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>- Not owned by Facebook

"nine out of ten Egyptians and Tunisians responded to a poll that they used Facebook to organise protests and spread awareness" [1]

"During the Arab Spring the number of users of social networks, especially Facebook, rose dramatically in most Arab countries, particularly in those where political uprising took place, with the exception of Libya, which at the time had low Internet access preventing people from doing so" [1]

As far as I'm aware Facebook is actually owned by Facebook.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_the_Arab_Spri...



I don’t get your point. Telegram is not owned by Facebook. A potential alternative, WhatsApp, is owned by Facebook. That’s the point I was going for.

And you have a huge difference between Facebook 2010 and 2020.


Facebook 2020 isn't the same as Facebook 2010. Their public image has changed a lot in between.


> Their public image has changed a lot in between.

Keyword "public". It is the same useful for protests as it was then.


However they have only gotten worse over time. It's just now that they're willing to block some far right/far left groups trying to fraudulently dump info in the form of ads and memes on Facebook.


Given the relationship the current US administration has with Russia, it seems like Facebook would be a less welcome alternative for a pro-democracy Belarusian protestor.




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