The Arab Spring and Surveillance Collapse in the face of Social Media Networks

Volume 2|Issue 6| Autumn 2013 |Theme of the Issue

Abstract

This study investigates the manner in which the Arab citizen turned to the Internet during the Arab Spring as means for defying surveillance mechanisms that were put in place by the region’s despotic regimes. Khabash accentuates the fact that the success of the Arab Spring in bringing down regimes was partially due to these regimes’ inability to update and develop their tools and strategies for surveillance and control. Furthermore, social media networks and digital chat rooms have provided Internet users with a range of possibilities that do not exist in daily life, including the possibility to mask one’s identity, hiding their location, taking time to react, and receiving information in a direct unmediated manner. This has allowed Internet activists to not only bypass methods of surveillance and control that are employed by the existing authority, but also have enough courage to discuss taboo subjects that could not be broached in daily life. 

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Professor of Political Psychology at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez. His research interests include social epistemology and cognitive approach to political psychology.

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