Throughout history, revolutions have sparked all over the world for countless reasons. Big or small, those who participate in revolutions all have the common goal of making a change. Before the age of the internet and social media, organizing revolutions was harder because they purely relied on word of mouth to get a movement going, but that has changed drastically. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow dedicated supporters from all over the world to rally behind a specific cause, completely eliminating geographical barriers. But the biggest advantage of social media in revolutions is its outreach – hundreds of millions of people use these sites every day, and especially if a topic is trending or with the use of a simple hashtag, it is not hard to gain national traction and millions of followers. Additionally, using social media also provides the possibility of major power players joining in on the movement and voicing their opinions. An example of this happening is in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. In 2016, a new pipeline was going to be built under North Dakota, threatening a burial ground and water source used by the Sioux people living on the Standing Rock Native American Reservation. Those opposed to the pipeline believed that the cost of the pipeline would be better spent on wind or solar farms, and that eminent domain is a terrible excuse for an oil company to seize privately owned land. People all over the country began “checking in” on Facebook to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation page not only to show support for the tribe, but also to confuse local police, who were using Facebook check-ins to track activists protesting the pipeline. There were almost 2 million check-ins from people who weren’t actually present.  Senator Bernie Sanders even openly encouraged the President to halt construction indefinitely. Thanks to social media, the strongly centralized message of the movement got the attention of all the right people, although the pipeline was built in the end.

 

While social media was used in both cases to demand change, organize protests, and gain more followers, the example of the Arab Spring was different because of the drastically different social and political climate faced by its citizens. In this case, social media was used to broadcast the events that were taking place in their streets and bring awareness to Arab civilians throughout the world that there are entire hidden communities dedicated to rooting out corruption. People knowing that they are not struggling in isolation provided them with strength to keep pushing, and in Tunisia, resulted in the toppling of brutal dictatorships and the establishment of a democracy.