"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers"
United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Power of the Oppressed
Social media platforms and mobile technologies in general are frequently referred to as platforms for finding entertaining content, learning about products and purchasing items, sharing photos, networking, filling spare time, and following influencers' life style.
​
Even though all the aforementioned activities are needed to some extent in a balanced and healthy life, but social media has much more potential and power that needs further exploration.
​
According to a recent article by Forbes, "Americans spent on average more than 1300 hours on social media" in 2020. [5] This is equivalent to eight (8) months of full-time work.
The question that remains unanswered is that, when social media is so powerful and nimble that information transfer can spark mass movements in particular in totalitarian regimes, why not put it to better use?
Using social media in a libertarian direction was clearly visible in the Arab Spring in the early 2010s. Uprisings in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Oman, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, and many more countries were examples of such movements. Quite a number of dictatorships collapsed as a result of these movements, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are just a few examples.
In almost tall the aforesaid countries, social media users utilized their platforms to organize peaceful protests, share photos of their revolution, and capture video of government crackdown. Undoubtedly, social media platforms were a causal mechanism that expediated the overthrow of many totalitarian regimes.
​
Additionally, the anonymity that exists in social media platforms, particularly when users utilize Virtual Private Networks (VPN), minimizes the fear of government retribution.
Research shows that “popular social media interfaces could encourage participation from those who fear over their privacy” [6]
