Twitter and Facebook are shields against future genocides

Let's not overplay this. Twitter and Facebook played a part in what happened, but in both countries the internet was either shut down or heavily restricted during the key phases of the uprising.

The thing which stopped the worst abuses of power against the people was the presence of the global media in countries where the west had significant financial and political interests.

The broad sweep of technology available these days (from reporters with satellite phones to twitter, to the ability anyone has to send photos across the world in seconds) may present future genocides, but Twitter and Facebook are just one small part of the picture.

But does anyone believe that Twitter would have stopped Darfur? People know what's happening there and it's still happening so I'm dubious as to how a communication tool would have changed that.

This is ludicrous. It's the people making a stand, not social networking sites. The oppressed could be using Twitter/FB to talk about entertainment, sports, or other frivolities. The tools in any revolution, regardless the century, are of minor significance.

Why couldn't the social graph also be used to aid in genocide?

Imagine if Hitler knew all about the "impure" friends you had.

Why do we take what Shervin has to say seriously at all? One thing I do not understand is this community's (not just HN) tendency to give instant validity and credibility to those like Shervin who are running successful companies. The guy runs a successful startup in one specific niche market -- how does that lend any credibility to his opinion on the workings of genocide? It doesn't.

This became really evident whilst watching the Launch conference. Companies were getting hammered left-and-right by entrepreneurs who have never ventured into said companies' markets. Being successful =/= insight to all of the world's issues. Kevin Pollak knocked one of the startup founders for the shoes he was wearing, and a major blog picked up the pitch calling it a complete meltdown.

Stop and think for just a second. Shervin runs a gaming company, not a government.

I remember the stories coming out of Rowanda, Bosnia, and more recently Darfur were well publicized without much intervention. While I think facebook and twitter are tools of political change, I sadly don't think we've seen the end of genocide.

I very much hope I'm wrong.

One might wonder how the Berlin Wall fell without those antibodies. And examples like Libya and Iran demonstrate that social media will not save you from a regime determined to mow down unarmed civilians with automatic weapons.

Oh, if only this were true. In fact, the exact opposite is a serious concern for the spread of the internet in the third world.

A key characteristic used in defining genocide is the use of popular media to carry out orders. I don't mean the use of propaganda, but the use of new media forms to carry out orders of genocide. In Rwanda and Bosnia radio was used to this effect.

Unfortunately I can't find it now but there was an article (either in the Atlantic or economist) suggesting this idea.

Whilst I agree with statement concerning the recent events in Egypt and Libya, there are still some things to consider:

1. For any country to harness the social media offered, they should have access to knowledge and technology (computer literacy, access to internet).

2. Residents of a country should realize that it is still up to their resolve to act and stand against tyranny and oppression. No amount of technology can move the motivation of being freed from an evil regime.

What the world needs is cheap satellitte based internet that can't be 'turned off'. Or someone should figure out a low tech bridge... Ham radio-to-twitter or something.

The claim is a stretch, even in areas of high internet penetration. It might be a shield, in the same way as a sheet of cardboard is a shield. You can hold it up in front of someone pointing a gun at you, it might make them miss your vitals, and it will slow the bullet, but not by more than a negligible amount.

The lion's share of people under threat of genocide (e.g. the 70 or so uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, that get in the way of gold mining, logging, and oil exploration), are not in areas of high internet penetration (zero, in the case of the Amazonians).

Umm no, journalism, real active journalism are the true shields. After the internet was cutoff in Egypt this non-Egyptian could only talk with my other non-Egyptian friends about what was going on. But I knew exactly what was going due to the journalists on the ground (S/O english.aljazeera.net) who had access to satellite relays.

Social networking sites and the Internet have shown many people the way they could (and should) be living. Even if the Internet is blocked, people always find a way to get around it. Dictators of the world should be worried, because they can't hide the truth from their people forever.

We wish.

Pretty doubtful. We've seen lots of photos of blown-up people from various war zones, and they do very little to spur intervention. You've seen these:

http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqwarpix.html

but no one stepped in to stop the U.S. from killing well upwards of a million Iraqis. Don't dream that future massacres will be stopped. I would tend to argue the other side: due to individuals being numbed to the grotesque, they are less likely to be shocked by images and videos coming out of future conflict zones and thus less likely to want to "do something".

When twitter first came out , I tried to figure out how the novelty would not wear off. How could it have use. I thought about B2B and M2M uses for it - but found them limited.

Recently, though, I have realized something about Twitter; it is like a sense, or an extension of a sense.

While I am not a heavy user of the service, I see that it is invaluable in being able to provide, quickly and easily, an alert to millions about what is happening in places far and wide.

The tweets serve to alert and attract attention - the attention can then driven to deeper dives of information, articles, videos, news etc...

This alone makes it valuable - because it provides the simplest, most accessible method for anyone, anywhere to be able to drive massive amounts of human attention instantaneously.

To be able to have created such a service is quite a feat. I don't think that "indoor plumbing" is the right analogy for what it is to the web, I'd almost more liken Twitter to the seratonin of the web.