The Syrian Revolution Facebook Page

For the first time, you can watch a political revolution play out online. That's what's happening with the Syrian revolution's facebook page, which serves as the primary outlet for the opposition movement. Every day features hundreds of new posts (sometimes even thousands), with videos, articles, cell-phone recordings of regime violence; this site has everything.

It's truly revolutionary (forgive the pun) in that with this revolution, the opposition is using social media as a weapon to respond to actions of the Syrian government. The government has its TV channels, radio stations, and websites. The opposition has none of those, therefore it uses social media to promote and distribute its message. The posting of videos of protests and the violent repression of the regime allows readers to watch the revolution as it's happening - truly fascinating.

While we've seen the Facebook page mentioned on other social media platforms before, today a friend pointed out a particularly dynamic example of the intersections that occur in Arabic social media, and how that interaction can change events on the ground.

Above is a poll issued by the page. The poll asks for readers to vote and choose the name of next Friday's demonstrations. It has become a tradition in Arab Spring revolutions, and especially in Syria, to name each Friday's demonstrations. With the Syrian revolution, that naming now takes place on its Facebook page.  The choices are (from top to bottom):

• جمعة ثورة لكل سوريين (The Friday of Revolution for All Syrians)
• جمعة سينتصر الدم على الرصاص (The Friday Where Blood Will Defeat Bullets)
• جمعة المجتمع الدولي يقتلنا (The Friday of 'The International Community is Killing Us')
• جمعة حسبنا الله و كفى (The Friday of 'God is our Protector, Enough')
• جمعة اوقفوا القتل (The Friday of 'Stop the Killing')
• جمعة جيش الاسلام: اغيثوا الشام (The Friday of 'Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria')
• جمعة قاوم فيداك الاعصار (The Friday of 'Resist, Your Hands are the Hurricane')
• جمعة تكالبت علينا الامم (The Friday of 'The UN Has Left Us')

What's fascinating about this week's poll is the that readers took to other social media platforms (in this case, forums) to lobby for their particular choice. 

More info, with links, to come.