Sudan: “Facebook Revolution” with the help of Twitter as a side kick
(Global Voices) Sudanese students chose January 30, 2011 to be the beginning of peaceful demonstrations against President Omar al-Bashir. The main call asking people to take to the streets of Khartoum was made on Facebook. Was this Sudan’s first “Facebook Revolution” with the help of twitter as a side kick?
Social media tools such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube played a vital role in organising and reporting the Jan 30 Sudan peaceful demonstrations. In this post I will try to highlight some of social media tools that were used to organise, report and comment on the protests.
Facebook played a vital role as information center and an organising space while on Twitter users were reporting about the demonstrations in real time. Jan30Sudan used Ushahidi platform to document the demonstrations on a map.
It seems it all started with a Facebook group leading the role by inviting people to attend the protests. The group is called “>شبــاب لأجـل الـتـغيـــر·.»شـــرار ة which translates to Youth For change “the Spark”. The group, which has over 8,000 friends, is credited with helping to organise the protests. Another Facebook group is “>رصد الاعتقالات و التجاوزات القانونية في مسيرة 30 يناير السلمية بالخرطوم which translates to “Records or Updates of arrest and illegal actions or violence in the 30 of January Peaceful Demonstration in Khartoum.”
Protesters in Khartoum, Sudan. Photo courtesy of Ehsasi Gdeed.
On the other side, there are blogs such as hurriyatsudan, which keeps track of news and updates. The blog has published names of people who have been arrested. Jan30Sudan website helped people to track locations of the protests and actions such as arrest or clashes with the police. Read more…
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