Credit: Lilian Wagdy/WikiCommons
Back in 2011, the world watched in awe as Egyptians took to the streets to demand the end of Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Cairo’s Tahrir Square became a physical focal point for these protests but, as the movement harnessed social media’s then nascent power to bring people together, a virtual square developed where a great deal of the mobilization happened.
The role of the digital space in the Arab Spring would eventually become the subject of multiple analyses and was even embraced by technology platforms like Facebook and Google as proof that they were moral agents. Indeed, many of the young people who were critical to the movement were employees of the world’s largest tech companies, leveraging their passion to amplify the cause.
One of these individuals was Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a blogger and a technologist whose story is a lesson for those of us who celebrate the Arab Spring and other revolutionary movements. El-Fattah comes from a… Full article
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