ARAB UPRISINGS NOT A FACEBOOK REVOLUTION

May 27, 2011 at 09:13 (FaceBook, Ignorance, Internet, Middle East, Revolution)

Is this Dork saying there would have not been an ‘Arab Spring’ without the Internet?

*

Some call the uprisings in the Arab world “the Facebook revolution.” Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the world’s biggest social network site, doesn’t seem to agree. Playing down his site’s role in revolutions from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, Zuckerberg said Wednesday at the e-G8 Internet forum in Paris, “It’s not a Facebook thing, it’s an Internet thing.”

*

Might it be a PEOPLE THING?

*

*

Arab uprising an Internet thing, not a Facebook thing, says Zuckerberg

The social networking site founder says the Internet at large, not Facebook, made the Arab Spring possible: ‘If it weren’t Facebook, it would be something else.’

Some call the uprisings in the Arab world “the Facebook revolution.” Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the world’s biggest social network site, doesn’t seem to agree. Playing down his site’s role in revolutions from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, Zuckerberg said Wednesday at the e-G8 Internet forum in Paris, “It’s not a Facebook thing, it’s an Internet thing.”

“I think Facebook was neither necessary nor sufficient for any of those things to happen,” he said, answering a reporter’s question about its role in the “Arab Spring.” “If it weren’t Facebook, it would be something else.” That said, millions of users in the Middle East have used Facebook and Twitter to organize protests in recent months.

Zuckerberg also said that Facebook does not plan to open up to children under the age of 13 in the short term, despite some reports indicating otherwise. Facebook, which has more than half a billion active users, operates policies around the world not to register children under a certain age. The age varies by country but is typically around 13.

Comments he made last week at an education conference, when he said regulations made it difficult for children to sign up for Facebook, had been taken out of context, he explained. He said the complexity of protecting children online meant the question was not a priority for the company.

Zuckerberg began the interview by batting away a question about Facebook’s plans to go public: “Not yet.” The company is expected tofloat next year.

Source