Enquanto o chão tremia, um estudante do Instituto Jingshan da Universidade de Sichuan, a 100 km do epicentro, protegeu-se embaixo de um móvel do seu quarto no alojamento do campus. Simultaneamente começou a filmar o que acontecia à sua volta, conversando com outro colega, que tentava calçar seus tênis.

Os protagonistas, no entanto, eram trêmulos objetos que caíam pelo chão. Mais: o dono da câmera gritava ao colega para que entrasse online e avisasse outras pessoas. Minutos depois, essa imagem foi vista por milhares de internautas.

Horas mais tarde, os rumores tomaram a região. E donos de celulares na capital de Sichuan espalharam notícias por meio de serviços online, entre eles o Twitter e o Fanfou, redes que permitem postar microtextos de até 140 caracteres.

Que o celular é mais rápido na transmissão de informações, ninguém duvida. É literalmente o telefone sem fio, alusão a uma brincadeira de uma geração que mal imaginava que conviveria com a era da comunicação móvel.

E por que esperar pela oficialização da informação, que precisa de produção e elaboração para a transmissão na mídia televisiva e radiofônica, o que dirá a impressa?

Em situações de emergência, qualquer um se vale do que tem em mãos para pedir socorro. Histórias não faltam. Em artigo publicado no The Wall Street Journal (verssão em PDF) e traduzido para o português pelo Valor Econômico (versão em PDF para quem não é assinante), o leitor lê um depoimento que diz ser pouco provável que as informações divulgadas nesses serviços, como o Twitter, estejam erradas, uma vez que elas servem para avisar familiares e amigos, diferentemente dos blogs que exigem mais tempo para escrever.

Voltando à sociedade do espetáculo da qual fazemos parte e produzimos, a psicanalista Maria Rita Kehl defende no artigo "O espetáculo como meio de subjetivação" muito bem a questão da passagem conceitual da indústria cultural (Adorno) para a sociedade do espetáculo (Debord).

A leitura do texto de Maria Rita Kehl é, mais do que obrigatória, necessária para refletir "os efeitos dessa obra 'total' da televisão, transmitida por um veículo que é doméstico, cotidiano, onipresente...".

Seu artigo foi publicado em 2003, quando as mensagens instantâneas ainda pairavam em um mundo circunscrito de internautas com seus grupos, também conhecidos por infoansiosos.

Logo após vieram as redes sociais, no Brasil, a mais popular delas é a Orkut. Em pouco tempo o celular miniaturizou-se ainda mais e passou a incorporar mais funções, antes restritas ao computador de mesa ou portátil, que incluem fotografar, filmar e estar 24 horas conectado na internet.

Na última semana de abril, a CNN noticiou como James Buck, fotógrafo e estudante universitário, livrou-se da prisão em Mahalla, no Egito, com a ajuda do Twitter, avisando o mundo que estava sendo preso.

No dia do terremoto chinês, outro estudante filma os abalos e posta na web.

Diante desses espetáculos, pinço uma frase do artigo de Maria Rita Kehl, que serve de provocação: "Existir é fazer-se imagem para o outro...”.

But, I find the Egyptian protest more interesting. This strike , which became a full blown protest was not just an out burst of agony, but a preplanned event. Egypt is a nation where as more than half of the population is in poverty. Egypt is nation in which doctors with 20 years of experience earn $80 per month. Which means the textile factory workers earn much less. April 6^th was supposed to be a strike against the law wages and the high food costs. But instead the strike has turned into a huge protests, where more than 200 people were arrested. These include those on the street and those who got the word out to mobilize the people to be a part of the strike. This includes bloggers, and social Internet groups’ administrators on sites like Facebook. One of those arrested was Ersa Fattah. Her Facebook group attracted more than 64,000 Facebook members.

Social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube are changing the way we communicate and mobilize people to create social change, voice their opinion, or just simply hang out with friends. Even though computers are unfordable by most people; they are widely available to people though out the world at schools, universities, or Internet cafes. That is why youth around the world are using these social networks and other as well to get the word out. Even though not all Egyptian youth own computers, they are able to communicate with each other though voice (Skypecasts), words (email, blogs, Facebook, MySpace), images (flicker, YouTube). Before the April 6^th strike, there was an on line campaign though emails, blog postings, Facebook groups, and videos on YouTube. The result family and friends of the youth heard about the strike. The result was panic by the government, which lead to massive arrests of more than 200 people.

Esra Fattah was doing what she thought her right. She was simply speaking her mind, then before she knew 64,000 people joined her group. As a result, as she sat in the Internet café, she was arrested. After her mother pleaded to the government, the government released her. But that is not the case of others who were arrested for the same reason, of speaking their minds.

I just have the below video as an example. As you can see the video uses pictures that show unity amount the Egyptian people. It is not a call for violence, but a peaceful strike to stay at home and not buying anything for the day, to say that the low wages and the high cost of living is too much to bare. But as you can see in the other video the intended peaceful strike became a full fledged protest and civil disobedience.

I am not writing this to make you afraid from speaking what is on your mind and calling the people to act. The point is, social network groups on the Internet are very powerful, if you aim your call to the right crowd with the right message. Not to mention social online networking can also save your life. Twitter helped to sav e James Karl Buck’s life. He texted to Twitter “arrested” by Egyptian Police. Soon those who follow his Twitter page contacted the US Embassy for release. The next day he was released. But his Egyptian translator is still in jail, so he is currently on a hunger strike until he his Translator Mohamed is released. You can check on the updates your self if you go to his page.

Also, even though the strike did not go as planned, Egyptians are not discouraged. They are planning for another strike on the president Mubark’s birthday on May 4th. A new Facebook group is up and currently has over 21,000 members calling Egyptians to stay at home again. They hope the strike will be more effective.

Already, the president Mubarak said yesterday that the salary of the government workers will be increased by 30% this month. That proves my point, that your voice can be heard, if you are loud enough. At least that is what the government has said through its newspapers like Al-Ahram.

I am just curious to know if you are a member of any social networks. What kind of activities are taking place online did you notice that call for social change? what are they trying to change? Did they succeed in anyway?

]]> http://orato.wordpress.com/?p=77 Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:33:52 +0000 orato http://orato.wordpress.com/?p=77

I talked to James Karl Buck the other day... nice guy. Great story. A graduate student of journalism at Berkley, he was in Egypt a couple of weeks ago and was on the street covering the protests in the aftermath of the crazy food riots in Mahalla.

He gets kidnapped by security forces and taken to the police station - on what charge, you ask? I dunno - being a journalist?

Anyway, he manages to type out the word "arrested" on his cell phone and distribute it through his Twitter account. Within minutes, he was receiving advice from friends and the university was getting a lawyer to act on his behalf. Power of technology, huh? But he makes a good point here:

"A mobile with no one to call doesn’t do you any good. People have made comments that Twitter was able to help me because of my position, and I know that."

Too true. Read the full story here.

Ok, I'm really, finally, starting to get the value of Twitter.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/25/twitter.buck/index.html

Bottom line: real-time communication when other methods aren't available.

-Particularly when the communication is urgent, such as during natural disasters or when you want to broadcast your current whereabouts and your status for safety reasons:

"The most important thing on my mind was to let someone know where we were so that there would be some record of it ... so we couldn't [disappear]."

"It was my big hope that people would get [the message] right away and at least put a thumbtack on the map as far as our location," Buck said.

Note as well the value and use of a virtual network. The translator that is still imprisoned doesn't have one, but Buck is using his virtual network to try to help free his friend. Viva la Web 2.0 (could this have happened ten years ago? How about five?).

Interesting aside: The subject of the story, James Buck, was "working on a multimedia project on Egypt's "new leftists and the blogosphere" as part of his master's degree thesis." Cool.

Tools Used for the Action: Twitter

Outcome: Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt – many of whom had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted of the arrests. Twitter is a social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates, or “tweets,” from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook. Buck sent only one message with his cell phone – “Arrested.” Buck’s friends started to write regular updates on their blogs about his arrest, as they weren’t sure how long he was going to be able to communicate with them. Fortunately, he was able to continue to send updates, and his entries set off a chain of events that led to his college hiring a lawyer on his behalf. Buck was released from prison the next day, and sent another update saying “Free.” However, his translator, Maree, was transferred to another police station, and has not been heard from since. There are conflicting reports from the Egyptian government about whether Maree was freed and his whereabouts. Buck has now started another campaign on his Twitter page as a way to find Maree.

“James’ case is particularly compelling to us because of the simplicity of his message — one word, ‘arrested’ — and the speed with which the whole scene played out,” said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. “It highlights the simplicity and value of a real-time communication network that follows you wherever you go.”

One his way to the jail, Buck was able to send a mobile SMS to his friends and family through Twitter, a free service that allows members to present their "status" to contacts through web or mobile messaging.  His university and the US Embassy were among those notified, and within a day a lawyer showed up to negotiate his release.  Twitter was Buck's "get out of jail free" card.  

Since yesterday, I've been all over this Twitter site - I recommend you join too.  Hopefully my status will never read "arrested."  

Here's the story.  It's one of the most interesting I've read in the past few weeks.

Her har Søren Storm Hansen fra dSeneste været så venlig at give endnu et eksempel på dette fænomen.

Nu har Twitter vist fra en helt anden side. Nemlig ved at redde en ung amerikansk fotograf fra et egyptisk fængsel.

I sidste uge (den 10. april) sendte James Karl Buck en tweet til sit følge hvori han skrev ordet "Arrested".

Han var netop blevet tilbageholdt af politiet i Cairo hvor han var ved at lave sit speciale - en fotoopgave, hvor han fulgte en række demonstrationer mod den egyptiske regering.

Politiet gav ham ikke mulighed for at kontakte ambassaden, men han nødråb på Twitter blev hørt, og kort tid efter gik han uddannelsesinstution UC Berkeley i aktion.

En advokat blev fremskaffet og næste morgen kunne han gå ud af fængslet som en fri mand.

På det tidspunkt han blev fængslet var han sammen med en egyptisk journalistkollega - Mohammed Salah Ahmed Maree. Han er stadig fængslet på trods af utallige opfordringer til at løslade ham.

James Buck har nu iværksat en støtteaktion for at få frigivet ham - den kan du læse mere om ved at følge hans tweets eller på hans hjemmeside.