Comment by DrScientist
6 days ago
The point is that social media was used by people to connect and organise which led to the overthrow of a number of dictators/military junta.
What has happened since is the old order has mostly reasserted itself - with a clamp down on social media, and mechanisms put in place to cut access if things get too fiesty.
Take Egypt - they kicked out a miltary juntu - forced elections - then the 'wrong' people won the elections and the military took over again, clamped down on the media and are in still in place today ( president has been in power for 10+ years with no signs of stepping down ) - and they are so representative of the people that the US think they might be able to persuade the Egyptian leader to take part in ethnic cleansing of it's neighbour.
Whether that's a good thing depends on whether you think people like el-Sisi know what's best for their country, whether the people agree or not.
The Egyptian case was so sad: the first elections run elected Islamists, who failed to make a pluralist democracy stick (which was what the Twitter protestors largely wanted!) and instead ended up running similar levels of repression but with a Muslim flavour.
I think it's complex - being elected to a head of state that was previously rife with corruption is a very difficult job, not made easier by the previous regime and their foreign friends trying ( and succeeding ) to reverse the revolution.
In the end I think it's easiest to stick to the facts - which is the elected PM was overthrown by the military and sentenced to death, and eventually died in prison.