With or without social media, people will find a way to organize a protest

Jun 6, 2013 20:11 GMT  ·  By

As violent protests unfold in Turkey, authorities are blaming Twitter for what is happening.

What started as a peaceful protest, turned into a full-blown riot. At first, they simply protested against the redesign of the historic Taksim district in Istanbul, but as spirits heat up, more accusations were brought to the government.

As it nears the end of the first week, the Turkish protests have drawn out accusations from the head of the government that were directed towards social media, with Twitter holding the lead.

Of course, it is always easier to blame social media when people don’t agree with your policies than to face the music.

It’s not like the Turkish Prime Minister is the first to put the blame on social media when protests erupted, but once more, Twitter isn’t to blame here.

Of course, he is right in some aspects, especially when he said that you could find a lot of lies on social platforms. When people’s opinions are involved, there’s bound to be some inaccuracies but, in cases like this one, governments don’t want the uncomfortable truth to come out.

Considering the fact that the national news sources chose to ignore the violent clashes between the Police and protesters, running documentaries instead, people were bound to look someplace else for information.

And that place turned out to be social media.

Now, the Turkish authorities have arrested 25 Twitter users for “inflaming” the situation and promoting untrue facts on their personal accounts.

Undoubtedly, they are scared of history repeating itself. Twitter was a key element in the Libyan civil war when Gaddafi was removed from power, but it is also currently playing an important role in the Syrian civil war.

Of course, each country is different, including the government type and the social issues, but some facts can’t be ignored.

Last month Syria fell off the face of the Earth twice as Internet access was shut down. While the official response was that a cable was cut, it seems more likely that the government chose to shut down all outside connections in an effort to defeat the rebels.

The bottom line is that social media can’t be blamed for protests. People would have found a way to gather and organize without it, just as they have in the past.

While social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are fairly new in the world, revolutions, protests and wars have been happening for thousands of years and people have always managed just fine even without them.

Nowadays, the Internet just makes it easier.