What do you do when officials in your country are limiting freedom of speech, but you have a message to distribute to the world? That’s a question some Egyptians have been dealing with as they demonstrate in the streets and call for economic and political reforms. The answer for many has been to create new paths of communication using old technologies.
And Egyptians’ communication workarounds seem to be working. When the Egyptian government hit the “Internet kill switch,” effectively shutting down access to the web in Egypt, citizens turned to DSL dialup services, modem-sharing, and have even created what has been called an independent “mesh” of connections that allow them to circumvent official Egyptian networks. Fax machines have also proven useful tools for distributing information within the country as well as sending messages out to the international press. Once Egyptian officials reestablished mobile phone service, Egyptian citizens started using Google’s new speak-to-tweet service, calling a designated number to leave a voicemail message that would then be turned into a tweet and broadcast via Twitter.
Many consider such technologies – fax machines, dial-up, and voicemail – out-dated, but they have proven invaluable to activists and regular citizens who have been cut off from more modern communication tools. By turning to these technologies, and with help from companies, organizations, and regular men and women outside of Egypt who are sympathetic to the Egyptian cause, Egypt’s citizens are creating their own paths to Freedom of Speech.
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