While Egypt and the rest of the world celebrate the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, Google’s Middle East and North Africa Marketing Manager Wael Ghonim who has been on the front line of the demonstrations in Cairo has thanked Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, saying that Facebook has played a major and vital role in order to bring freedom in Egypt.
Ghonim told CNN:
I want to meet Mark Zuckerberg one day and thank him…. I’m talking on behalf of Egypt. This revolution started online. This revolution started on Facebook. This revolution started in June 2010 when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians started collaborating content. We would post a video on Facebook that would be shared by 60,000 people on their walls within a few hours. I always said that if you want to liberate a society just give them the Internet…. The reason why is the Internet will help you fight a media war, which is something the Egyptian government regime played very well in 1970, 1980, 1990, and when the Internet came along they couldn’t play it. I plan to write a book called Revolution 2.0… that will highlight the role of social media.
It looks like Ghonim’s wish of thanking Mark Zuckerberg in person would prove to be a great marketing opportunity for both companies while being a platform through which any book that the activist might actually write based on recent events in Egypt, may be promoted very well.
No doubt that Egyptians are now free from tyranny and opression, while all thanks go towards social media and social networks. Do you think that social networks have played their part well in the Egypt Revolution?
Oh Yes! There is no doubt of this whatsoever, but let us not forget the role that ambiguously content-less blogging has also played.
Whose truth is this anyway!? Why should Murdoch be the only one allowed to obfuscate reality? Now even the the scrappiest of small firms can play a role in helping to establish limitless democratic capitalism and truth bending.
Just remember, we can’t all run to the front of the parade.
We are doing god’s work now!