Alex Ross: Social media didn't cause Arab Spring

With the Presidential election in Egypt coming to a head, Hillary Clinton’s adviser on the use of social media and the internet spoke to Arabstoday about internet freedom and America's response to the Arab Spring. Alec Ross served on President Obama’s transition team after the last Presidential election, and last year was named one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers” by Foreign Policy Magazine.  But how did a former inner city school teacher in West Baltimore manage to become one of Hilary Clinton's most senior political advisers? "Eighteen years ago I was in a program called 'Teach in America' where we focused on teaching some of the lowest income school children in the US and I taught in West Baltimore.  When I was a school teacher in the early to mid-nineties, it was during a period where the force and effect of globalisation was really taking place." He continues: "I grew up in a relatively low income city called West Virginia.  Both communities in which I taught and grew up in had to cope with the negative aspects of globalisation, the loss of the industrial based jobs, the ports, the factories, the mills and other such things.  One of the things I realised as a school teacher is that underprivileged children needed to be equipped with technological skills to succeed in knowledge based economy." Ross adds. In 2000, Ross co-founded the nonprofit organisation One Economy, a global nonprofit that uses innovative approaches to deliver the power of technology and information about education, jobs, health care and other vital issues to low-income people. During his eight years at the NGO, it grew from a team of four people to the world's largest digital divide organization, with programs on four continents. Shortly after, he was working with President Barack Obama during the 2008 US Presidential campaign. "It's funny because I didn't send or receive an email in college. I didn't own a mobile phone until I was 28 years old." Admits the social media expert. Despite his humble beginnings, Alec Ross now serves as Senior Adviser for Innovation to the US Secretary of State where he is tasked with maximizing the potential of technology and innovation in service of America’s diplomatic goals and stewarding the US 21st Century Statecraft agenda.   So what does he think about the Arab Spring in the context of communication technology? "The 21st century is a bad time to be a control freak."  He jokes. "But I don't think any of these revolutions happened because of social media. Some people were quick to call the uprisings 'Facebook Revolutions' or 'Twitter Revolutions' but I do not believe that's true.  I think that what's at the heart of those revolutions are things like high food prices, frustration about corruption, the level of democratic participation and a lack of upward economic mobility. Those are the reasons why people rebelled."  He says. "However, because of the open platforms available in social media the ability to participate and excel, the revolution process happened much faster. If you think about the movements in apartheid South Africa or in Eastern Europe in the 1970's and 80's, these were movements that were years in the making, not like the Arab Spring. Also, communication technology facilitates a movement with no clear leader.  It is good in the sense that movement- making is more citizen-centered but its downfall is that when the leader is overthrown, there is no one to take charge of the country." He added.