Social networking has pros and cons, but still has the potential to be a tool of liberation

Throughout history, the advent of new technology has often been a double edged sword. The development of social networking over the last decade has not been exempt from that pattern.

Social networking arrived with the promise of a world that was better connected, better informed, and freer from the divisions caused by boundaries and borders, corruption and ignorance. Unfortunately, those same tools that were to provide us with faster, cheaper and surer connections, have also become the tools by which surveillance and monitoring are enhanced. The traditional forms of control, interference, and intimidation have made use of the break down of personal privacy that has been widely accepted as part and parcel of bringing people together.

So, in the face of that technology being used to infringe liberty, it is refreshing to see that those tools are still being used also to seek liberty.

In Ukraine,  Pro-European protesters are campaigning hard against the government's decision to abandon the path to EU integration (BBC Trending, 2013), as well as showing solidarity with opposition leader and former-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko (Smith-Spark et al, 2013), whose continuing imprisonment has been a source of controversy and embarrassment for Ukraine. Many world leaders refused to attend the Ukrainian hosted parts of the 2012 European Championship in protest of Ms Tymoshenko's internment.

The Ukrainian campaigners and protesters have taken to social media to promote their movement and to share the experience with people around the world. Social media is showing itself to be a valuable means of sharing information, gathering support and for organising co-ordinated action.

This certainly isn't the first example of social media being used as part of a protest movement. The Green Movement in Iran (Esfandiari, 2010); The Arab Spring across North Africa (Srinivasan, 2012); The Occupy movement around the world (Benson, 2013); all of these have made use of social media.

But what the situation in Ukraine shows us is that social media is not just a campaigning fad. Use of it for connecting people politically is persisting. Furthermore, it is connecting people across traditional boundaries, barriers and borders.

If we are to get away from the restrictions that prevent us from living free and in peace - restrictions such as violence, intimidation, and coercion - then communications and connections have to be made. We need individual space for rational critical thought, and then a means of bringing those individual voices and thoughts together in co-operation.

The internet and social media have brought us the means of connecting which will help us to co-operate, but it has yet to perfect the privacy that protects our right to think freely for ourselves. But there is promise, even though online campaigning is still only in its infancy. If we can be responsible in our use of these powerful tools they might still become everything that we were promised.

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References:
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+ BBC Trending's '#BBCtrending: How social media is shaping Ukraine's protest movement'; 3 December 2013.

+ Laura Smith-Spark, Victoria Butenko & Marie-Louise Gumuchian's 'Ukraine's Tymoshenko ends hunger strike at pro-EU protesters' behest'; on CNN; 6 December 2013.

+ Golmaz Esfandiari's 'The Myths And Realities Of New Media In Iran's Green Movement'; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; 11 June 2013.

+ Ramesh Srinivasan's 'Taking power through technology in the Arab Spring'; on Al Jazeera; 26 October 2012.

+ Thor Benson's 'Occupy has become a social media campaign'; on the Daily Kos; 2 November 2013.