Social media – unstoppable
I’ve just been reading about riots in Egypt during January 2011. After a video clip of protestors avoiding a watercannon was posted to YouTube, social media ‘buzz’ rocketed. The response of the Egyptian Government was to shut down the internet. To silence Facebook. To deafen Twitter.
But of course the damage was done and the news broadcasters had captured the story. It is a really interesting response to the question of how to control social media. And I think the answer is pretty clear: you can’t stop the engines that power social media chatter, you can only influence the direction of travel.
