Three Things About: Chema Gargouri

"Aslama" from TUNISIA 





Looking forward to meeting all of the E-Mediat team. I am very pleased to join you and be part of this program. Below are three things about me:

• My areas of expertise are project design and management, SE Business Development, and institutional and capacity building services;
• I am not an IT specialist but I am a user of social media especially during the Tunisian revolution; 
• I believe that life has no sense if we do not keep learning: e-mediat will allow me to learn and transmit what I will learn to the Tunisian NGOs and CSOs.  

More information about e-mediat on: www.emediat.org

Social Media and Tunisia!

Posted: Jan 18, 2011

After a 24 year repressive de facto dictatorship, Tunisian President Zine el Abedine Ben Lai has exiled to Saudi Arabia. The Demonstration that has pushed him out of power began on December 17.

According to Amnesty International, the street demonstrations have so far claimed the lives of 25 people. The protests, which first flared in the city of Sidi Bouzid were initially reported by state media as "isolated events". Anyhow, Tunisians were making use of the channels available to them and posting videos, photos and comments in Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and the like. It was through these videos and photos that the momentum gaining protests were seen as not "isolated events".

Being Al Jazeera and other non-state media banned from broadcasting images of the protests, they turned to Youtube videos and Flickr photos to obtain material for broadcasting. The protests also found online allies in internet, where the user-posted videos and photos reached tremendous levels of virality, and eventually saw the "hactivist" group "Anonymous" (recently in the news for having hacked the servers of Mastercard, Visa and Paypal due to Wikileak donations blocking) hacking and shutting down eight Tunisian government websites, including those of the stock exchange, the president, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs….
http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/social-media-and-tunisia-4059250.html

Author: Francisco Gordillo - Serial entrepreneur, angel investor, social media, gaming, mind sports, marketer, lecturer, blogger, melomaniac, writer, avid reader...