 episodes of the program. The episode view count has surpassed 15 million views on YouTube.The press has compared Youssef with American comedian Jon Stewart, whose satire program The Daily Show inspired Youssef to begin his career.In 2013, he was named one of the “100 most influential people in the world”

by Time magazine.

Inspired by the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Bassem created his first satirical show in March 2011 Entitled The B+ Show, the program was uploaded to his YouTube Channel. The show mainly consisted of satirical political programs broadcasted via Internet. Bassem began his presentation on YouTube on March 8, 2011, in a very low budget program that was aired from the laundry room in his house. He started with seven episodes that were highly successful and viral on the web. One of these was about sectaerianism in Egypt post the revolution that he ended it by asking people to put a flag on their profile picture stating “ Don’t gloat about us mr president” and many responed. After the success of The B+ Show, Egyptian channel ONTV, owned by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, offered Youssef a deal for El Bernameg (literally, “The Program”). He mocks the military leadership of Egypt, he mocks all the politicians, and I think that this was not something that was tolerated under the Mubarak era. Although Youssef’s broadcast has proved hugely popular among the country’s younger viewers—he estimates most of his audience is under the age of 30—it has its share of critics. He works as a cardiothoracic surgeon when El Bernameg is in hiatus. In his capacity as a doctor, he assisted wounded Tahrir Square protesters after the Battle of the Camel.

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The show premiered during Ramadan 1432 (2011) with Egyptian-American engineer Muhammad Radwan as its first guest.In his show, Youssef has parodied such Egyptian celebrities as show host Tawfik Okasha, composer Amr Mostafa, Salafist presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, and Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and onetime presidential candidate. Bassem Youssef was also hosted by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show on June 21, 2012, and April 24, 2013.

The program, which began with a small group working at home with Youssef, moved from the smallest studio broadcasting on an Online TV channel to the Cinema Radio downtown, a theatre redesigned in the likeness of New York’s Radio City, where the program broadcasts in front of a live studio audience. The contents of a typical show’s broadcast have evolved, which began with a sarcastic take on current political events, and eventually incorporating the hosting of public figures and stars from various fields, as well as various artists’ performances.

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The show El Bernameg was renewed for a second season after a contract with a second channel, CBC (Capital Broadcast Center), which premiered on November 23, 2012. Just three episodes into the show, several lawsuits were filed against Bassem Youssef and his show, mainly for “insult and defamation”. On the season’s premiere, Youssef made the owner and coworkers of his channel the subject of his show, as an assurance that he is granted full freedom of expression, and that no topic was off limits.CBC did not, however, air his second episode, which also featured further criticism of a TV show host who filed a lawsuit against Youssef. The show returned to its regular schedule for the third episode.

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On January 1, 2013, the daily Al-masry Al-youm reported that an Egyptian prosecutor was investigating Bassem Youssef on charges of maligning President Mohammed Morsi, whose office claimed that Youssef’s show was “circulating false news likely to disturb public peace and public security and affect the administration.”Despite all of the controversy it sparks, El Bernameg has been a major success.It is constantly topping the regional YouTube charts, making Bassem Youssef’s YouTube channel the most subscribed to in Egypt.

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On March 30, 2013, an arrest warrant was issued for Youssef for allegedly insulting Islam and Morsi. The move was seen by opponents as part of an effort to silence dissent against Morsi’s government. Youssef confirmed the arrest warrant on his Twitter account and said he would hand himself in to the prosecutor’s office, jokingly adding, “Unless they kindly send a police van today and save me the transportation hassle.”The following day, he was questioned by authorities before being released on bail of 15,000 Egyptian pounds.The event sparked international media attention as well as a segment on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show in which he declared his support for Youssef, calling him a “friend” and “brother” and saying to Morsi: “What are you worried about? You’re the President of Egypt! You have an army! [Youssef]’s got puns and a show; you’ve got tanks and planes.” In general , Youssef appeared on several Tv channels like Fox news, CNN, the france and the german telvision and others.

His witty punchlines and clips of Morsi's hilarious or dictatorial statements, and the president's linguistic stumbles by mixing rickety English with Arabic are legend. In one sketch Youssef airs footage of Morsi in Germany incoherently and inarticulately explaining he did not want a "hadara (civilization) versus haradat okhra (other civilizations) and not against." Youssef deadpanned and a picture of a besotted actor appeared on the screen near him. The caption read: “Is this English, Morsi?”The video clip went viral. In another famous segment, Youssef mocked Morsi receiving an honorary doctorate from a Pakistani university and the ceremonial cap and gown the president wore by himself donning a duplicate oversize hat and gown on the show.Youssef wore the same oversize hat to a hearing at the prosecutor general’s office.Youssef, a practicing Muslim, has often said extremist Islamic preachers and self- proclaimed defenders of the faith were distorting his religion.He has targeted the ruling Muslim Brotherhood’s contradictions and fear mongering against the U.S. and Israel with actions that spoke louder than words. The heart surgeon-cum-TV satirist’s scathing humor, his arrest, his release on bail, and the cyber fanfare it’s created in less than a week probably broke celebrity records.

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His tweets before his detention, during his brief incarceration and following his release show he was unbowed. Here’s a sampling:The order to detain is correct. I’m going to the prosecutor general’s office tomorrow, unless they do me the honor of sending the box (equivalent of the Black Mariah vehicle) today and save us the hassle of transportation. (The prosecutor general is a Morsi appointee.)

Are you coming to testify or to clown around? No sir, I’m coming to clown around. An inspiration for tomorrow’s investigation.

Folks, the best reply to this unbridled attack on liberties is to “unfollow” Morsi so that I can transfer him to “followers.” What an earth-shattering reply.

On his release he was engulfed in a sea of supporters carrying signs that read “We Are All Bassem Youssef.”

Others said, “I’m in solidarity with Bassem Youssef.” Even Egyptian Islamists supported the satirist and accused Morsi of being the media’s enemy, adding that going after Youssef demonstrated the regime’s stupidity.

Youssef’s biting jokes are a reflection of Egyptians’ well-known sense of humor to overcome adversity.

His jokes is both extracted from viral posts on facebook and later turns to a well spread memes after the show.

Later on his show , he invited John Stuart himself to his show.

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A video made by Salma Said, a member of Mosireen, calling for people to join in protests on 25 January 2012.

The video shows footage of children, elders, students, workers, men and women protesting. It shows people protesting in front of courts, in factories, in the street, in the square and even at the airport.An initiative born out of the Egyptian revolution with the purpose to film, archive and dissiminate visual information – started collecting donations on the crowdsouring website indiegogo with the target of $40,000 in order to support their activities over the next year and a half.It is widely felt that Egypt’s media, whether state-run or private, has done a poor job of covering last year’s Egyptian uprising, from Tahrir Square to other protest sites around the country. In order to counter regime-biased coverage, Mosireen came to exist.

A non-profit collective of filmmakers that is open to volunteers and members of the public, Mosireen’s main purpose is to document post-revolution Egypt and disseminate information to give an alternative to mainstream media propaganda.

Mosireen’s YouTube channel has had more than three million views and is ranked as the most viewed nonprofit channel ever in Egypt, and most viewed for the month of January 2012 in the whole world. Mosireen, their name a play on words between the word ‘Egypt’ and ‘Determined’ in Arabic, since their birth in the months following the January 2011 uprising have valued their independence as a media collective over everything else.

The filmmakers collective has many activities. Amongst them they host an archive of revolution footage that is open to the public and under a creative commons license; meaning anyone is free to use the footage for non-commercial purposes.The archive is over 10 terabytes and growing. Besides the archive, the collective also produces short films regarding different issues and events surrounding the revolution, to raise awareness of facts and perspectives from the street.

At the moment, the collective is recruiting volunteers to help file this archive as the footage can be used beyond making films for evidence in cases against regimes for police brutality towards the protesters.Mosireen has their own space, an apartment in busy Downtown Cairo, one of Cairo’s oldest neighbourhoods and the center of the revolution’s protests. The space is open to the public as a workspace with facilities such as internet, a meeting room, editing rooms and filming equipment available for rent. Mosireen also run a google calendar for political events around the country.

The space hosts regular film screenings on Tuesdays of independent films that are subtitled in Arabic, meant to inspire, inform people about the different people movements around the world, and educate on how to make better films.The group have hosted the Palestinian film month, the Syrian film month along with films about movements from Argentina, France and many other countries. As a preview to the films, Mosireen also put on a short video of political news from somewhere in the world.

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The collective also hosts filmmaking workshops covering all aspects from shooting, editing, uploading, labeling and sharing on social media sites. Most importantly, these workshops cover group work and how to create films collectively.Another element of these workshops is giving people the tools on how to host street screenings of these films, such as Tahrir Cinema (another project by Mosireen) and the Kazeboon (Liars) screenings that were taking place nationwide around the time of the revolution’s anniversary in 2012.

Recently, this project evolved to the Rahal (traveler) project where the group hosts trainings in other governorates in Egypt. Mosireen’s coverage is sometimes news from the ground when protests or police clashes are happening, other times the videos are more investigative, trying to go deeper into an issue, along with interviews with victims of torture or police brutality.

Over the summer, Mosireen launched the “Stealing Our Bread” project, under which a series of videos about people’s rights are produced. These short documentaries cover the revolution’s goals from a more social rather than a political perspective.

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Tamim Younis, whose YouTube channel has become popular after taking a scene of the Disney cartoon Cinderella to mock the curfew that was imposed on the country, also believes that despite the abundance, that it is not quite a movement. For many it is just a trend.

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Kharabeesh, an initiative founded in 2008 that makes comical videos, usually adding animated content, has also gained popularity throughout the revolutionary year.One interesting video that was widely shared adds an animated song to the statement of the General Emara, who said that no live bullets were used against protesters at a press conference. Whether it can be considered an art form, it is undeniable that the importance of videos has become evident. Many young people are now keen to make videos and join initiatives such as Mosireen or Kazeboon and the flood of information everyday is taking new shapes and forms.

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YouTube and Online Channels : South Korean music artist PSY became a household name when his “Gangam Style” video went viral earlier this year.Months later in Egypt, a local spin on the song dubbed “Hobba Egyptian Style” proved to be a big hit for the launch of Season 2 of Di Salata, the country’s first online video magazine.With over 1 million YouTube views, the song helped Di Salata’s diverse multimedia platform gain a wider audience.

Mohamed al-Bassiouni, co-founder, is an engineer who decided to take a break and pursue his passion for media. He says the idea for Di Salata was born out of the pleasant explosion of artistic talent after the 25 January revolt.The goal was to create a hub for the abundant young talent to gather and get started. Di Salata launched in March 2012 with the slogan: “Join the Salata that is our lives.” The name came from the idea that life is like a bowl of salad. It also refers to the diversity of the programs presented.

The video magazine hosts eight shows on a range of topics: fashion, cinema, politics, motivational talks, poetry and even interesting places to go. At first, the target audience was quite narrow. With the start of the second season, their strategy began to change.

Di Salata is self-funded by Bassiouni and his partners, and due to limited resources, program presenters are volunteering their time for now. Driven by passion, presenters at Di Salata are mostly in their 20’s. The diverse group is not concerned with money at the moment, and is happy to have a platform where they can express themselves.

Ramez Youssef, an architect and stand-up comedian who presents “Mish Impossible” (“Not impossible”), says the show allows him to convey his sense of optimism to the audience. “Youssef takes his show to the street. One episode features him walking around Cairo’s streets with a banner that reads, “Optimism,” calling out through a megaphone for people to stay positive. In another, he holds a sign that says, “Smile and take an apple,” urging people to be happy. He says the feedback he receives from people is what keeps him going.

Youssef’s program quickly gained popularity, faster than the other shows.Bassiouni attributes that success to Youssef’s natural charisma and sense of humor.

But it’s not all about optimism and happiness — the show tackles critical issues such as sexual harassment, albeit with a unique twist. In a recent episode, Youssef dressed up like a woman to show the nuisances they deal with on a daily basis. While not all the shows had the same instant appeal, Bassiouni says the constant diligence of the other presenters helped them establish a name for themselves in the longer term. “‘Mona Appetite,’ the cooking show, gained the interest of sponsors even though the viewership is less than

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others,” he says.Another example, “Al-Mokhreg ‘Ayez Keda” (“It’s what the director wants”) is a show about movies which simply features the presenter talking in front of a white background.

Catering to the same market is ElGomhoreya TV, an Internet channel established in 2011 to present shows online, but tackling more political issues.Bassiouni, however, insists that they are not a TV channel; rather, Di Salata is more like a printed magazine but utilizing online video, and depending on audience feedback and interaction.As for the team members, they share the same goal: proving themselves and showcasing their talent. For some, it’s the start of the path in realizing a long-term dream.

Shahana Helal is a freelance graphic designer who spent her childhood in Alexandria, lived in the US for 10 years and came to Cairo three years ago. She has always been interested in exploring new places and attending interesting events. And this is what she does when presenting “‘Ala fein?” (“To Where?”), which highlights cultural, musical and art events. And while Di Salata was initially Bassiouni’s dream, now they all share the same vision.

With the launch of Season 2, Bassiouni wanted Di Salata to have more exposure, and he thought an Egyptian rendition of “Gangnam Style” would do the trick. Menna al-Kiey, the poet who wrote the lyrics for the song and who also presents the show “Sotouhy” (“My roof”), says the idea was to write random statements about different things in Egyptian society without making a mockery out of it.

The 22-year-old presenter used to recite her poetry at open-mic events, but Di Salata gave her the platform to reach a wider audience.The online video magazine is set to expand, and its anniversary in March 2013 will be marked with more shows featuring new presenters.“We want to inspire people by entertaining them or teaching them something new. We want our presenters to somehow have an impact on people and to have [influence] among Internet users so we can use it for corporate social responsibility campaigns — tourism, poverty and educational [awareness] campaigns.”

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El-Gomhoreya TV, owned by Core Publications, is the first Egyptian channel to be broadcasted on the Internet, according the channelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s announcement, and will feature weekly family oriented shows, as well as shows promoting underground Egyptian talent in the fields of arts and culture.

Among its shows, Hisb El-Kanaba (The Couch Party) depicts an Egyptian couple who support the former Egyptian regime. Each week, the couple invite a public figure to their living room, where the show is set, to discuss satirically Egyptian society and politics.

El-Nas Dol (Those People) is another weekly show based on the book by journalist Ahmed Attallah. Presented by the author himself, El-Nas Dol takes the audience on a short journey through the daily lives of individuals mentioned in his book, revealing unheard-of-places in Egypt. El-Sharaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Yoghani (The Street Sings) discovers young artistic talent and underground Egyptian bands. El Mahkama (The Court) is a weekly thriller/crime sitcom, depicting a general prosecutor in Egypt who investigates mysterious crimes.

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ّ Rassd News Network or RNN is an alternative media network based in Cairo, Egypt. RNN was launched as a Facebook-based news source launched on January 25, 2011. It quickly advanced to become a primary contributor of Egyptian revolution-related news. Applying the motto “from the people to the people,” the citizen journalists who created RNN have since added a Twitter feed and launched an independent website dedicated to short news stories favored by an online audience.

RNN is an organized citizen news network with four working committees: one for editing the news, another to support the correspondents covering Egypt, a third for managing the multimedia feeds and a fourth for staff functions such as development, training and public relations. Rassd, which stands for Rakeb (observe), Sawwer (record) and Dawwen (blog) was recently ranked as the 6th most influential media in the Arab world.

Operating in both English and Arabic language versions, RNN is the most followed online brand in the Middle East and collectively has approximately one million Facebook fans and more than 137,000 followers on Twitter.According to a study done by Albawaba, a news portal focused on Middle East and Arab World News, RNN’s Twitter is the most followed brand in the Middle East.The success of RNN and its new social media model is evidenced in its recent local network expansion into Libya, Morocco, Syria, Jerusalem and Turkey.

This achievement is not without controversy, however. The site’s accuracy level has been called into question at times and the identities of RNN creators are unknown despite speculation that they are young Egyptians.

RNN has endured closures of their Facebook profile and YouTube account as part of the attacks from private media, attempting to thwart their work and influence their content.

RNN has been a global source of Egyptian revolution-related news since its launch. During the early days of the citizen uprisings across the Middle East, major networks such as BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya used some of Rassd’s news and photos, and followed the network on Twitter.Three days after the online portal went live it was streaming video to MSNBC through its Facebook page. Then on February 5, 2011 Louisville’s NBC-affiliate cited RNN, Cairo when it reported that President Hosni Mubarak had stepped down as head of Egypt’s ruling party.RNN established a Ustream page on January 27, 2011, which, according to the analytic statistics provided by the site, has had 283 total views and 220 unique views.

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Interviews

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Ahmed Gharbieh:

Gharbiah is a Blogger at (Tay El motasel and Ahmed Gharbia) and one of the Founder of Adef, Studied Management. I work in various issues related to the Internet such as open source and free and collaborative knowledge that encourages people to share material without copyrights or commercial monopolies. I am also concerned about the technology that supports the Arabic language that helps people build their own pages, website and blogs in their mother tongue.

Tay El Motasel was opened in 2003 and the topics in it were general and not necessary related to politics, I was trying to write in Arabic as few were experimenting in that area. This was also technical experimentation in Arabic. Like most of the bloggers I wrote about various issues such as social criticism, the environment and when political activism started to become more intense in 2005, we used to share about campaigns against prisoners of conscience, support the strikes of reformist judges, promote Kefaya’s activities and call for demonstrations.

So what’s your personal history with the Internet?

When I was a child there was no Internet, at least in the Arab world. It existed internationally from while ago, however it was introduced to Egypt in 1994. This was simultaneous with the appearance of the web, which made many people confused between the web and the Internet because of this coincidence. The web is not everything in the internet, as there were other uses and different access ability to the internet other than the normal HTML that we know today but there were other means that were also used to chat, publish or produce search for knowledge such as the USE net, email lists , the Fttp that had database of photos and information, The web then appeared in 1994 and created a major shift, probably because it was easier although actually we didn’t have the chance to try other versions as I believe that if we were introduced to the internet in the phase of Usenet we would have been experts in it. Then the forums appeared such as Yahoo chat forums that were outset for social communication as it was a platform that covered issues such as religion, social, politics, literature, poetry or just mere hallucination and jesting. It members used to share posts, argue or implement power on each other and kick out members that they don’t like, it was a forum of social network . I actually don’t like to restrict networking to facebook and twitter only. This is not true as the whole Internet is a social network since it started.

Personally speaking, the first time I used the Internet in 1996 or 1997 and I was at college during that time. The dial up appeared , I already owned a computer and an old modem that we used as a fax , then I later bought a new one and an account from one of the companies that distributed it during that time. IRC, chat, the primitive web, the archive of Usenet that had an archive of debates and interactive forums since the eighties. The Usenet is not like the Internet , you cannot know the number of members as it was open to everyone and people used to write with nicknames. This was part of the Internet culture back then.

So what was your nickname then ?

I used to write with the name Alef ( like the firs Arabic alphabet) in my personal blog. I didn’t contribute lot in the Usenet

Do you think these forums were restricted to a certain class of people since the Internet was still expensive in Egypt?

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Infact, the Internet didn’t really exist domestically as it was still restricted to the professors and academic but wasn’t open . So whoever had one of his parents in the university was able to have an account , other than that most of the people didn’t know about its existence.

Even when it entered the homes , it was affordable and the prices dropped quickly compared to other places.

This actually was one of the positives of the condition of the Internet in Egypt and helped in making many people engage in it quickly. In-fact Egypt and morocco had similar circumsanctences of the Internet penetration in terms of quick accessibility with affordable prices. Then I later used yahoo forums , however I didn’t spend much time in it like that I spent in blogs later.

Unfortunately , most of what existed back then disappeared because the hosting websites such as angle fire and homestead were bought is big companies such as Google and a lot of the early history of the Internet has gone. There were sites that were made by armatures that did html pages themselves that were very primitive with colored fonts, animated gif as if it’s an ommda wedding. You will laugh if you saw these pages today. All the topics existed back then by the way , even what they call today contempt of religions.

These primitive sites of the Usenet had a lot of sarcasm on Jesus and Christianity and obviously the people who did them were Europeans as they were the main inhabitants of the Internet back then. This is not you, it existed from the same day and pornography too existed from the very beginning. Surely, it was of a lower quality of what existed today from photos and videos and that existed side by side with other usages of the internet and its not true what others picture it as the end of useful functioning of the interest. From the very beginning of the Internet, pornography existed side by side with Christian fundamental or atheists forums and conspiracy theories about aliens. Nothing interrupted the other and in many cases both audiences intersected.

This is very important in the history of the Internet.

From 1996-2001, I was just in transit on the web, I used the web to search on the Internet, and technical information related to the topic, as this was my craft since I studied management of information and worked in IT. I thought people or helped in the creation of websites and used the web surfing to find solutions related to my work, see the latest updates, besides my interest in arts, environment or politics.

Also between the 1997 and 1998, appeared what was called the “ dot com Bubble” or (. com bubble) and there was a boom in the electronic commerce with the appearances of websites such as amazon.com or eBay. A great development happened in the technicality of the web and the dynamic sites started to be more sophisticated and interactive. I used to surf several forums but wasn’t stable in one of them. Since 2003 when I opened my blog , I started to be a contributor in a social space and get connected to people I only knew through the net.

Also in 2001, I was part of email communities, like “ SAHRA SAFARIES” that was concerned about travelling and camping into the desert. We used to travel around Egyptian deserts like the white one or Nubia and then share notes and photos, however most of the posts were in English that used to piss me off a bit. The technicality didn’t help in that a lot, also there was this specific culture of an educated class who studied and works in foreign entitles. Also I joined the yahoo forum pen temple pilots that was made by one of our friends Mohamed El Razaz and was concerned by culture in 2001-2002.

In 2003 when I opened my pages on blogspot I did some experimentations in writing in Arabic and they didn’t have an Arabic interface, so after a lot joined blogspot they made customized for Arabic speakers after Google brought it in 2005, but I had already moved to wordpress in 2004. Later in 2005 the number increased and active bloggers started to know each other, we also contributed in political campaigns especially with the hype of Kefaya.

In your opinion which started first, the political activism in real life or virtually?

We cannot say that political activism didn’t existed in the streets, as there were demonstrations in 2002 & 2003 in support of the Palestinian intifada or the Iraqi war, and that created a new generation of political

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activists that didn’t exist in the arena before but started their activity while they were at college. But the internet undoubting did a generic transformation as it created a new collective space and opened discussions such as what’s the original problem and why this country is like that and what’s corruption, what’s the alternative to Mubarak and what will happen if Muslim Brotherhood in power. These questions were always there not only after the revolution. Also, topics about freedom such as Baha’is and gay rights, sexual harassment, unemployment all these were opened for discussions in forums.

The only problem of these forums is it had centralized power and the admin would set specific rules , then people will fight for the removal of a post or other reasons so the whole forum would be deleted and a valuable content that would benefit others would be lost. That’s beside that it was closed and it has elitist and exclusive.

This didn’t exist in blogs , as you can write anything on a public wall and anybody can read it and comment on it in a discussions that would last for months between random various people forming an interconnected tree of arguments.

This in my opinion was the major transformation that the blogs created in terms of political discusion. Also because of this broad readership that sometimes was larger than newspapers such as Wael Abass’s page that had more audience than Gomhoria‘s newspaper. So blogs were an important source of first hand news that is not recopied from another place, but from a witnessed of the events who doesn’t claim objectivity. This builds credibility of the bloggers by time or the opposite so that people won’t visit the page again. Also the element of subjectivity was important as bloggers as it made it more human.

Also a major reason for the improvement and development in the Egyptian journalism was because of the blogs, as bloggers brought new skills that didn’t exist at the traditional journalists. Starting from how to write, governmental journalists had week language skills. On the other hand, bloggers were bunch of educated youth, who knows how to report, write a piece of news, express onions and attend conferences without fabricating news after calling in a telephone. Yes they do mistakes, or misunderstand issues and write subjective impressions but who said that journalists don’t. Infact, a new generation of journalists who did a quantum leap in the papers such as El Sherouk, El Masry El Youm were originally bloggers such as Nora Younis, Ahmed Ragab , Omar el hady, Noha Atef, Amr Ezzat and Ahmed Nagy or others. They started as bloggers and changed in the forum of Egyptian Journalism. This was an inside reform in the Egyptian press, as it was always weak. Bloggers were blunt as they didn’t fear anything, they would declare that they saw a police officer who rapped girls and removed their clothes, while none of the Egyptian papers whether independent, private or partisan would dare write something like that.

They call things by their name, so that if they wrote about the army and the Egyptian intellengence they would mention their titles name, while newspapers used to write soverigners. This fear was broken more and more after the revolution. Bloggers rose the celling of the journalism, to the extent that the press would copy from the blogs as a form of shelter so that they become only transformers of the piece of news. So if there was a harassment incident, they would say there are two bloggers named Malek Mustafa and Wael Abass, they would refer to the blogs. Back then they still looked down at them and with disapprobation, but surely they were better than anything else.

So both affected each other, political activists discovered that there is a space to promote and mobilize people and became bloggers and others were not into politics and only had comments on their society like many others , so when they started blogging and discovered that not only them are concerned about political reform or environment or transportation ..Etc. but that there are others who share their ideas so that they can come together and become active. So both directions took place, a blogger to an activist and an activist to a blogger, this was happening all the time.

In your opinion the bloggers who were active before the revolution are different from those who became known during and after the revolution such as Wael Ghoniem and Asmaa Mahfouz, in your opinion why that happened or generally speaking the difference between online activism before and after the revolution?

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This is normal, we cannot expect that the activists are a closed group and whoever is there will remain. On the contrary, it’s an open society that is constantly getting bigger where people change their concerns and others adopt new inclinations, because this is not a closed society and automatically it can grow or new people can join. I am not sure if the names you mentioned are special cases. Actually they are not a special case, Ghoniem for example, became a known name after the incident of khaled said. I don’t know if he is an activist or not , I mean there is no clear classification of a person of when and how he can be labeled as an activist. This labeling is not for me to judge. Asmaa Mahfouz and 6th of April youth didn’t have to exist since 2001 to be activists.

6th of April for example had a major role in 2008 in participating in the general strike and this encouraged a lot of people to appear in the scene and share their opinion. Asmaa Mahfouz was one of them as she recorded videos to call people to participate before the revolution to participate in the demonstrations .What I meant to say is the beginning incident of each story is not important , these are individual cases that are not solely important. But what is important is how the general scene has changed, whether with these people or others.

Back to the history of the internet, because I am concerned about how the internet became Arabized, I guess for example the computer Sakher was Kuwaiti right ?

It was the Almayia Company that produced Sakher and yes it was Kuwaiti. They did some programs in Arabic and programing language in Arabic such as programs to teach drawing, mathematics or Arabic dictation which was dedicated to children at that time, They also dealt with Microsoft which was at that time still a small company like today to help them in the creation of programs and word modifier such as Sahker basic and educational program . This existed in the eighties and it was programmed with M6 which was a mechanism to operate mini computers. Saher Company didn’t invent it but it applied it to operate an Arabized minicomputer.

This was the first Arabic computer and it was a very important project as it created the awareness of computer of the Arab generation at the time. Their ads existed in most Arab capitals including Egypt. So a lot of smart families felt they should invest in this issue and brought their kids computer Saher. I personally had one. Older generations used to bring computers like commodore and omega Amstrad and Sinclair. These were home computers which if compared with what exists nowadays is similar to a calculator.

But the good attribute about Saher is that it was in Arabic and it wasn’t necessary that the kid knows English or his parents understand another language in order to help him. Everything was in Arabic even the interface.

This might be part of my interest of why I believe that information technology should be in Arabic to localize this knowledge, so it doesn’t become an acquired skill that you only adopt if you understand another language it makes a huge difference with the familiarity of it with the person since his childhood.

It’s not necessary that C++ and other programing languages would be in Arabic because it’s a symbolic language , but in the educational level Arabic is important as a computer language so kids would understand the logic. This was applied in several stuff such as the logo and shaer basic. But beside that the books and literature that is dedicated to these kids in Arabic to teach them programing, will make a huge difference if it is in their local language. Even in my generation, whoever wasn’t exposed to computer language or English since his childhood faced a huge difficulty to get used to it and understand it and finding source of information and references was a hinder. This is an important cultural investment for upcoming generations.

Why do you think up till now online shopping is still not really working in Egypt?

Because of online payment, the spread of credit card and even ATM is not well spread. ATM cards started to be spread when the government decided that the salaries of the employees will be not be given cash but through the ATM machine after a deal with the national bank. Other than this , nothing has happened to create a need for a debt or credit cards . For that , online shopping faces several hinder for the possibility of paying the charge. This created other solutions such as paying when receiving the products such as books, however this type is not successful with services.

Did you face any censorship from any entity?

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I have never written in other people’s website, for that I never faced censorship. In-fact, the conditions of internet penetration in Egypt was good. As there were a group of technocrat that cared about the existence of free open internet in Egypt with high speed and reasonable prices and they didn’t face any resistance from the conservative security arm, probably because they didn’t expect what happened. Also because some had a hope that it would create an economic flourish by creating an environment for digital marketing and since most of they were neo-liberal so it would encourage anything that would promote market economy.

Also nobody expected that the internet would open these types of discussions that would lead to a revolution afterwards. This made the internet a space free of governmental censorship for a while , meanwhile a critical mass occurred that couldn’t be stopped and they couldn’t come back and restrict the internet. However, censorship on the internet occurred in other countries from the first day, such as Tunis or Iran and Saudi Arabia.

While other countries changed their stance and closed the internet later when the felt threatened such as Zimbabwe. When the government and the state security noticed that there is an effective political activity on the internet not from downtown café or Muslim brotherhood locations , it was already too late. Even rumors appeared back then , that a special administration for internet occurred in state security, this is not very known although we found paper after the revolution that shows that there were deals with private companies for electronic eavesdropping and e-surveillance. There was this famous story of a company called gamma that gave state security a program for trial and probably in 2010 state security started to take serious steps in it.

From 2005 to 2010 there were still tugs of war, as few court cases were raised against activist and some were arrested. The Arabic network for information and human rights had major role in defending these cases and following it, and they have a well-documented archive about that. Some citizens volunteered to report against any posts that criticized the government or Islam such as what happened to karim Amer, as not all the society is accepting the governmental criticism or freedom of speech.

Personally, I never faced censorship but others like Wael Abass who used to post about torture , was always stopped at the gateways on his way to attend a conference in another country. Also Abd El Moniem Mahmoud who was a journalist who belongs to Muslim brotherhood was banned from travelling and going to Sudan.

The closest incident happened to my brother Omar, was the case of the lawyer Abdel el Fetah Mourad who accused him of being silent about somebody who was cursing him and alaa abd el fetah , gamal eid and the Arabic network of human rights.

Hackers?

Historically, as long as there is a closed door, someone will appear to try to open it , whether it’s out of curiosity or to display his intelligence. Whenever there is a lock , someone will try penetrate it , whether to show his skills with no bad intentions or curious about what is hidden or with an evil motive to control the site, penetrate the system or steal important economic or secretive information. But generally speaking, most hacking incident are personal stories such as someone who is mad at another so he steals his email or who loves a girl that betrayed him so he impersonate her character to write in her name and ruin her reputation…etc. other than this , if it is not a company, a bank , or an e- marketing site who has credit card , some political parties would be hacked such as El Ghad party, el sherouk newspaper or El Badil and the Tahrir. I guess several sites from newspapers were hacked, this because of someone who doesn’t like the direction of the paper, or an insider who was a journalist there and was kicked out so he decided to take the domain and never give it back again such as the doctor and the original doctor.

How do you think Mubarak, SCAF and Mohamed morsi dealt with freedom of online ac-

tivism, do you think it’s easier or more difficult to with public opinion, now for example it is easier to spread wrong news?

Yes but this has always been the case, as long as there is an un-centralized media that doesn’t follow a certain regime and nobody controls it , this means that anybody can write whatever he likes. This didn’t change during or after Mubarak, but it will always be the case. The difference now is the quantity, as the number of people

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participating has increased dramatically. We all have seen the artistic and experimental flourish that happened after the revolution of people who take photos, create videos or write on Facebook. It is said that has one million has entered Facebook in one month after the revolution. Nothing has really changed, except that the political movements discovered that this is an effective communication mean especially whenever the number of people on that venue increases. In terms of the effectiveness of mobilization, the government didn’t care much before to use the internet for this cause and they didn’t understand the core of these groups and how they work. So all what they were able to do were the electronic committees , where the national political party would see few young members with IT skills to campaign for the part, open blogs or campaign about Gamal Mubarak’s polices or enter pages to counter argue about any criticism of the government or leave comments on newspapers pages.

This was not as effective as the activity of an enthusiastic person because a blogger who is an employee would never be like an amateur who writes his opinions. The professional commenter who does it as a job his role is worthless. There were some initiatives of creating professional journalistic blogs such as El Gomhoria newspaper that were copy paste from each other with identical colors, fonts and forums. They used to post the same articles in the paper on their blog, however they were not able to remain as they were not used of being criticized or their pieces analyzed each word said by posting sources to prove incredibly or faced with a certain logic that you are not used to, especially that the journalist to respond to a feedback from the reader, while the blogger is used to defend his point in several comments or change his stance if convinced. So the result was the closure of these blogs in less than a month, which proves the disability of the mainstream press to use this medium.

Why do you think although there is alternative media and satellites still purifying the media were one of the requests of the revolution?

This is because it’s the sources of the people and we don’t want our money to be spent on lies and bullshit.

Also because it is still effective, such as during Maspiro massacre when the television announced that the Christian is attacking the army the whole climate has changed and people went to fight with each other in the street. So the public media that is owned by the government is still effective. If it is unable to change its speech and improve itself, which is highly doubtful , especially after we have seen the change in their opinion from defenders of Mubarak to promoting khan which they previously called the restricted group. So this is their job is to hypocrite with the regime, no matter what it was. Which proves that there interest is against the public’s concern about transparency, accountability and punishment. They will always give excuses, no matter what it was. So they spent money and resources that is worth spending in another area rather than a failed television or broadcast.

Do you think what is the important stuff in your work or people I should mention?

Yes, it’s been a long time since I wrote something, but actually because Facebook and twitter made us dump our thoughts directly, we no longer take time to think about our piece on the blog, get excited about it , edit for two days and collect sources or photos for it. So this accumulation of research and thoughts that used to happen on the blogs, don’t happen on Facebook or twitter that helps your emotions to be emptied frequently.

However, on the same time, the social networking is more as you interact with other every minute. But still the discussions on Facebook and twitter is dump, you would write one line that others don’t understand and start questioning you about things you didn’t mean. In fact, Facebook and Twitter are not mediums for dialogue but for announcing news. That’s why twitter was really effective since the first day of the revolution and became the leading controlling unit of it. That’s why demonstrations were un-centralized and scattered, as the walks were led by the news on twitter, that’s why there was an internet breakage for a while to hinder this mean.

That’s why I can argue that the revolution was planned in closed halls and the internet was just a mean , decisions like how Shobra will be a meeting point on the 25th …etc ?

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Surely, there was planned organization but not single one, but several. So even if five friends went together who has an idea to meet in a place , this is an organization. The only difference was that organization during the revolution was scattered , like the nature of the interment, which is not a centralized power that manipulate the masses. However, various groups with different wills move with intersecting goals or different ones at the other times. During the 18 days , there was an unprecendet agreement on views and demands and the result was successful. But surely there were various organized groups such as 6th of April and others.

Ok, but what I mean that a lot of people consider “ We are all Khaled Said” the main initiator of the revolution, is that what you see?

Why not, but still there is no single entity that solely did the revolution! We are all Khaled Said did a call and was highly successful in mobilization, but before we are khaled said the pages, there were some series of demonstrations for Khalid Said the person. But we can’t take a single moment in history and claim that it is the sole doer, on the country it’s a series of incidents and actions that create the bigger picture of the story. Still, the killing of khaled said and even the page were key factors in the uprising.

Even if other incidents could have also been key incidents such as the sink of the boat, as the number of people killed were more?

Yes , but the number of people has never been the factor of friction, also the Salam boat sunk in 1998 but nothing has happened , it about the socio-political situation , the ability of people to communicate, the position of young activists at that time all that has changed. For example, all the time buses fall from the bridge but they don’t start revolutions, as it not about the number of killings but what the story it symbolizes. I guess when you see Khaled said’ photo and imagine he could be your brother or friend or son , many empathized with it because it made it obvious that torturing on the hands of police is not like it was thought to be only about special cases that happen accidently when the registered dangerous would get fainted and die. It became obvious that it can happen to someone from a good middle class family who has a well upbringing and was sitting in an internet café doing something that can be done by thousands of people but was killed without any reason. The awareness of the public about the torturing of police changed in that moment, even when many activists were working on the subject for some time trying to draw the attention of the public that what happens is abnormal such as the media, the reports by the Nadim Centre, the bloggers, “ Egyptians against torturing “ group, and Noha Atef’s site on torturing.Shady Samir was Bahi ‘ blogger and wrote a lot on that topic.

The Language ?

It is normal that people express themselves in their local language, and I was always astonished on how someone would start an initiative about recycling in English, which makes it infective because usually English speaking minority would be aware of it or have read it before. There was always that only this minority are the decision makers as they are the educated elite so when we target them we can produce change. This is not true, as the change doesn’t come from decision makers as we have seen and to create change you have to create awareness to the mass of people and then try convincing them so this should be done in the local language.

Another point I am concerned about is localizing knowledge, which is a major issue of whether one should teach it in science and do researches in English. This is a problem as there is no nation that doesn’t have the ability to discuss scientific terms in its local language. So we should have scientific writing and technicality in Arabic. Whether researches should write their papers in Arabic or English is not my issue, but we should have a local alternative that talks about issues in the colloquial language that instead of people talking about solar eclipse as a magical event that will create blindness, would help them understand it scientifically in their own language.

Archive ?

The internet is a good chance for archiving but it’s not an archive in itself because it doesn’t have a forum and

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its map changes every now and then. However, it can hold an archive because it everything is connected to each other where you can change from one document to another, archive it, classify it and create an index to it and you can’t create a machine that does all this in the traditional press like you do digitally. However, there are other issues such as copyright especially when archiving a public domain you will face the problem of who is the owner. Also for example, you might have wrote about something personal such as your diaries about a peasant girl in foreignness, does documenting your blog means interference in your personal life. The third issue would be the disappearance of pages, several have closed blogs that featured extremely interesting discussions. I personally have witnessed the mental transformational of some people including myself and how they changed their positions like freedom of belief , the nature of power, the relation between genders and various socio-political issues. I wish to document all these, but there are several hinders like I mentioned in the copy right and other technical problem or finances. For example, when a newspaper changes its ownership and deletes all its archive of the past seven years in a critical phase in the nation’s history, such as The Daily Star, the public loses. For example, there are many articles on my blog had a link to a piece from Daily news as a references and now it’s gone, so a part from the larger dialogue of the internet is lost. This needs the thensies of historians to reassemble proofs and links to create a more inclusive digital archive. Previously, papers were preserved in Dar El Kotb and even if it was closed and exclusive place but at least you might have accessibility to it in El Ahram’s Archive. I personally wish to find someone who has the database of Daily news’s Archive and I am ready to publish it with all the legal consequences on my responsibility even if the owners raised a case in the court, I would still feel that I did something important. This happened in other newspapers and can still happen in others, so this archive is highly important. Also the revolution witnessed a huge amount of photos and videos and I always wonder if we can collect all this data or it would be gone from YouTube and Facebook as they are not ideal platforms. Facebook is the worst by far and all these issues are unresolved.

Adef: Was founded as an Ngo from a year, but our activity precedes this since five years through the camps of digital expression, where 70 / 80 kids from the Arab world attend workshops in usage of internet and filmmaking and we have to create a yearly curriculum. We faces issues such as making the kids used to you even if they don’t like you till how you make them go back home after they became attached to you. We have seen how many became writers, rappers, filmmakers, we know that what we do is highly effective but we have the challenge of doing it within the continuous change in the circumstances. From two years, doing the camps after the revolution was a major one. As we have been trying to raise a generation that is able to challenge all autocratic powers, but not to the extent that we found them participants in the revolution which we didn’t expect and we have to repeat all the discussions again. The camps started since the eighties and stopped in 1995, it was financed by TEAM ( Khobra2 El Handsa o Al Adara). Ali Shaath wanted to develop it by combining arts and digital expression not only about IT information. Such as music, animation, filmmaking…etc., so the camps with the new concept returned back in 2007. It even went in Africa such as Mozambique in 1985. We want to spread the idea, the six camps were in Egypt between Cairo and Ismail , in two closed weeks. So the first six weeks were in Egypt, the in 1-15 July 2012 we did the same camp in Tunisia.

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Yousra El Guindy: Born in Egypt, Cairo and raised in Emirates, El Guindy’s interest in the computers dates back when she was at high school in the gulf and had mathematics specialization that can fit her for a Computer Science major.

But because Egypt was more of a Sociable country, she decided to change major and enter philosophy to understand more about the world. The war of Lebanon 2006 made her interested in political since and made her pursue a master in political development studies from Lund University that was followed by another one from the American university of Cairo with a thesis with the title “ The Role of Social Media In The Transitional Period”. How the technological and social fit together and impact one another.

My relationship with the Egyptian revolution was basically through facebook and twitter, since I was in Sweden for my masters and I couldn’t leave the country, as the visa was about to expire. So social media networks were my windows to the world to get in touch with the revolution.I was astonished to find difference between Sweden and Egypt in the usage of social media networks. For example, Swedish people usually use Facebook for example to share their daily lives such as “ I am ironing my skirt” or “I am going to the park”. It’s more mundane and personal. While in Egypt it’s a venue for expressing a political position, they are more actively engaged in political polices and their impact on their lives and this used to also happen before the revolution. This is understandable in countries that are going through political crisis like Egypt with one party ruling and no public sphere. Because they are hurt, they are unable to cater for their needs, which is not the case in active democracies such as Sweden.

But may be the Swedish society is not as diverse as the Egyptian?

On the contrary, they are very diverse and they accept refuges to the extent that if you have a Swedish boy/ girlfriend, you can get the residency. That made the society have different ethnic backgrounds and as a nonSwedish I have the right in some of the local elections that I never did in my own country.

So in what way you think we didn’t have a public sphere?

Mubarak had a certain policy as their were number of media channels allowed a range of topics to be discussed. Since businessmen owned them they catered for their consumer who wanted a hyped discussion and hot arguments. However there were certain limitations and redlines such as Mubarak’s health, operating a critic into an action. Let them talk, speak and discuss was the philosophy of the satellite channels without crossing certain limitations.

So what’s you interpretation on why the previous government invested in IT or at least claimed to do so?

Although there was quite an investment in the infrastructure of IT like reducing the cost of computers, still they were not targeting political dissident but economic profit. However, the Internet became a better tool to maintain a certain level of anonymity and gave organization tools so they were able of organizing actions with keeping security.

So how you think political activism started chronologically?

I think it started with emailing and its peak was in 2002 during the Palestinians intifada especially with the boycotting lists of Zionists and American products. `Still the mail was still not interactive and doesn’t encourage everyone to produce or create like Facebook. Then appeared the forums that were mainly used for religious purpose and preaching, since it had a better level of interactivity. Until we reach web 2.0 starting blogs and then social media. A Blog is like a program that allows you to have a webpage and record a daily diary.

I was reluctant to have a blog, as I was confused whether to make it my name known publicly which will hinder me from saying everything I want to keep it anonymous which I find not personally rewarding. Only

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handful of people read the blog, for example wael Abass’which is the most popular blog in the middle east if not the world, is still only read by handful of people. Even Wael and Malek did their famous blog on sexual harassment; it became viral but still not very accessible, as one won’t check each blog daily since it doesn’t make all relevant news comprehensible for the user. As a user I can’t check all blogs daily. Unlike facebook, as whenever you like a page, the news shared on it leads you to other links. Still, the significance of the blogs were their ability to expose the hidden issues, especially that the information on these blogs can’t be published in mass media knowing it would be closed the next day. It revealed detailed issues like torturing, sexual harassment and captured specific critical monuments that the government tried to hide. So its scope remained limited compared to what happened after that.

How do you think this material reached the bloggers?

It’s not difficult. The only difference is these people are ready to risk themselves in doing so others would avoid triggering the regime and would prefer to remain silent. They are ready to take the responsibility of their posts even if it will expose them to danger with Amn El Dawla. Some stuff they captured themselves such as Malek and Wael’s video on sexual harassment. That’s why there is a difference between normal bloggers and power bloggers such as Wael Abass, Manal & Allaa Abd El Fatah, Malek Moustafa, and Sand Monkey as they did the highlight. Some silly appeared in the middle like Alia El Mahdy. Some are anonymous such as Zenobia. One of the reasons of this is generational and they made several discoveries too

Don’t you think part of it is also social class, as it seams they all come from an educated upper middle class?

No, its about certain skills and use of technology to create social and political awareness. It’s a certain know how or educational skills but most of them they refused to join a certain organization. Some like Gigi Ibrahim are Aucians but most of them really suffered and they don’t have a steady means of income except for giving educational workshops or volunteer in few development projects but still most of these blogs are self sustained. Few actually take grants from NGOs or International organizations as per diem to maintain their blog or certain projects. This sometimes is strange as it’s against their ideology.

Why do you think facebook and twitter became more popular and had more engaged political activities that other social media?

I guess without this huge number of members on facebook, it wouldn’t have gained its popularity as interactivity is the main feature that people are looking for. The forums for example, were closed and one has to be a member to connect where everything is highly centralized under the control of the admin. Facebook is handier than HI5 or My space for example. In-fact, people created facebook so that it become the most popular in Egypt and around the world. This is because it did two important issues: one aspect is interactivity and participations, while the second is the variety of both content and posts. It made anybody is a potential producer and doer of events, posts, articles which created a huge production of content.

People need to post and create discussion and surely the comment tool on facebook is unbelievable. Now for example, anybody can curse a governmental official on his page. So not only it brought people together, it removed the distinction between activist and follower. Now, the virility of the news is different, first of all it has to be short. It’s no more about writing explicit pages. Yesterday for example, I wrote two words “ I miss the revolution” and surprisingly I received many likes. Also if a post became viral, its creator becomes automatically popular. Asmaa Mahfouz became more popular after the video of her calling people to participate that was shared before the revolution. Another example is wael Ghnonem the admin of Khaled Said.

But why Wael Ghoniem received all that Hype?

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It is actually said that the call for 25th of January was Abd El Rahman’s, however he had to go to the army few days before the date of the strike and went out of the picture. Ghoniem gained the fame back then as he was in control. But I am not sure who controlled the page during his arrest. Khalid Said’s page did two important strategies that lead to its popularity: A Non Conflicting Strategy & Lack of institutionalization. To explain that Wael was on the level of the people, he was not an activist, he didn’t declare bold statement or became nervous in an argument. He is not the typical isolated activist, on the contrary his political awareness is limited, he was only affected by the issue of Khaled Said on the personal level and decided to adopt it. His management to the page was soft with gradual escalation of the matters.

He was calm and he would never bid on his audience, on the contrary he would take their opinions first. So this democratic way in solving the problems was very important in engaging the members of the page and in his book the aspect of survey came a lot. Even when he started organizing in the streets, the aspect of people’s security was his main concern for that it started with no banners or shouts and even don’t talk to each other.

He advised them to wear black and read a book whether a Quran or Bible. His strategy was “one by one”. The page started to gradually engage the members in political discussions about torture of the police to leading them to demonstrate in the streets. This surely proves Ghoniem’s successful marketer.

Another point and this was mentioned by Ghoniem in his book, is that facebook is not an institution and you can’t bribe facebook to write an article. So any entity on facebook is not an institution. Kolena Khaled Said for example is not an institution even though its very organized, the structure is about an admin and the rest of the members. The deinstitutionalization of the group and the anonymity of its admin was the strongest points not only for his own safety but because it helped him not to be co-opted by the regime like the rest of the parties. Most institutions need to do compromises in order to sustain itself, a journalist for example would fear to speak least his paper would close the next day and most parties had to sacrifice in the parliamentary elections.

However in the case of, there is nothing to lose, this is just a thingy or profile on facebook. Lets think together what exactly you would fear about here? ! So this absurd organization shifted all security rules. Its normal to close a party or fake a case for it, but here there’s nothing that you can do. That’s why maybe Wael Ghoniem gained all that praise. All that besides surely the significance of the case of Khaled said, especially that he was middle class, the solidarity of many people with the issue including Mohamed El Baradie and above all how his mother was decisive about not losing her son’s right so they networked well. That’s beside he is a young handsome boy with a good reputation and from a decent upper middle class family and all that had its appeal.

In your opinion the revolution was organized on facebook first and then the streets or the opposite?

What do you mean by organized!

I meant that there were several meeting points that lead to Tahrir square later and came from several scattered suburbs There are many aspects that are related to the issue of revolution, one of which is the positive mobilization.

But surely mobilization didn’t only happen on social media but the revolution started with a facebook event that was the first spark and a survey happened first on a page. The propaganda happened for several causes such as Tunis, the kedsien incident and also the discourse with the discussion on facebook of with and against.

Another important point was the cut of internet, you trust social media more than anything else because your friends are posting on it not only activists.

I guess many people participated in the revolution not because khaled said is calling for it but because their friends are part of it and posting about it.

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Yes everybody becomes a potential campaigner, that’s why when the cut the Internet people had to go themselves to know what’s happening and this is the negative theory of mobilization or the cute cat theory of political activism. Social Media has what is called information of cascades. For example when one of your friends like a page or shows that he is going to an event, a form of mobilization takes place as it encourages you to do the same and so on like a snowball effect. Another good example of that is the “ Uprising of Arab Women”, it made me wants to imitate my friend who pictured herself and received thanks from the pages’ admin. Here comes the problem, when someone wants to imitate his friends but at the same time has limited political awareness and thus the conflict that we passed through after the revolution.

I am not generalizing of course, but for example 6th of April did a strike in Mahala but they ruined it as facebook gave them tools that they couldn’t use in real life situations. Another example is Esraa Abd El Fattah who is a very mundane everyday girl but was moved by the unfairness of the society and decided to call people to strike by staying at home. Still she was questioned by the state security that made her declare in one of the interviews that she won’t participate in politics although later she returned back to activism again.

However, this proves you how the regime is able to suppress these actions like how Wael Ghoniem also came out of the prison and cried. And although what the social media has done in terms of participation is positive, however its effect is very shallow. Several youth who started the revolution gained their political understanding from Facebook and thus lacked depth. After Mubarak’s step down, khaled said wasn’t supporting all the demonstrations such as those that were against the army like the one in front of the Balloon theatre and after that.

That’s why many activists and bloggers find that whatever happened on social media was negative as participation lacked political insightfulness and knowledge. This proves that the mentality of a blogger differs a lot from a Facebook activists. A blogger knows ahead issues more than anybody else and exposes cases that cannot be mentioned by mass media, it is very rare that they would make a demonstration successful. While on the group Kolena khaled said pushed everybody to declare they are “ Khaled Said” and wants to engage without creating political awareness. Mobilization here becomes participatory.

Do you think Mobilization through social media is still effective?

As I told you before, Facebook as a mobilization agency was very important before and during the revolution as nobody was able to speak or object after the revolutions there is elections and referendum and this was the role o political parties. Still the presence of political parties on Facebook became much stronger after the revolution, even SCAF had a page!

But SCAF’s page didn’t continue!

That’s because their philosophy was to create a presence that equates the existence of youth and social groups.

However they didn’t get the essence of it, as this is not the national TV here! They didn’t understand that if they post a formal announcement, anybody could curse you on your page. So they started claiming that of the admin ‘s stance doesn’t represent their own views such as their issue accusing AUC students. That’s why a centralized entity like SCAF failed on social media, as they didn’t understand that if your talking Facebook, you are talking participation and interactivity.

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Ahmed Ezz El Din A video reporter of several programs such as “ Akher Kalam” with Yousry Foud, Al Ashera Masaen with Mona El Shazly, Arabic BBC and The Dostor Newspaper. was born in Damietta and journalism was my passion but I couldn’t adapt with its environment, so I started reading blogs and “ I want to get married “ or “ Aiza Atgawez “ for Ghada Abd El Eal”. My first article as a journalist was about the blogs that turned into books such as El Al’s I want to get married, “Rice With Milk For Two People” for Rehab Bassam, “But This Is My Own Dance” for Ghada Mahmoud Mohamed under the blog with my self. I worked on the campaign against the factory called Agrium and I did a page on facebook until the factory changed its location. I also worked as an art critic. Later I worked as a reporter with El Ashreh Masaen and did an interview with Baradie several times, the supporting sit-ins with the Tunisian revolution. Also Khaled Ezz El Arab and me were the first to enter the Internet café that khaled was killed in.

In the beginning I didn’t believe a change might happen and was among the people making fun of the revolution until I read a facebook post that encouraged me as it said why we don’t give it a shot! On the 25th of January, I was given two choices either to cover the police celebrations or the demonstrations that day, so I chose the second option. Since then I became under pressure of covering the events or participating in it.

During the 25th of January, a lot of TV channels were scared and decided to pull out their cameras, so I returned back the equipment and decided to join the demonstrators in the square.

Back then, some people discovered twitter for the first time and silly terms such as “ Shabab El Facebook & Twitter” (Facebook’s Youth), this is a banal term and there is nothing called that. Twitter has people from various backgrounds as its not an ideology or creed, there are leftists, Muslim brotherhood.

After the camal incident, things became clear and the local media were more driven into waiting for Mubarak the six month. So I decided that if the program a didn’t take a stand against what’s happening, I will leave them. Mobilization started to increase and more people joined the facebook pages and Wael Ghoniem’s episode with Mona El Shazly had a positive feedback! So people started being split and arguments on facebook increased between Mubarak and Shafik supports and revolts. Such as the hype that happened after El Aswani’s episode with Shafik, as some became angry about the way shafik was attacked in the episode or thought that Allaa Aswani was impolite and vice-versa.

This made many people treat the Internet like a utopia as if the characters in it are obvious, while in-fact if the comments on facebook and twitter were said on the streets people will hit each other. On the same post in Khaled Said’s pages is accused once as slaves for the MB’s Morshed or head and on the same thread as el Baradie and Hamdien Sabhy followers. In another they would bring a video for Alla El Aswani speaking about the protagonist to prove that he is a traitor. So the virtual world is a parallel society with all what it holds from positives and negatives. In this world have the people like those who would post a photo of a tree on the shape of Allah or watermelon with Allah written with the seeds, while others would post a video with the title “ a girl died while watching a porn movie”, all these exits besides activists such as Wael Ghoniem and Wael Abass.

Also on you tube, subscribers would accuse each other as an apostate and another one would counter the statement of another and all these would be on the feedback for a song for Um Khalthum.

However, these pages started to be influential, especially in how they developed the idea of protesting through Sarcasm such as the videos making fun on Mubarak’s speeches when he used to say “ I will stay” or “ Saof Azel” or the man behind Omar Soliman and Shafik’s pullover. These things have great benefits such as breaking the taboo of the wholeness of the president who has prestige and sovereignty, but you treat him as an actor who you can mock and criticize. This is historical as the president was a red line that no body can cross to the extent that when writers like Abd El Hamid Handil who was thrown in the desert without clothes and Ibrahim Eissa who was imprisoned only for mentioning the president’s health, and all these were done indirectly through lawyers in the national party. While the negatives that this opposition happens through the keyboard,

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while there must be an action in the streets. This has made some worry that this would turn out like the oppositional newspapers during Mubarak’s regime, who were just ineffective puppet who were given the freedom to talk without any action. The online activism can turn like that where people would comment with some caricatures, few words or jokes without forming a profound journalism.

Later, Baradie became out of the picture with his repeated excuse that he pushes people but doesn’t lead them, so Muslim Brotherhood appeared to the playground, Then SCAF made an account to produce decrees, so suddenly the most conservative power which used to create a hype if there was something wrong in a small detail in the map as they wanted to understand who is this creature on facebook. Some decisions were made in order to satisfy the youth and let them calm down, so they designated Essam Sharef who went to Tahrir Square between the masses to make a lot touched. Not before the referendum on the constitution that many started to have a better picture of the situation and understand the influence of Muslim Brotherhood in the streets. Not because of conspiracy theories, but I am unable to see the logic the behind the referendum except to measure the different forces in the streets and this became obvious in the choices of figures in the committee for the constitutional amendments. Also the means of mobilization were discovered, so the liberal force made a video with El Baradie and uploaded it on facebook, while the others played the game with masses correctly. Unlike the Salafis who wanted the implantations of Sharia, while Muslim Brotherhood thought about lessening the path. Also the Alaa Abd El Fetah, Nora Negm, Wael Khalil and Amr Ezzat said yes from the same perspective of lessening the time of the transitional period.

As a journalist I was trapped in being objective, so all what I could do was covering the news or participating although for example the two admins of We are all Khaled Said are my close friends. Speaking about the role of facebook in mobilization, we will discover that most mainstream media started having reports who would follow what’s happening in the new media, most TV presenter’s started having accounts on twitter and they started following the requests of their audience on the internet and knowing their feedback. Political figures started not taking to journalists but would write their thoughts on the Internet for the reports to rephrase it in the papers later. Some of the bloggers moved to traditional media such as the blogger Omar El Hady who had a blog called Asadx and the creator of the front page “ The flowers that opened in Egyptian gardens” of El Masry El Youm.

Why do you think the traditional media is still effective?

Like in politics, change in mainstream media happens slower than the alternative one, change happens gradually not suitable for the presence of a revolution. Currently there are many bloggers who started to journalists for the online version of the newspapers, which doesn’t have a printed version such as Ahmed Nagy, Amr Ezzat, Ahmed Samir, Glal Alaa, and Osama El Shazly. A page like “We are all Khaled Saed” has 2 million subscribers and even when they tried to do a movement called “ Masrena” wasn’t as strong. Of course the public national media has died long time ago , however the independent printed media is trying to recap with what is happening by having at least a website and online uploads and although the private media has several problems since it is owned by businessmen who acts as the shop owner but still it has a larger margin o freedom. Also a boom in the political shows happened, though entertainment programs had more audience before the revolution.

Why Khaled Said?

Khaled Said wasn’t a political activist, and the objection of the cyber owner was that the police would beat khaled said outside the cyber. Many mocked the way that We are all Khaled said’s page chose for striking by wearing black and standing still, however this was a way the middle class expressed its worry about torture reaching them. Especially that torture was always known for the workers such as the mechanics, drivers, street girls, while the conflict with middle class was restricted to clashes for a driving licences or a violation of law.

After khaled said, the concept of killing entered became possible and people thought that this could happen to a member of his family. People were still scared from the demonstration in the streets, so opposition became easier from an anonymous page on facbook calling for peaceful events and even with the anti-campaign on

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national television, a lot were still threatened by the incident, especially that many parents know that their kids take drugs or drink hash but couldn’t do anything about it. Although there were very few members from the Muslim brotherhood who didn’t sympathize with khaled said as he might be a drug addict, the majority were compassionate with the story as they were members of The National Committee For Change and a lot know that several get killed in the police deportation cars, while the Sheik who prayed on said’s body was an old MB member.

Nobody can depict the main reason for the revolution, as people participated for various reasons. Some decided to strike in the streets because they were against the ruling gang but didn’t have any problem with Mubarak, others were against police brutality and because Mubarak was an ally with Israel or because of the forged parliamentary elections.

Any 2000 people who gathered for a cause can be effective without caring much about trivial ideas such as the prestige of the state (Haybet El Dawla) and in-fact change won’t happen unless physical conflict happen.

The ultras for example didn’t get their rights, until they stroked in front of the parliamentary and broke into the football association and media city. This is because this is the method of the ruling regime and that’s the only way to oppose it.

The idea of the leader has become absolute now, it even failed with El Baradie and that’s why I don’t think the bloggers can become our spokesmen since they all have different opinions already. Also note that many of the bloggers, their parents are activists such as Wael khalil the son of Mohsna Tewfik, Noara Negem and Alaa Abd El Fetah’s parents were imprisoned several times like himself.

Not all the supports of the army and Mubrek were rented, some truly believed in the older regime. Although the army had several defects such as defending the American embassy instead of preventing the massacre in Tahrir Square or harassing the girl, however only it was only after Maspiro that many stopped defending the army. People who blamed the girl of going to Tahir square are actually cowards. For example I have actually witnessed an incident after Maspiro, as while I was in The Coptic hospital a guy came and told the parents of the martyrs that we want to cease the situation and not publicize it so that we won’t be divided like Sudan.

How do you think the usage of the Internet has changed in the three phases: Mubarak, SCAFand Muslim brotherhood?

There is a unit called media observory in the council of ministers that is a group of youth responsible for watching the talk shows and writing reports with every single world said in it and the same applies to the internet. For example, you won’t find many injecting Morsi’s speech to Shimon Peraz. And although many consider whatever happens online is detached from reality but infact it is a good measurement for public opinion since it is the only platform for many to express themselves. It might be not a precise section of people but it’s an expressive & influential one.

What are the events that Kolena Khaled Said didn’t participate in?

One of the problems of khaled said after the revolution was that Abd El Rahman who was one of the main admins of the page was in the army and Wael Ghoniem controlled the page with others admins like a third friend of them and a girl who lives America Ghoniem is more reformer and he believes that things should happen gradually, that’s why the page didn’t revolt against the army or welcome the Ultras. The Two admins had different policies as Ghoniem plays politics, while Abd El Rahman believes in protesting and that’s why the page during Ghoniem ‘s lead was more submissive but now its more balanced.

Do you think when Ghoniem chose specific candidates in the elections, this has caused that his identity to be revealed and made the page lose credibility.

No, nobody knows what an identity. They are both like most of us all who are ex-Ikhwan or previous members in the Muslim brotherhood, they are aware of politics but one was in El Baradie Campaign who later elected

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Abo El Fetouh and the other boycotted the elections. So you can’t judge their political inclination like many people on twitter and facebook. People talk about credibility, however it not a newspaper.

Do you think the social media created stars that became the main spokesmen figures that mobilizes the people?

On the contrary, because it helped in getting us closer to our starts such as one’s university’s professors, whom you discovered later that their opinions are shallow. It showed you that there are some people who can express themselves through writing rather than television. We started to be more objective in dealing with various opinions and the wholeness whatever is said has disappeared. Many people lost their glamour such as Hussinen Hiekel.

Why do you think many didn’t follow El Baradie in his calls after the revolution, although he was one of the initiators, while on the contrary many people mocked his ideas?

For example, if he advised for the creation of the constitution first, we are all khaled said would have a different call?

From the beginning of revolution when he participated in the revolution in the streets many were against him as they thought he knows nothing about the Egyptians, while the opposition thought that they are more worthy since they were prisioned and tortured. El Baradie’s idea of an all-inclusive national shade has failed as many thought they should have a larger role such as Essam Sultan. Some thought he only aims for presidency, so he became frustrated from the general atmosphere. Also he wasn’t in Egypt on the 25th and there was a negative propaganda against him in the media. He also called in the beginning for the stay of SCAF until the constitution would be written which is strange how he would prefer that the army write the constitution but not the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Nora Younis

When did your interest in the Internet begin?

In the beginning of the nineties, I was eighteen years old and it was after I finished high school. I was keen on having a job, so I used to work in a travel agency in the midst of my studies. The Internet appeared back then and when the company brought it, I became the one who is responsible for the communication with ISP Company since I was the youngest. Knowing that there were only three companies back then and everything was still very primitive as one used to deal with an internet service provider, where you go to a company and have a number t, then a black screen would appear where you write “ dial ATDP” which automatically takes a phone line and you listen to fax buzzer. It was really bizarre. From there I directly entered into the chat programs and the first chat program that appeared was called “ Free Tell”, where a list of all people who are online from around the world would appear on the side and you can chat with anybody even if you don’t know each other.

Although it was called “ free tell” it didn’t have voice as it was only text, and the screen would be split into two after you click on the name you chose. Beside this the program would be down if the number exceeded 300 and the list was written with green on a black screen. I remember that I had an Australian chat friend where we kept communicating for years. Then ICQ appeared and things became very open after that. Still, I consider myself an intermediate user to the Internet as the generation that preceded me they are more interested in how these things are done such as Wael Abass for example, while I use it as a user interface and a social user so I never entered MIRC for example which had a chat room called Egypt that used to discuss political issues.

And when did you shift your online activity from social to political?

I started to be a political contributor since 2005, before that I was a consumer as I was part of several email communities that usually had political content. I am not sure how some got my mail, but I used to work in the FAO back then and most the emails were in the favour of the Palestinian intifada. Even when during the war on Iraq, I was just a recipient for the campaign promoting the boycott of American products. But I was active offline, as I used to print these flyers and distribute it or put a sticker on my car “ I don’t use American products and also I used to attend strikes and demonstrations flowing a call on these email communities but I didn’t reply or became engaged in conversations.

In 2005, I started to take photos and especially that I noticed that the visual documentation of the street movement was little and limited to mainstream media who would shoot a two hours demonstrations in 30 seconds only. I felt that part of the suffering and struggle should become more documented, so I decided to stand between the journalists and take photos with my camera and the police thought that I am with them as well. From the email communities, I had the emails of Wael Abass and Alaa Seif and even that I didn’t know them back then I used to send them the pictures so they can upload them on their sites. There was no competition and the photos were good, then Ahmed Gharbieh directed me to Flicker and insisted that I would have my own page instead of uploading it on other pages. He also helped me in designing and launching my blog. Later in 2010, I won the Human Rights First award for my efforts in promoting Human Rights using new media tactics, such as documenting the massacre for the Sudanese, the campaign for Bahais rights and against Harassment in Egypt.

In your opinion how did the online activity change before and after the revolution?

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Personally, I stopped having any political activity. I even lost my domain as I didn’t renew the registration and knew later that an Italian broker bought it in an online auction so I tried to contact Godaddy who told me that I have to pay 60 dollars. Thankfully, Ahmed Gharbia protected my online data and promised to upload it on a new site. Probably in 2008 and after I worked with Washington Post, I stopped my blogging activity. This because the international media made me have self-censorship as they believe a journalist can’t be an activist and they teach you to extract your opinion from your writings so that it becomes more factual.

Generally speaking its very obvious how everybody is becoming blunt and daring. Cursing and cruising the president is becoming very common. Also when I was an active blogger my dream was to break any red line, which in my opinion wasn’t Mubarak or his wife but it was the army. Whether through documentaries or even opening the discussion about forced army recruitment, the army’s share in the economy and the abuse that happens for Egyptian youth during that time, especially that they would waste a year in their lives to work as a secretary or in macaroni factories, all that was a taboo which has changed completely after the revolution.

Also before the revolution it was easier to become influential online as there were few active people, currently as everybody is contributing making an affect needs a harder effort. For example it was enough for you in the past to say “ No for torture” or “ Downfall for the minister of interior” to become a famous blogger and be featured everywhere, now it’s no more the case.

You had a previous opinion on the usage of Omar Soliman to the Internet and the electronic committees?

I haven’t seen anyone from this generation who understood the purpose use of the Internet, even for example the account on twitter LASSGN statements and press releases and these were the most advanced of the initiations. Now Morsi has two accounts one for the campaign and the for his presidency. I guess that El Baradie used to tweet himself. Any other trial that happened after that was really. Even for example the Photoshop declaration, they are insisting on the stamp on facebook while a status would be enough there was no need for a jpg. So my evaluation these people didn’t understand the essence of the tools of new media, however they saw it as a bucket where they can spill in it any shit to reach mass users.

And what about electronic committees?

The presence of electronic committees were obvious from long time ago, however we were not able find a suitable name for it until the term (Ellegan el shabia) or social committees appeared but there was the Internet intelligence. However, we always sensed the presence of state security members watching and commenting.

Accounts that are recently opened or when you check the IP of the commenter on my blog, I used to be chocked to find 20 people entering from the same IP and stating the same thing but we used to call them internet intelligence or may be it was a branch from the state security that was responsible for reviewing the online world .

In your opinion the online activism changed the or vise-versa and the Internet was just a tool?

I actually don’t think the Internet was the reason for the change, rather than a generation. So even before the facebook and the social media groups page such as 6th of April or Kolna khaled said’s page, there was the kefaya which I don’t consider it more of a media campaign movement rather than a political one as they used to fix the dates of the demonstrations and strikes in a timing so that they can catch the newspapers before its printing. This wasn’t a negative issue as it is also important to reach out to people and create an awareness campaign and inside this mass media movement that hosted many famous figures, there were a small group of young people that defected and created “ Youth for a change” (Shabab Men Agel El Tageer). These young activist were accidently became bloggers later and I have attended group discussion about the blogs with them and there were many members who were against it. They also were highly opposing and pressuring the leaders of Kefaya as all what they used to do was standing like a chorus in Abd El Khalek Tharwet to feel good about themselves and leave. On the other hand, the youth wanted were fighting, clashing and insisted on organize sit-ins or marchers; this was a completely different view from the older generations who have been activists since the seventies. T ُ hese generations are the people who became bloggers, admins for facebook pages and figures like Ahmed Maher and Mohamed el sharkawy. “ Youth for a change” were various and mixed from

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different backgrounds such as The Adel Islamic Labour party, the revolutionary communists and some from whom we called the enlightened among the Muslim Brotherhood such Abd El Moniem Mahmoud, they were people from the far left to the far right. Infact, most of the young youth that we called the enlightened in the Muslim brotherhood were separated from it later and some had their own blogs such as Abd E Moniem Mahmoud had a blog called “ Ana Ikhwan”, Mohamed El Kasas, Ibrahim El Hodieby who had a blog called “ Mosh Hanbatel” so they had an online voice in the time when the Muslim Brotherhood were against the idea of the individual opinion or voice. Eventually for various reasons and left the Muslim Brotherhood.

But Still Muslim Brotherhood had there online activity such as their website ikhwan online and ikhwantube, do you think it had any influence or it was just an advertisement?

They didn’t have these platforms to create a dialogue with people, this was just a bucket to spill over ideas to million of users.

Did you face any censorship on your online activity?

No, only once may be a member of the state Security called me to advice me as I knew him personally before the demonstrations of Judges Club. He told me don’t strike tomorrow as we are catching many people and I understood that the reason of these calls is to tell my friends this message so the biggest number don’t participate. It was one of these strikes that had 500 Muslim brotherhoods with only 50 boys and girls who are not part of them. You know these strikes when 20 women are standing beside each other with their hair exposed and the rest are men. So it was important for them that these 50 won’t come that day because it is easier to burke any gathering of Ikhwan as they there was a hate propaganda against them in the streets and they were labelled the prohibited “ EL mahzoura”. But I didn’t announce this call to anyone and I participated in the demonstrations, photographed it and uploaded the documentations in my blog.

Do you think the activist that became famous later were different figures than the early years such as Wael Ghoniem as an example?

Wael Ghoniem didn’t exist before the revolution. I only heard his name once when he came to propose collaboration between El Masry El Youm and Google other than that I never knew about him. He even declared that in his book.

And why do you think why Wael Ghoniem and Asmaa Mahfouz became the icons of the revolution?

These are the figures that we chose, for some the icon of 25th of January is Samboo who had the famous graffiti of him with a rifle. He was one of the revolutionist from the Zawya El Hamra District, who took the weapon from one of the fights with the police and attacked several stations of the ministry of interior and was prisioned after that. Also El Masry El Youm received a lot of criticism for the front page she created for the martyrs, as they chose the youth that looked like khaled said who are the middle good-looking class such as sally zahran who is the cute girl with curly hair. So you chose the decent people and labelled them with “ the flowers that opened in Egyptian gardens and this became our idea of the martyrs, the educated and the “ pure youth”. I think from this perspective also came the idea of “ khaled Said”, “ Wael Ghoniem” and a certain profiling of the upper middle class that can move the middle class which would be threatened when it sees similar people who are under attack. Also torture in police station always excited, however there was this perception that it is only targeting the poor an the vulnerable and that they are far away from what’s happening. The Internet helped in exposing this and showing that this is not far fetched and the most effective pictures were the photos of “ El Nas El Nadifa” or the decent youth.

Others are rejecting completely the idea of peaceful demonstrations, especially that the police are holding weapons and without them I can’t attack unless I burn their cars or face him. So we have to take it now down,

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before he attacks me tomorrow. There is a certain romanticism about how the revolution should be, but actually if the police stations and cars were attacked or burnt, the issue wouldn’t have been resolved at all. This issue was tackled in the article “ The poor first, you son of dogs!” ( Al Fokra2 awlen ya welad el kelb).

So you worked in both citizen journalism and independent media, what do you think is the difference between the two?

When I worked in online campaigns as a blogger, I wasn’t part of any political party but I found myself more concerned with neglected problems especially that deal with human rights issues. I learned from my e-activism that the campaign becomes successful when it reach mass media and a talk show would host the blogger to talk about it. Only then it becomes viral and you create public opinion. So when I moved to traditional journalism, I made sure that it becomes closer to what is happening in the streets as I remember how we previously suffered with mass media to get in touch quickly with the happening events. When I became responsible of the site, I made sure that they would be all young people with high humanistic values and is worried about exposing the details of the truth no matter their ideologies or writing skills. When we started with the videos, the labour strikes didn’t have adequate exposure as people thought it was silly, until it reached the peak and was labelled as “ Mozahrat Fawaya” or categorical demonstrations. But we catched all these from the beginning.

Now we have 3000 hours archive for every event that happened in Cairo or other governorates. For example, when the revolution started I sent someone to Mahala, another to Suez even when things were still calm. So we had a documentary called “ El Thawra Khber” or the revolution is a piece of news that won a prize in the Berlin Film festival and had the website (www, documentingarevolution.com). We also did a premiere for the film in Tahrir Square and later in Ramses Hilton cinema. The film is about the team of video documentation of El Masry El youm and about the struggle they faced to become objective and impartial but at the same time had the urge to engage and provoke the public in the demonstrations.

The other issue that I couldn’t do in my blog was creating a national archive about our local problems with an all inclusive accessibility, especially that all our footage were owned by the BBC and EL Jazzera and the National television shouts things and never screen them. And with all our efforts as bloggers what we documented was still very little, that’s why from the first day I started working in the traditional media I was keen on creating an archive with creative commons licence so it can be used freely unless it is not for commercial purposes. So sometimes I feel I have used El Masry El Youm to fulfil my dream. But we now have more than 2050 report and 3000 hours archive.

Why do You think human rights weren’t part of the major requests during the revolution and they remained categorical issues such as Maspiro and labour strikes, even kolna khaled ignored them or neglected some of the stands?

I think there is a huge improvement in human rights in the first months after the revolution so there was no need to focus on it, especially that there was a huge concern about larger issues such as the martyrs, the parliament, trials of the old regime. If you can remember, Mubarak for example was sent to the court after a long time as he first was staying in Sharm El Shiehk. Things now are worsened, so the awareness to refer to human rights returned back. Surely also “ bread, freedom, social justice” is a slogan that includes human rights

Why do you think Egyptian bloggers became influential commenter?

The interest of Mainstream media in us was very important to increase our exposure, as most international newspapers quoted us in their articles and reports, especially that they were looking for a good speaking English source. Also the mainstream in Egypt follows the international media and anything written in the western newspapers becomes a front page in the local one. So Wael Abass, Shahinaz El Naggar , Amr Gharbia became the source of information for many international media . For example , during the Mahala labour revolts in Egypt , an employee in the factory and a blogger called karim el Bahiry, is writing a first hand information about what is happening , so he became an important source for the international media.

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Tameem Younes First Post: Most Famous Post: Website: http://www.youtube.com/user/tameemyouness YouTube Followers: 22,533 Subscribers / 2,781,879 Video Views # raseeni

When did you start using the Internet?

I started using the Internet in the school vacation between the class year of 3rd Preparatory and 1st Thanawy.

Back then one had to use the telephone’s line to enter on the net and of course its noisy sound is unforgettable.

Back then AUC’s password was the most famous and whenever you try to use it, you would hear a sound of a busy modem.

So do you remember how you stared your activity on the WWW? The first website I tried to enter was surely www.sexplanet.com. Later on, chatting programs appeared such as MRC and we used to sit on it for hours and create gangs of friends to hunt someone. When the ICQ was launched it became the only way to know new people and create friends. “ASL” (Age, Sex, Location) was the first thing asked in any chat conversation and we used to search for female in Egypt to pick up a new online relationship. Then I started using various programs such as Pitball to stream porn or Limewire, Shiraz and Napster to download music mps and films. Back then and especially with the dial up numbers that used to start 09000, downloading a film would take a month or something. It was very slow and unpractical. Then I entered the world of Hacking, I started with hacking the dos of another computer. This was just about entering another computer and writing the world TROSIONS with green on a black screen. Later, hacking became more developed and you could enter another computer and check their files.Then came the time when pampering your computer was a trend. I used to enter a website called “ Hello Neo” to download backgrounds, wallpaper and themes.

What in your opinion were the highlights of these programs during that era?

HI5! As it took flirting to different level after HI5. You can say it was an evolution in the world of flirting. I knew a lot of people in it and I meet a girl that I was about to marry as we used to write direct messages to each other. After a while, knowledge and seeking information started to have its own glamour and I used Askjeeves and Yahoo as venue to the world of knowledge. But when Google appeared, things became totally different and it took me some time to understand all its aspects. You can say that the internet is divided into two phases, the first was before the DSl and this was limited to playing games online and it was a miracle for whoever had his own line back then. But it was WIFI; Facebook & Google that took the online practices to a different level and even changed our day-to-day lives drastically. Now it’s not the digital world vs. real life anymore. It has become part of the culture and lifestyle. For example, I recently cooked pasta with my girlfriend on skype.

Do you face censorship on the Internet or do you practice self-censorship on yourself?

Yes all the time but I never do any restrictions to my online activities. I even browse anything and watch any crap even if its different than what I think but I do this to understand how others think. For example, I always receive comments on my videos and they are not always positive. The first video I made was about me doing moonwalk with socks and someone entered and cursed me that poked me to tease him too. Later I started to provoke people more to discover various extremists’ reactions. I also like to watch the war between different people and the highly charged arguments.One of the comments on the video “ Welad Meit” was threatening to be killed as I was cursing the regime for Port Said ‘s mass killing in the match and the girl that was uncovered by the army.

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Rami El kerdani When did you start using the Internet?

When I was in third preparatory I took a computer class and it was only theoretical as we used to be dictated about the Dos and the Internet. The computers in this class didn’t even have a browser, until in one day we learned how to do an email and since we didn’t know many who had emails we started sending forwards to each other and surely we also shared pornographic photos. We also didn’t have personal subscriptions, so we used to do shifts on the computer lab.

I am a Google freak. I was always curious to know things and I remember downloading a book “ Anarchist Cook Book” and it gave you tips on how to burn your computer using your floppy disk and I applied these tips. Internet basically changed my life as I knew many people, I immigrated to Canada through MSN, learned skills for my job and knew my wife via Facebook. The web gave us access to all films uncut, before that the movies that we used to borrow from the video clubs passed through censorship and had low quality. It also made everyone a potential public figure and exposed many talents. These days everyone have become an Internet user and people from different social class has digital life, which made it a hub for different mentalities and backgrounds.

Social media revolutionized the internet because its made by the people’s posts, what made facebook interesting as an invention is the worldwide contribution of the masses which gave value and worth to it.

I was traveling in Byblos in Lebanon and needed a lighter and surprisingly no one had a lighter, so I entered the net and checked how to do a DIY lighter and I successfully made one.

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Noha Atef

Researcher and writer who used to Blog from 2006 till 2010 about torture in Egypt on her page www. tortureegypt.net. She finished her masters in University of Burnham city on social media and she is currently a PHD candidate whose thesis is about Citizen’s Journalism and Broadcasting.

When did you start using the Internet?

I started using it in the nineties to check the high school results on the Internet probably with the number 777 and also the MSN. But my need to the Internet was peaked when I started working in a News agency and the web was crucial. In 2006 I read a report about the torture of women in police stations that was published by El Nadeem Research Centre on the website of The Arab Network For Information & Human Rights and when I sent it to my friends they didn’t believe that such stuff might be happening.

I opened a Blog to publish the report and create awareness about torturing in Egypt, later I decided to send the link of my page to Alaa Abd El Fetah as he had a used to link other blogs from his page. Abd El Fetah showed a lot of interest in the page and with Amr Gharbia they decided to help me develop it and showed me how to use it. It wasn’t an online venue only, as I used to talk with several victims, Human Rights activists or institutions and even physians or phycatirts. Also some of tortured cases used to search for me to publish their stories.

Why do you think, people who were active before the revolution weren’t necessary the initiators during or post the revolution?

I was never an activist rather than a participant, especially at the hype of incidents from 2005-2010. My interest was mainly showing Human Rights defects to stir people’s anger rather than leading in mass mobilization.

The revolution happened when I was abroad as I travelled in September 2010 and didn’t return back until July 2011, so I couldn’t urge people to do something as I wasn’t part of what happened and couldn’t deeply realize it even so I don’t have suggestions to change the current situation. But there are some constants that you can’t argue about and I always participated in, such as demonstrations for oppressed freedoms or torturing, especially that I have experience in this area.

Do you think some bloggers or political activists had a different vision for change rather than the scenario of the revolution?

Personally I felt it was a dream. We all used to talk and say, “When the revolution starts” and we dreamt of the burn of the police stations .I personally knew its going to happen in my life but I couldn’t imagine it will happen that quickly, however we never talked about what will happen post the revolution or whether the constitution will come first or the elections as the dream is usually not explicit.

Did you face any Censorship?

Nothing has been removed because this wasn’t Egypt’s polices; however I once wrote about the Sudanese refugee massacre in Mohandsien district (check)! During the years I started knowing means of torturing such as how they give electric shocks in a way that don’t leave marks

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What’s the difference between e-activism in Mubarak’s era, then SCAF’s and Morsi’s?

Cyber activism became much connected to the street and most of the movements start started offline then opens a page on the web. The problem is that the regime believed that the Internet sparked the revolution and reacated by that by appearing online such as SCAF’s page and their digital public announcements that were published in printed papers, although they personally never enter the Internet. Still there are many violations that happen but they do it in a legal format. Egypt was ranked among of the worst ten countries where you can become a journalist or blogger and it was the list of enemies of the Internet in 2007 till 2009.In 2008 more than 100 blogger was kidnapped and this still happens up-till now but legally.

So in your opinion who started the revolution the Internet or the street?

I believe the Internet was just a tool; it can’t be an incentive or the action, as it is just a mean for broadcasting and mobilization that helps the organization on a certain level.

Why do you think although Egypt was ranked as enemies of the Internet, the government publicized itself as E-government?

I used to write in a blog called Global Voices Advocacy, I used to write about the violations that face writers and it was Reporters without Boarders that ranked Egypt as an Internet Enemy. Such as Mosad Abo Fager, was a blogger from Sinai and had a page called “ Wedna Ne3esh” which is “ we need to live”, he was caught by the police and prisoned but the court said he has no accusations and asked to set him free so they would get him out of the prison only on paper and bring him back again, this happened nine times. Also Philip Rizk was kidnapped in the manifestation that was going to Ghaza and was jailed. Most of these people were poisoned because they were both online and offline activists. Kareem Amer is another example as he was tortured inside the prison, because his blog used to criticize Islam and he took three years for humiliating the president and one year for blasphemy.

How do you think controlling public onion has become easier or more difficult?

Controlling public opinions is now harder as the differences between people became clear and everybody now thinks and analysis things more.

What in your onion are the most important incidents on facebook?

We Are all Kaled said is the most important to me, especially Facebook groups and events were also highly effective as they took a further step after the bloggers as for example I never asked people to go down in the streets. Even my last news that I wrote was the death of khaled said. His photo went to people and it was vivid and he is not Emad El Kbier but a middle class young boy. Also 2010 was a year full of strikes from most sections of the society. I am also highly interested in the non-political gatherings that are concerned with community building such as ASa7be or The Divorced Radio ( Radio El Motlkat). I believe the people in that group is a treasure and people share about a cause in a sarcastic way more than a campaign with a big slogan such as “ no for prices increase”.Also the blog of I want to get married and the Radio For The Divorced, which I believe is the first of its kind in the world probably.

Do you think this entire clustered online world can create an unsociable society?

Its not related to Egypt as from two years Andrew Moore had a theory that the bloggers are unsociable and are bunch of people sitting at home with their wires. I believe that Internet didn’t change social habits but the same people who didn’t have social skills and used to stay at home and were knitting (Trico) are now the

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same people who spend most of their time online . However, now most of the kids play with the ipad , unlike our generation who used to play with the cubs or “ Biet Byout” that develop our social skills and I expect an isolated and an antisocial generation or it will sure have side effects.

Do you think the internet can create an archive or things are easier to be lost their?

It’s relatively safe. For example I uploaded my photos on flicker but if the company decided to sell the page it will create a problem. That’s beside you have limited number of photos that if you exceeded it will hide it from you. Another example was Maktoub that was a Jordanian company before it was sold to yahoo and one day Maktoub decided to flirt with the king and all the bloggers found a photo of the king saying Happy birthday your Excellency, so it didn’t became a private space anymore. One of the significant issues was blogging in Levant region , such as Jordan in which most of the blogs were hosted by Maktoub that belongs to yahoo and on the Birthday anniversary of the king , his photo appeared on most of the Jordanian blogs as a default).

What are the significant findings in your master thesis?

Most of the new generation is caricature and comics and hey are all keen about prints and newspapers. The Internet wasn’t a substitute to the newspapers for the Comics and Caricature illustrators. Also commercial part is important such as hani shams , amr okasha, makhlouf….etc. The internet created a new visual language as it created new fonts and stressed the importance of colours.

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Chronology

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Chronology Pre-Internet Inventions

1822 Charles Babbage designs his first mechanical computer 1848

Boolean algebra is invented by George Boole

1880 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone called the Photophone 1895 Radio signals were invented by Guglielmo Marconi 1923 Television Electronic was invented by Philo Farnsworth 1924 Electro Mechanical television system was invented by John Logie Baird 1931 Kurt Godel publishes a paper on the use of a universal formal language 1937 Alan Turing develops the concept of a theoretical computing machine 1959 Paul Baran theorises on the “survivability of communication systems un der nuclear attack”, digital technology and symbiosis between humans and machines 1963 Douglas Engelbart invents and patents the first computer mouse (nick named the mouse because the tail came out the end)n The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is developed to standardize data exchange among computers.

1965 Andries van Dam and Ted Nelson coin the term “hypertext”

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1970’s 1970 1971 Fergason

September - President Nasser dies, succeeded by Sadat.

E-mail was invented by Ray Tomlinson Liquid Crystal Display ( LCD ) was invented by James

1973 The minicomputer Xerox Alto (1973) was a landmark step in the development of personal computersVint Cerf and Bob Kahn develop gateway routing computers to negotiate between the various national networks. 1973 6 October - Egypt and Syria launch a surprise attack against Israel.

1974 IBM develops SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language ) now known as SQLCharles Simonyi coins the term WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) to describe the ability of being able to display a file or document exactly how it is going to be printed or viewed 1975 Altair produces the first portable computer The Microsoft Corporation was founded April 4, 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 1976 Jobs

Apple Computers was founded Steve Wozniak and Steve

1976 Jobs

Apple Computers was founded Steve Wozniak and Steve

1977 Apple Computer’s Apple II, the first personal computer with color graphics, is demonstrated Ward Christensen writes the programme “MODEM” allowing two microcomputers to exchange files with each other over a phone line 1978 The first magnetic tape is developed in the US 1979 Over half a million computers are in use in the United States. 1979 March - Camp David peace accord clinched between Egypt and Israel..

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1980’s 1980: Diplomatic relations with Israel are established, after which Egypt was expelled from the Arab League of Nations, as a reaction to the peace treaty with Israel in the previous year. IBM hires Paul Allen and Bill Gates to create an operating system for a new PC. They buy the rights to a simple operating system manufactured by Seattle Computer Products and use it as a template to develop DOS. 1981: Sadat was assassinated and Vicepresident Hosni Mubarak became the new president. Since then, the generation born in 1980’s never witnessed any president or experienced the govern of any ruler expect the current one. MS-DOS Computer Operating System increases its success 1983: The opening of Al Salam Shopping Centre to meet the needs of the “modern women looking for decency and dignity with elegant and good taste”. Domain Name System (DNS) pioneered by Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris and Craig Partridge. Seven ‘top-level’ domain names are initially introduced: edu, com, gov, mil, net, org and int.Microsoft Windows introduced eliminating the need for a user to have to type each command, like MS-DOS, by using a mouse to navigate through drop-down menus, tabs and icons

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1984:William Gibson coins the word cyberspace when he publishes Neuromancer 1988: The Cairo Opera House was re-inaugurated after 17 Years since itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s burning in 1971. Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize for literature.The song Law Laki by Ali Hemeda made a huge hit as it sold more than five million copies. It is considered a precedent for Arabic pop, after which the genre found its way in the region. As kids, our generation created different lyrics to the song, which is: Law Laki Lola Lola ,O Eneaky Hola Hola ( If it is not for you and you have crossed eyes).

1989: Israel withdrew from Taba of Sinai and Egypt reentered the Arab League. Several governmental initiatives for arts and culture took off such as: The Cairo Experimental Theatre Festival, The Youth Salon, The Cairo International Biennale and the State Cultural Development Fund.

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1990’s 1990: The Internet, World Wide Web & Tim Berners-LeeTim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau propose a ‘hypertext’ system starting the modern Internet 1991: The inauguration of the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art at the Opera House, hosting a collection that exceeds 10,000 pieces. Egypt was the third party in the Gulf War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

The privatization process began, following the signing of the Economic Reform & Structural Adjustment Program (ERSAP) to reach 53 privatizations in 2006/07. The World Wide Web: The World Wide Web is launched to the public on August 6, 1991 1992: Secular intellectual Farag Foda was shot by Islamic terrorists and was followed by a wave of severe attacks on tourists’ sites and the government. Egypt was affected by a strong earthquake that toppled several buildings to show the weak and corrupted construction processes. Chab khaled’s Rai song “Didi” and the American Soap Opera, “The Bold & The Beautiful”, found their stride in the Egyptian streets and television, as they were a major talked about issue in town.

1993: The Internet was first used in Egypt mainly for Egyptian universities before it turned for public use in 1996/97.

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1994: The Immigrant, a film by Youssef Chahin, based on the story of the prophet Joseph, was pulled from the movie theatres and was accused of blasphemy by religious authorities.

America’s most popular burger, MC Donald’s opened its first two branches in Cairo. Previously, Egypt experienced the taste of an international burger brand in 1973, through the British chain for hamburger restaurants ‘Wimpy’.

YAHOO is created in April, 1994.

1995: The inauguration of Egyptian Media Production City (EMPC), with a vision to create a Hollywood in the Middle East. Three young artists, Akram El Magdoub, Medhat Shafik and Hamdi Attia won the grand prix or Leaone d’Oro at the Venice Biennale for over all best pavilions. Java is introduced.Amazon. com is founded by Jeff Bezos.EBay is founded

by Pierre Omidyar. Hotmail is started by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia. 1995 Mubarak escapes an assassination attempt by fundamentalists in Addis Ababa.

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1996: The Burn of El Horriya mall in Heliopolis district and with the slogan of “All In One”, the damage of the shopping centre was considered a loss of an icon or a shelter for entertainment and consumption. The launch of cellular telecommunication by the Egyptian government before it was given to the private company ‘Mobinil’ in 1998. Al Jazzera satellite channel started its airing through the Arabsat. But, it gained fame in 2001 for broadcasting video statements by Osama Bin Laden.

The instant messaging computer program “ICQ” released its first version and later became popular in Egypt. Another common chatting service was mIRC. Stories about the appearance of “El Selawa” animal, was spread all over the country and mass media. The animal had roots in Pharonic myths and was said to previously appear in the Sixties. Satanic meetings were discovered in the abandoned Baron place in Heliopolis and the group was arrested. Only then, the government took attention to the neglected monument and later renovated it to be a platform for cultural events.

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1997: Princess Diana and Egyptian billionaire Dodi al-Fayed were killed in a car crash in Paris. Another famous love story appeared in the American blockbuster, Titanic. The film received enormous commercial success and won eleven This success had its echo too in Egypt, as the film’s score sang by Celin Dion was spread all over the country especially in cafes and hotel lobbies. It is the same year of success for the Egyptian movie ‘Ismailia-RayehGayy’ in the box office, after which a trend for farce comedy, light romance and youth films (Aflam Shababiah) revived. Works at Toshka and the New Valley projects started. The project was considered a national achievement and became the topic of most school essays and art assignments. The Album ‘1st What’s Now 97’ was released with several international hits including: Tarkan’s Turkish song ‘Sımarık’ (kiss kiss), ‘Coco Jumbo’ by the German ‘Mr. President’, ‘Aicha” by the Algerian Chab Khaled, ‘Wanna be’ by the Britsh ‘Spice-Girls’, the American ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ and ‘Macarena’ by the Spanish duet ‘Los Del Río’. Microsoft acquires Hotmail.

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1998: Egypt launched its first satellite known as Nilesat 101 with seven specialized channels. Pan-Arabism returned back with 23 Arab singers’ participating in the song ‘Al Helm Al Arabi’ (The Arabic Dream).The death of Sheikh Al Sharawi, the popular cleric and preacher. Google is founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page on September 7, 1998.PayPal is founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin 1998-2005: The opening of several independent organizations and galleries each with a different cause such as: The Townhouse Gallery (1998), The Zamalek Art Gallery (1999), Young Arab Theatre Fund (2000), The Garage Theatre in Alexandria ( 2000), The Cultural Wheel (2003), AFAC fund (2004), Contemporary Image Collective(2004), Studio Emad El Din (2005), El Genina Theatre ( 2005), ACAF in Alexandria (2005).

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1999: The young Muslim preacher, Amr khaled, started to preach in the shooting club and different mosques with an average attendee of 35,000. His recorded lectures used to be passed around especially the one entitled ‘El Hijab’ (Veil).The Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zewail won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. El Nitaq Downtown Arts festival was organized by three private galleries which were The Townhouse of William Wells, Escape Karim Francis of Karim Francis and Mashrabia Gallery of Stefania Angarano.

2000: Egypt held one of the main millennium parties at the pyramids with specially commissioned music and laser show by the French musician JeanMichel Jarre. Besides the fuss about Y2K bug in the whole world, the name was used to brand several school products, such as the Y2K bag under the slogan “Y.2.K Ahna Giel Alfien” (Y.2.K we are the 2000 generation). The launch of the Egyptian online portal ‘masrawy.com’, smartly it was written in Arabic slang language and featured a section for jokes.El Nazer, the comedy film was released with the first appearance of the rubber stamp character ‘El Limby’.

2001: September/11 2002: Inauguration of the new Bibliotheca Alexandria, as a commemoration of the Ancient Library of Alexandria. The launch of satellite channel, Melody Hits, a 24 music channel that was famous for its provocative campaigns.

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2003: Smart Village, a 600 acres ICT Business Park project, was launched in Cairo to accommodate different multinational and local companies.

The Egyptian singer, Ruby, released her first music video of her debut single “Enta Aref Lieh” (you know why). The young brunet girl was featured wearing a belly dancing suit, walking and dancing in the streets of a western country. The video was a counter statement to show the exotic side of a culture accused of being fanatic and conservative. Catherine David curated ‘Contemporary Arab Representations: Cairo’ at Witte de With, Rotterdam. Gilane Tawadros curated ‘Viel’. The exhibition and the catalogue aimed to explore the representation of veil post September 11 and how it became a synonym for cultural and religious differences. Edward Said, the author of the 1978 book ‘Orientalism’, died.

2004: Egypt signed the economic protocol “QIZ” (The Qualifying Industrial Zones) with America and Israel. ‘Kefaya’or the Egyptian Movement for Change gained first attention with a main cause to oppose Hosni Mubarak’s presidency and nepotism. It achieved a much greater profile during the 2005 constitutional referendum and presidential election campaigns but has recently lost momentum. ‘El Masry El Youm’, an independent daily Egyptian newspaper, published its first edition. The opening of Stars Centre (City Stars) in Cairo. The mall was designed to host several international brands and is considered the second largest shopping mall in the Middle-East.

Shot with a digital camera, The Crook/ kelfty,a long feature film by Mohamed Khan was released.

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2005: The Cairo suburb of Helioplis celebrated its100 years of foundation, in a street festival that featured music bands and parades. The launch of the video sharing website ‘You Tube’.

Egyptians knew well how to use the site and quickly it became a platform to archive old entertainment shows, rebroadcast recent ones and display spare time experimentations. YATF organized ‘Meeting Points 4’, an ambitious art festival touring simultaneously in seven cities. Lillian karnouk launched her illustrated book, “Modern Egyptian Art 1910-2003” that examined the work of more than 70 artists. She previously released two volumes of the book, which were Contemporary Egyptian Art (1995) and Modern Egyptian Art: The Emergence of a National Style (1998). September 12: eBay acquires Skype.

2006: The Statue of Ramesses II was moved from its location in downtown (Ramses Square), in a ten-hour transport to the Giza district. Besides the infamous black and white taxi, a yellow taxi car called ‘Cairo Cab’ was introduced in Cairo to be operated by private companies. Later the government introduced new taxi cars that were painted white only. Cairo Independent Film Festival was intiated.100Copies, an independent music label started off with an aim to create a platform for experimental and electronic music in Egypt. Skype announces that it has over 100 million registered users.

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2007: “Dar El Malameh” publishing house opened with a cause to support young and first-time authors.

MTV music channel launched its Arabic version: MTV Arabia. Nineteen artists collaborated in the exhibition, «Occidentalism» at the Pension Suisse. The show aimed to explore complicated relationship between East and West, driven by the question «How do you see the West?” Another huge show was held at the Cairo’s Palace of Arts and entitled “What’s happening now? It featured thirty-three artists and some considered it a step to mingle different generations and present artists away from the division of independent/official art scene.

2008: The April 6 Youth Movement was initiated through a Facebook group, as it called its participants to wear black and stay home on the day of strike. Part of the administrative division of Cairo was split, so that the Helwan governorate would encompass most of Cairo’s suburbs, new compounds and rural southern villages. Cigarettes packs in Egypt featured the graphic health warning image of a dying man in an oxygen mask. Shabby singer, Abd Al Basset Hamoda‘s album “Darbet Mealem”, was said to sell 600 thousand copies in one month, achieving an unfrequented success in the market. Two major Art shows for media art occurred: ‘Cleotronica’ Festival for Art, Media, and Socio-Culture at ACAF in Alexandria and ‘IMAFY’ competition for young artists using digital medium, at the Palace of Arts in Cairo 25th of June 2009: Michael Jackson was dead: Long Live Michael Jackson. .

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Ramadan 2008-2009: Several old entertainment shows were reproduced again such as Bogy & Tam-Tam, Samir Ghanm’s Fatouta, Azab Show, Wanis’s Family and Nady El Cinema (Cinema’s Club). Also, ‘Talk show’ on Moga Comedy channel, presented several episodes imitating old shows like ‘Ekhtarna lak’, ‘Al Alam Yoghany’ and ‘TV-Shop’.

2009: ArAr Sandoud’s valentine video became the most celebrated and shared on You Tube and Facebook. American president, Barack Obama gave his speech to the Muslim world, ‘A New Beginning’ at Cairo University in Cairo with a special dedication to youth. The Construction of The Cairo Ring Road was completed. Digital traffic lights were introduced in the streets of Cairo. Egyptian minister of culture, Farouk Hosni, lost the UNESCO election in the final round of voting. Mustafa Mahmud, thinker and presenter of the TV program “Al Aleim o Al Iman” (Science and Faith), died.

2010: Newspaper ‘El Masry El Youm’, revealed how the government sold cheaply several acres in the Toshka land project to Saudi Prince Al-Walid Bin Talal.

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2011: Jan, 25th Revolution January 2011 In the first hour of the new year, an explosion in front of Saints’ Church, Alexandria, kills 21 people and injures 90.Zine El Abidine Ben Ali flees Tunisia.A restaurant owner sets himself alight in front of the gates of the People’s Assembly building in protest at his ration of subsidised bread, and in Alexandria a youth unable to find a job hangs himself in despair.

Huge numbers of Egyptians respond to calls by the Facebook page ‘We are all Khaled Said’ to sabotage National Police Day. Demonstrations erupt across Cairo and Giza, heading for Tahrir Square. Protests also take place in Suez, Ismailiya, Alexandria, Mansoura, Tanta and Aswan.

Interior Minister Habib al-Adly blames demonstrations on the banned Muslim Brotherhood, who deny responsibility. Mobile phone networks are cut off in the vicinity of Tahrir Square.

At six in the evening, demonstrators gather around a fire lit by the Ultras at the entrance to Qasr al-Aini street, united under the slogans “The people want the fall of the regime” and “Bread, freedom, human dignity”.

A state of quiet anticipation pervades the square until midnight, when police attack demonstrators with water hoses and tear gas. The protesters disperse into small groups roaming the streets of downtown Cairo, forming demonstrations which move about the city until daybreak.The first martyrs of the Egyptian revolution fall in Suez.

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