WEBVTT - The Hashtag Heard Round the World 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:14.080 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.840 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Do 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.639 we have a hashtag for this podcast? We do? What 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:25.800 is it? It's called hashtag um blow the mind protest? 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:31.480 Whoa protesting in a digital age? That's that's really I 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:33.199 think that's gonna I don't know if we're going to 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.760 have enough room for the rest of the tweet, but 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.840 but it's it's it's pretty good. We'll try that out. Yeah, 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.920 we'll work on that. No, but this we we're talking 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.200 about today, I'm pretty sure we get to own that hashtag. 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.240 We don't know. I don't think anybody. It's not gonna 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.200 be like when I tried to retake blow blew my mind. Yeah, 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.680 from from from the rest of the twitter verse. But 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:58.800 but yeah, we're talking in this podcast specifically about Occupy 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.480 Wall Street and some of these other um social media 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:07.280 enhanced protest movements that have taken hold in late two 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.480 thousand ten and then throughout two thousand and eleven, ranging 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.760 from um, you know, from the Arab Spring to uh 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.280 to London to back in the US with the occupied stuff, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:19.640 and of course the occupied stuff is has led over 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:21.560 into other countries as well. But we're talking about what 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.480 is a modern protest? What is it really is the 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.280 modern protests shaping up? I mean, uh, protests have always 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:33.119 utilized advanced technology to whatever degree it's available. I mean, 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.720 it's just the way we work, um. And so it's 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.200 no surprise that people are going to use modern technology, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.440 modern social media to to to fuel the movement. Um. 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.520 But let's back up before we we get into two, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.840 into the technology things. Just talking about numbers because yeah, 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.280 because when we're talking about hashtabs being heard around the 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:55.640 world to a certain extent, we're talking about the number 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:59.440 of people involved in that protest, because I mean, the 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.440 the people of serving a protest are arguably as important 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.960 as the individuals that are partaking in it, because it 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:10.040 has to be seen to really take that effect. That's 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.480 the whole point is to convey the importance of a 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:14.640 topic and to put a little context behind that. Two. 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.239 And we're talking about the hashtag occupy Wall Street, which 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.040 showed up on July. Right, It is just this sort 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.680 of idea linking to a blog about hey, we should 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.240 occupy Wall Street there. Obviously there was uh no formal 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:29.679 movement at that time or even intention. So the earth 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.840 we live on is currently home to what seven billion people? Now, 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.720 we just had the seven billion birth yea, like the 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:38.920 last couple. Can you imagine being like, hey, I'm baby 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:47.400 seven billion? Well my parents? Um, these billions and billions 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.919 of people, uh, roughly spread across two hundred and forty countries, 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:56.240 close to seven thousand languages around like documented documented languages, Yes, 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:00.200 somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty and twelve uh, and 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.520 more branches of religion, personal belief, ideology than you can 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.400 shake a stick at. Yeah, twenty major. But you're right, 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.959 there's there's uh quite a bit more than that. Yeah, 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.120 And we continue to grow, we continue to in some 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:17.399 cases of splinter uh and and reorganize amid those groups. Um, 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.960 So how are you going to get these people together? 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.519 Because I was I was talking with my life the 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.000 other day about a recent episode of This American Life 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.560 where they're talking about junior high and how junior high 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:30.600 is horrible, and how one of the things going on 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.359 in junior high is that when you're young, you get 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.160 along with everybody, but then as you get older. Uh, 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.240 just within school you begin you become more judgmental, you 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.760 become more perceptive to Uh, you know, who you want 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.000 to be associated with and who you want to to 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.240 identify with. You created this blueprint of reality. And you're right, 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.640 and so by junior high it's already pretty complicated. So 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:53.880 how do we ever agree on anything? How do we ever, 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:55.920 how do we get out of high school mentality? Right? 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.720 And Uh, Historically, wars are generally a pretty good way 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:03.760 to do it. Um. I mean, wars have long brought 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:08.880 together millions of individuals and pitched battles. It's thankfully, hopefully 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.000 it seems to be going out of style in recent 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.960 years and doing part well again because technology. Technology changed 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.479 the way that we wage war. Uh. And then maybe 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.000 there's something going on in the in our collective psyches 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.320 as well. But the better angels of ourselves, we can hope. 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:25.400 I've seen some interesting arguments of that that we you know, 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.440 we live in a time where there's there's less war 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.920 now than than ever before. So let's hope that keeps 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:36.840 up until the big machine human war. But singularity, Yeah, 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:38.760 but that's gonna bring us all together even more so, 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.080 Like it's hard to put stats on some of these 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.600 ancient battles, but for a DBC, the Persian army marched 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:49.280 into the Battle of Thermipoly with between two hundred thousand 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.880 and five hundred thousand men. More than two thousand years 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:55.960 later and three the Soviet Union's Red Army suffered more 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.960 than a million casualties of the Battle of Stalingrad. UH. 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.240 And then we have other examples where we can see 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:08.440 people converging UH for a cause that is not bloodthirsty 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.840 and drenched in hardship. UH. January two thousand seven, an 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.960 estimated sixty million Hindu pilgrims gathered at the convergence of 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:21.120 the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in northern India for the 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:25.120 um Are Kombla Mella Festival, huge festival. You've probably seen 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.800 clips to this individual's bathing UH in the rivers and 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.400 sort of an active purity, right, Yeah, in active purity. 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.000 Sixty million people coming together for that, which is amazing, amazing. 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.479 So protests also bring people together. And this is the 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.840 and we just recorded a podcast about this, so it 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.080 should already be in your iTunes folder or hanging out 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:48.120 on the web for you to listen to. If you 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.679 want a lettle more information about why we get into 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.000 into the protest mentality. But once we are there, we 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.719 can gather in in rather large numbers sometimes. And the 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.560 reason why Occupy on All Street has I think some 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.599 legs or has had legs at least over the past 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.760 four months. We don't again know what its fate is now. Um. 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.160 It has a classic earmarks of a protest. So we're 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:15.080 talking about disenfranchised people, right check. Crappy economy check uh huh, 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:20.320 and stagnating politics double check. Right. So pretty much this 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:22.960 is pretty much a global situation right now. Right. So 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.080 it's not just in the United States. Uh, you know 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.640 a group of people in New York starting this. Uh, 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.640 that's why it has, you know, such resonation all over 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.720 the world. Um. And of course we've seen this before. 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.920 We've seen it with Vietnam, right, Uh, a little bit 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.400 different circumstances. But we have people who are saying that 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:42.760 there are wrongs that need to be righted. We've seen 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.000 it with the Arab Spring. Um. But the Arab Spring 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:50.120 being just the the string of of protests and in 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.960 many in some cases actual rebellion revolution situations that has 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.080 just spread throughout various countries in the Middle East, ranging 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.840 from we've seen for the protest and I ran Tunisia 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:06.360 Egypt Um. I mean really, it points of the fact 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:07.839 that people will put up with a lot of crap 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.520 until it gets to the point where you know, it's 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.280 it's a it's making them powerless in their day to 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.640 day decisions on whether or not to buy groceries or 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.520 you know, buy new shoes, or you know, it's hamstringing them. 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.200 So yeah, we can put it with a lot of corruption, 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.920 a lot of political who until that happens. All right, 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:30.800 we're gonna take a quick break to hear a word 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.160 from our sponsors, and then we're gonna really break down 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:36.400 the question what is the largest protest of all time 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:41.280 and what factor has made it that way? Yeah. This 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.240 podcast is brought to you by Intel, the sponsors of 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:49.400 Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.320 is the spark which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:59.600 dot com and explore the answers to life's questions. All right, 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.480 we're back largest protests. Uh. This is something that is 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.640 sometimes very difficult to gauge because not every protest consists 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.400 of individuals gathering in a in a square, and then 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.200 it's hard to count sizes and and and you're gonna 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.880 get into the wars of information and politics of information 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.520 to where the protesters are may in some cases want 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:24.840 to inflate the number because it sounds better, and then 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.040 the people cracking down on the protests are likely to 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.320 lower that number for obvious reasons. You know what I 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:31.600 just occurred to me, Why don't they use the same 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.760 technology that NASA does to count the constellations that they 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:39.200 then applied to tracking dolphins. Well, true, that's that's true. 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:41.360 You can do some sort of sophisticated data. But then 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:43.880 if you're the people who has that in that technology, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.880 it's gonna tend to be the governmental forces, So they're 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.160 not gonna necessarily want an accurate count anyway, not for 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.040 public consumption. And then the other thing think back to 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.800 in the other podcast we mentioned Mohamma Gandhi and the 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.360 whole u uh. Some of the civil disobedience was going 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.079 on there, with individuals protesting by showing up for work 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.600 or by resigning from their positions. You get into protests 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:06.720 of that nature and it becomes even more difficult to 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.160 to gauge what the turnout is because they're protesting in 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.480 ways and ruch, they're not visible when you're getting down 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.240 into actual numbers though, and you can say like, well, 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:16.920 this is the number of individuals that we know of 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.079 the participated in this, and therefore this is a very 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.520 large or the biggest protests. One of the big ones, 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.280 according to Guinness Folk of World Records was it was 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:28.280 the Iraq protest in Rome UH February two thousand three. 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.240 The event drew a crowd of estimated three million people, 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:34.559 and on the same day, protesters gathered in nearly six 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.240 hundred cities in a coordinated global effort to express moral 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.120 outrage against the US invasion of Iraq. So you had 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.040 like one point three million protesters in Barcelona, Spain, between 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:49.160 seven fifty thousand and two million in London, um. All told, 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:54.280 according to BBC, between six and ten million people participating 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.679 in a global protest, which is amazing because think about 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:00.439 you know, when we talked about the civil rights movement, 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.480 and we talked about Rosa Parks and how her refusal 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.559 to give up a seat to a white person than 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:11.320 uh spurred a one day boycott of the bus system, 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:13.920 right um, And this was something that was in the 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.120 works forever. I mean that this there were a lot 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.959 of people working on this specific plan in other ones 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.320 um for months and months and months, and then you 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:26.280 have something like this, between six and ten million people protesting. 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:28.760 And I'm going to wager a bit that it didn't 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.200 take that long given the data that we know about 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.640 when the Iraq War broke out and when the protests happened, 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:39.480 um that people were mobilized. And so you can obviously 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.040 point to when really one key factor in mobilizing all 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.400 those people, which is the technology we have available today, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:51.120 which really does change the landscape of protesting. It's it's 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.240 worth noting real quick before we get even more into 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.400 the technological stuff that that's sometimes the protest is just 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:01.760 as simple as a naked lady with a fur and 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.360 some fake blood splider on her, you know, or a 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.760 naked man or a naked man probably both, I guess. 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.200 So you get all your demographics covered. But that's the 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.720 shock tactic, that's like, hey, we want to we want 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:14.600 to the media to cover this. Yeah, and then that's 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:16.320 the thing like like Peter, no matter what you think 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:20.679 about Peter, and and certainly there's some very some very 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.600 contrary positions on on what Peter stands for and or 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.320 how they carry out their protests, but their protests tend 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.319 to uh to get attention, they do. And I will say, 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.360 you know, I've I've certainly walked through a Peter protest. 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.960 I was walking through one in Boston with my mom 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:40.520 h when when we all lived there, um a number 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:42.800 of years ago, and my mom had a fake fur 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:47.920 colored line jacket on, and of course she was the target. 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.319 The thing that stood out is that they said, I 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.079 hope that you get cancer and die. Yeah, so I 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:58.199 mean obviously fake blood. Uh no, they didn't, but that 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.200 was in itself really very jarring. Obviously my mom um, 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:04.880 she was actually kind of oblivious, just kind of like, 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.400 what did I just say? And I was like nothing, um. 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.080 But you know, there are effective ways to to really 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.079 get at um at the psyche, right, and that's that's 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.160 what protests are trying to do. So you can do 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.240 it in numbers, or you can do it in an 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.079 awful things that you say to pastors by yeah. And 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.880 then of course there's there's art. There's music protests, songs protests. 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.040 In our art episode that we did recently about your 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.520 brain and are we mentioned, um, like the words of 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:32.240 public Picasso talking about the Spanish Civil War and expressing 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:35.520 that through art, prep expressing his outrage and varied emotions 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:40.760 about this political situation through the expression of art, you know. 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.800 And I'm thinking to um about the protests of the 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:49.079 Iraq War. And obviously this is before Twitter and Facebook, 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.559 and this isn't a question that we can answer today 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.600 or anytime soon. But uh, you know, I do wonder 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.000 how it would impact or would have impacted that protest. 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.200 Do you think more people would have participated? Do you 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.640 think that it would have attenuated it in some way 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.640 because it might have taken focus away? Um, And we 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.720 certainly know that the protests of late have been really 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.920 effective because of these technologies. Yeah, it's it's real effective 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:15.920 for a number of reasons. But I mean, I mean 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.360 because a it's instant networking and social networking. It's it's 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.000 the ability to throw something out with that hashtag occupy 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.720 Wall Street and then everybody following that hashtag can instantly 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.120 see what's up, real time information in all of it's 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.760 effective and in some cases perplexing manner, you know. I mean, 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.120 it's the real time aspect of it. I think is 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.200 really key because you can you could be like somebody 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.920 suddenly somebody's tweeting, Hey, the police are cracking down. Uh, 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.400 they're moving into this area and everybody knows. And it's 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.680 also allowed certain groups to even It allows you this 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:51.280 huge voice without necessarily having any huge investment in the megaphone, 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:55.800 in the metaphorical megaphone or the real megaphone. You know. Um, 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.600 like not quite a protest, but just consider with all 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.960 the crack downs that have occurred on Wiki leaks, a 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:07.040 lot of their continued momentum has taken place on Twitter, 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.200 where they have continued to be able to speak out 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.520 to all of these followers despite bank accounts and websites 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.960 going down around the world. Yeah, I just I can't 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.719 help but think about the protests in Iraq or the 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:23.000 protests of the Iraq War and ten million people mobilized 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.520 by via email. Right, that's a huge coordinated global effort. 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.280 Just what it might have looked like with these different 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:33.520 technologies that we used today. UM, where's people people were 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:38.320 have been studying the the impact of social media on protests, 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.400 UM and movements prior to all of this. I actually 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.800 spoke to uh, this guy by the name of Dr 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.320 Michael Best, who had Technologies and inter National Development the 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:51.400 lab at the Georgie Institute of Technology. I thought. I 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.520 spoke to him early two thousand eleven UM for an 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.760 article on Discovery News called our Smartphones Worth It, and 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.080 it ended up being a lot more interesting of an 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.000 article then it sounds, because I got to discuss like 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.000 how does it affect our daily lives? And and then 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.920 by talking to Best, learned a little bit about how 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:14.120 it was specifically being used by UM Nigerians leading into 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.040 the two thousand eleven Nigerian election, and they were doing 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:20.120 a lot of political organism organizing. They were planning activist 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:24.160 meetings and flash mobs all leading up to the election 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.080 that I was at least at that time slated to 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.880 take place in April, and and at the time I 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:31.520 thought it was really interesting. But then of course this 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:33.520 turns out to be a major theme of two thousand 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.760 and eleven UM as individuals are are tweeting about the 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.520 various protests that they're involved in uh and and coordinating 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.400 their movements. And in all of this, I also can't 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:48.880 help but think another advantage of social media, and specifically Twitter, 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:54.120 has to do with the people observing because I feel 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.280 like with Twitter, one of the things people like about 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.200 celebrities being on Twitter is that you're kind of as 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:02.960 close to that celebrity as you are to the friend, 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:04.800 the real life friend that you know on Twitter, Like 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:09.280 there's there's this um, there's this closeness. Well, there's this 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.040 idea that you're getting insights to how they're living in 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.320 and you're all a part of the same information stream. 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.960 So when you're observing like a real time protest taking 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.800 place on Twitter and you're seeing updates about Occupy Wall 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.320 Street or or the protests in Iran, well whatever it 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.040 may be, I feel like the people observing it on 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.760 Twitter end up feeling closer and a little more personally invested. 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.640 It probably gives people a little bit more empathy, right movement, 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:38.960 So if someone is sprayed with tear gas, right, and 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.040 let's say that this was a uh the use was 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.880 was just an indiscriminate response by police and that or 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.960 that was how it was tweeted, right, then people are 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:50.880 going to say, oh my, you know, the depth of 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.400 injustice here is unbearable. Yeah, because you're getting real time 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.280 data about this, right. I think it's like if you 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:58.880 it's as if you were standing on the edges of 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:01.960 a protesting crowd in real life, and even if you're 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.920 not actively participating in it, you're gonna feel a little 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:09.040 more like a protests, You're gonna feel more sympathetic to 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:11.600 that cause just by virtue of being in close proximity 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:16.639 to it, and the social media world of Twitter puts 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:19.600 you on the edges of that crowd in a virtual sense. 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.640 So I think that the same thing ends up happening. Well, 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:24.720 it's real. It's such a game changer too for the 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.160 government because now that you do have these so much 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:33.199 information to share, it's very easy to document the missteps 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.720 that the government might take or that a police force 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.880 might take against protesters. So you know, obviously that sort 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.959 of stuff came out before, but now it's it's pretty verifiable, 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:44.960 particularly if you've got, you know, a cell phone video 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.040 of it. Now. Of course, it's it's worth noting that 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.880 that throughout these these various protests and on Twitter hasn't 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.879 necessarily been the motivating force. It's not like Twitter was 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:58.000 the like the real power of the movement necessarily. It 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.560 certainly helped, and it was certainly a game changer, but 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:06.919 take the Egyptian Revolution UM January through February two eleven. UM. 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.280 So you know, Twitter and the various social media outlets 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.800 are made a lot of headlines, but the television newspapers 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:17.240 and telephone UM specifically like Al Jazeera UH continued to 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.880 to be a major informer for the people even as 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:25.040 the Egyptians the Egyptian government blocked internet connections in January. 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.520 So UH, you know, it's worth noting that there are 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.239 other media outlets and employ here uh. And then in 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.120 some cases, UM, this was pretty interesting. This is from 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:38.000 February two th eleven, following the uprisings in the Middle East, 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.240 some individuals in China were arguing for a quote Jasmine revolution, 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:45.720 and they were talking about on this overseas Chinese community 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.320 news site boxing bo x u n. The Chinese government 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.760 ended up blocking searches for Jasmine for the term jasmine, 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.840 and they also the the website was hacked by a 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.280 denial of service attack. So right, so that you see 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.200 a little bit of this sort of digital virtual social 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.680 media warfare. It ends up taking place like the basically 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:11.680 the protest testing UH situation of the crowd of protesters 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:16.080 and the riot control taking place in a vertu. Yeah, 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.720 seeing it play out there. But and actually that's it's 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:23.080 worth noting to the Jasmine Revolution really didn't have legs, 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.879 right for that very reason that it was shut down. So, 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:29.320 you know, looking to the future a bit, it would 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:33.080 be very interesting to see how China and protesting uh 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.400 take place in the future, giving technologies and also given 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.280 the fact that you know, if you can shut down 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.840 a protest that way, you can obviously have people go 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.159 in and hack the other way. Uh. So, I don't know, 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.320 just just interesting thought. With that many people in in 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.080 one country, surely something will come out of it. Yeah, 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:55.960 But I guess one of the things too, is that 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:01.040 even even as as we've been increasingly digital, it seems 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:04.080 like the idea of individuals gathering together to support a 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:06.440 cause is just is going to remain a vital part 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.000 of protests. Like I can't see I can't see protests 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:12.119 going completely digital, you know, because it's kind of like 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.000 on Facebook, for instance, for while, there there were a 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.600 string of these things where it's like, uh, speak out 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.439 against I don't know, something like child abuse by changing 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:25.000 your your profile picture to a cartoon or something like. 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:27.480 There was there was a there were stringy and and 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.600 then finally people started saying, you know, this is this 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.119 is kind of dumb because we're not doing anything. You're 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:35.840 not actually doing anything for these causes. You're just it's 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:37.800 not like you quit paying your taxes, right, right, right, 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:39.720 It's not like you went out in the street and 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.840 made yourself known. And we're I mean, there's something about 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.919 people gathering in a space generally a space they're not 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:50.040 really supposed to be in, um and speaking out as 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.840 as as a group and saying, look at these individuals 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.200 all piled here together, look at them, uh, look at us. Yeah, 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:58.240 but it's not to sound too or well in again, 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.800 looking for the future and thinking about facial recognition software, 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:03.880 it could be really problematic for people in the near 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.879 future to congregate and um, I was just thinking about 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:10.240 the app that came out for the Chicago bar scene 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.760 using facial recognition software, which you can you know, go 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:17.040 buy a bar and it basically is going to tell you, um, 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:19.040 the age range of the people in there and the 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.399 relative income, which, by the way, if you've ever just 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.919 by looking at faces, yeah, from the facial recognition software, 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:27.720 like you take a picture of people at the bar 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:30.879 and then it yeah, because it's because it's indexing some 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.399 sort of database that's basically saying, okay, well, I mean, 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.359 I don't know if someone's wearing pearls, maybe it's looking 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.040 at that. I don't you know. But anyway, the point 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.479 is that this is a software that could be used 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.280 for crowds and you could start, you know, I ding 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.320 certain people UM. You could tag them as a known protester. 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.359 You could begin tracking them, and this is fascinating. I 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.520 could see then a situation where say a protest movement 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:59.639 begins to um gel together in a public space. They 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:01.960 send a guy out with one of these devices. All 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:04.679