[Originally posted on my FB profile:  http://www.facebook.com/TarekKahlaoui]

When in December 17th Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the city of Sidi Bouzid no one thought that it would be a major event.  Yet few anti-censorship activists who were particularly active since the Spring of 2010, when a wave of censorship hit the Tunisian web, emphasized the incident. In Facebook we started to relay videos coming from Sidi Bouzid made available by old friends (mainly union and student activists such as Slimane Rouissi and Lamine Bouazizi) about the growing protests in the whole province. A closed Facebook group made by these union activists from Sidi Bouzid and included several internet activists (لجنة المواطنة Ùˆ الدفاع عن ضحايا التهميش في سيدي بوزيد) was used to share and spread the incoming news.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_140635172657879¬if_t=group_activity

The two major Tunisian Facebook pages (“Ma Tunisie” and “Tunisia_تونس_Tunisie” respectively include 500,000 and 300,000 members) with whom we have close contacts were the platform to share the information to a wider public. Facebook was a very effective platform for two reasons: a-about two million Tunisian users (in a population of 11 million); b-the regime's censorship tools were inert given the fact that Facebook is a closed network allowing anyone to receive information from censored pages and profiles through the “News Feed” tab and using the secure “HTTPS” links.

Meanwhile friends in Facebook who are journalists in Aljazeera published some of the information and videos in Aljazeera primetime programs after checking with local sources. All of this was a spontaneous coordinated effort. Since the second week of the Revolution most Tunisians were following closely Aljazeera’s primetime news programs (“Hasad al-Yawm” and “Al-Hasad al-Magharibi”, which was focusing almost entirely on Tunisia). This crucial link between Facebook and TV satellite channels notably Al-Jazeera proved to be devastating to the Tunisian official propaganda machine.

 In twitter, where the number of Tunisian users was not as high as in Facebook but allowed a wide Arab and international exposure, I (@t_kahlaoui) called in December 17 for a hashtag to relay the unfolding events. Taieb Moalla (@moalla), a journalist in Quebec, suggested #SidiBouzid. Tunisian and Arab activists and friends (including @TunObs, @ifikra, @yassayari, @Malek, @astrubaal, @azyz, @benmhennilina, @sofinos, @slim404, @weddady, and @Dima_Khatib to name few) and groups (@nawaat, @takriz, @SBZ_news... etc) led the efforts to relay all available information especially coming from Facebook into Twitter. Thus in a week it has become a trendy twitter topic within the Tunisian community centered in tn-labs.com (then worldwide). These were the first acts that established the basic structures of using the social networks as a media branch of the unfolding Tunisian Revolution.

In the first weeks of the Revolution few incorrect information were used by the official propaganda machine to discredit the social networks as a credible news source. By the end of the third week of the Tunisian Revolution when Ben Ali’s security forces committed a massacre in the province of Kasserine I with 8 other friends (Ghassen Ben Khlifa and Ismail Dbara among others) some of whom are trained journalists we decided to establish a Facebook page that would try to act as a less amateur news platform. We called it “The News Agency of the Protests of the Tunisian Street” (وكالة أنباء تحركات الشارع التونسي). Using professional methods like a news room and contacts on the ground to check and re-check the flow of information, we worked around the clock to establish a more credible news platform. It was blocked by Facebook administrators (we assume this was the result of massive reporting by the old Regime’s supporters) so we had to create a second page (وكالة أنباء تحركات الشارع التونسي 2), which included more than 20,000 members in two days.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/wkalt-anba-thrkat-alshar-altwnsy-2/172877402753440

Since January 14 Facebook and Twitter are increasingly shaping the public opinion and coordinating the continuing popular street demonstrations. Their pressure are contributing in leading the street protests against the acting government and what’s left of the old ruling party and imposing the continuous concessions of the old Regime’s leading figures. Even with the major changes in the official media scene the social networks are still leading the media along with the foreign TV satellite channels.