Social media played a significant role facilitating communication and interaction among participants of political protests. Protesters used social media to organize demonstrations (both pro- and anti-governmental), disseminate information about their activities, and raise local and global awareness of ongoing events. Research from the Project on Information Technology and Political Islam found that online revolutionary conversations often preceded mass protests on the ground, and that social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring. Governments used social media to engage with citizens and encourage their participation in government processes; in others, governments monitored internet traffic or blocked access to websites, and in the case of Egypt cut off access to the internet, as part of the governments attempts to prevent uprisings. As a result of their research many academics have come to the conclusion that social media played a critical role in "mobilization, empowerment, shaping opinions, and influencing change" during the Arab Spring.
Social media's impact varied per country. Social networks played an important role in the rapid and relatively peaceful disintegration of at least two regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, where the governing regimes had little or no social base. They also contributed to social and political mobilization in Syira and Bahrain where the Syrian Electronic Army, a still active Syrian "hacktivist" group, was established in order to target and launch cyber attacks against the political opposition and news websites.
While nine out of ten Egyptians and Tunisians responded to a poll that they used Facebook to organize protests and spread awareness, the role of the social network wasn't central in countries like Syria and Yemen, where there is little Facebook usage. During the Arab Spring the number of users of social networks, especially Facebook, rose dramatically in most Arab countries, particularly in those where political uprising took place, with the exception of Libya, which at the time had low Internet access preventing people from doing so.
As previously mentioned government reactions to social media activism differed significantly from country to country. While the Tunisian government blocked only certain routes and websites through which protests were coordinated, the Egyptian government went further, first blocking Facebook and Twitter, then completely blocking access to the internet
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It's honestly kind of sad that they consider not getting utterly curbstomped in the Yom Kippur War something to brag about. They still lost, yes, not as badly as the previous wars, but that shouldn't be something to be proud of. Noticed this on the IDF page of Facebook about female soldiers cutting their hair for cancer patients and they were doing this.
