Silicon Valley platforms were credited with enabling the Arab Spring uprisings

Evidence

Western media not only celebrated the courage of the young protesters but also hailed an unexpected hero: social media. The events in Tunisia and Egypt were dubbed “Facebook revolutions.” Where Americans used the internet to share photos of their meals or follow the daily musings of Kim Kardashian, protesters in the Middle East were harnessing these same platforms to dismantle dictatorships. With Obama’s rise and now the Arab Spring, the internet promised hope for a better world. The democratization of information was ushering in a democratization of politics. Technology was people power. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 259

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the broader ‘information wants to be free’ techno-utopian ideology introduced in the prior chapter, and to the contrast Marx will draw with the ‘blank space’ era lacking such unifying beliefs.