WICHITA – As recent political uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other Middle Eastern countries illustrate, Twitter is mightier than the sword. It’s increasingly hard for dictators to deal with dissidents using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, You-Tube, texting and cell phones to organize demonstrations and political uprisings, said Lou Heldman, Wichita State instructor. Although those countries have had political unrest and long-standing grievances have been around but they’re harder to suppress because the social media gives more citizens bigger megaphones, he said. “The problem for governments trying to limit communication is that it’s a 24-hour, 365-day-a-year job that can never stop,” Heldman said. “As new communication technologies are coming online, it becomes harder and harder to keep it suppressed.” However, some regimes such as the Chinese and Iranians have been able to use social media to go after opponents, he said. In Iran, police followed the electronic trails left by activists, which helped them make thousands of arrests in the crackdown that followed, he said. But democratic governments shouldn’t be too smug, he said. As Wikileaks shows, democracies have had difficulties with the fast and wide distribution of secret documents.
Thursday, March 24, 8 a.m.
