The Dark Side of the Arab Spring

There has been much celebrating this year about how social media, specifically Twitter and Facebook, energized a groundswell of protest in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen, that brought tyrannical regimes to their knees, but now the tables are being turned in Syria. Where social media once provided delicious anonymity and agility, it now serves as a vehicle for governments to identify opposition workers through installing malware on their computers.

In a recent CNN Tech article, "Computer spyware is newest weapon in Syrian conflict," correspondent Ben Brumfield tells us that the regime's supporters have created a virus that robs information from computers and passes it on to a server at a government-owned telecommunications company in Syria.

• 

Syrians demonstrate against the regime after Friday prayers

in the northern Syrian city of Idlib on February 17. Activists

working against the regime now have to worry about

malware that can expose their activities. 

Supporters of Syria's leader Bashar al-Assad first steal the identities of opposition activists, then impersonate them in online chats. They gain the trust of other users, pass out Trojan horse viruses, and encourage people to open them. Once on the victim's computer, the malware sends information out to third parties.

One of these viruses is capable of logging key strokes, taking screen shots, and rummaging through folders. It then hides the IP address to which it is sending this information.

This is a very scary set of circumstances for opponents of al-Assad's regime, because they never know when a mistake will implicate them or others. Furthermore, they don't know who to trust, since one of the ways the virus is spread is through regime proponents pretending to be opposition members. This is the dark side of anonymity.

We like to think that espionage like this is only happening in the Middle East, but recent articles have shown that our government is engaged in social media monitoring, as well. A February 18, 2012, AP article entitled "NYPD monitored Muslim students all over Northeast," tells us that "NYPD's Cyber Intelligence unit visited the websites, blogs and forums of Muslim student associations as a 'daily routine.' "

    Many of the academic institutions whose Muslim student associations (MSAs) were under surveillance have protested what they regard as a violation of essential freedoms and "a reasonable expectation of privacy," but NYC's Mayor Bloomberg defends the actions of his police force, saying "We have to keep this country safe." 

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is facing off

with Yale University over efforts by the NYPD

to monitor Muslim student groups. He says there

is nothing wrong with officers keeping an

eye on websites available to the general public.



NYPD spokesperson, Paul J. Browne, has pointed out that the information they have collected through surveillance of MSAs has come from "open sources" on the Internet. Mr. Browne further stated through an email: “Some of the most dangerous Western Al Qaeda-linked/inspired terrorists since 9/11 were radicalized and/or recruited at universities in MSAs. We were focused on radicalization and/or recruitment, specifically by groups like Al Muhajiroun, Islamic Thinkers Society, Revolution Muslim and others.”

Asked about the monitoring, Mr. Browne provided a list of 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the United States and abroad, who had once been members of Muslim student associations, as evidence that this type of surveillance is worthwhile. 

I have to admit that I'm conflicted. Having been a NYC resident at the time of 9/11, I am certainly with the Mayor in wanting to keep the city safe, but I wish there were some other way to do it. Even though monitoring "open sources" on the Internet is not the same as covertly launching malware on opposition activists' computers with the goal of stealing their personal information to implicate them and others, it is still a form of surveillance. Whereas Mayor Bloomberg feels that the NYPD's work monitoring MSAs is necessary to protect NYC, proponents of al-Assad's regime might feel that their work is equally important in protecting their government. Given the mores of their society, Syria's government supporters might see this as a perfectly acceptable way to protect themselves and their world.

How the strategy behind social media is like old-time donor relations

"Think about it -- how many companies

have "customer managers" instead of

"product managers"? (Li and Bernhoff, 2008, p. 199)

I couldn't help but be struck as I read Chapter 10 in Groundswell how so much of the strategy behind using social media to connect with customers is like what I do every day as a donor relations and stewardship professional. In the fundraising world, we are the people behind the scenes nurturing relationships with our "customers," aka "donors," by finding ways to connect that will make them feel appreciated and, most importantly, allow them to see the impact of their gift(s). To this end, we send reports on named funds, throw receptions where donors can meet their scholarship recipients, plan ground breakings, and devise individualized stewardship plans in which we schedule points of contact, i.e., "touches" with donors at various points throughout the year, so they never feel far from our thoughts.

Time and time again, the gurus in this field talk about "donor-centered fundraising" and have even written books with this title.

Helping us discover what donors want and how to act on this knowledge has become big business and has spawned an entire industry of researchers and marketers claiming to have just the tools we need to increase donations and keep them coming year after year.

Penelope Burk, author of Donor-Centered Fundraising

talks about attracting and retaining younger donors.

In our organizations, we are the people with

"the most passion about starting a relationship with [our] customers," (Li and Bernhoff, 2008, p. 212)

and fundraisers look to us for guidance on how to make those relationships last. In a down market, it is much easier to hold on to the customers you already have than to try to drum up new business. Suddenly, the back office work of stewardship has become sexy after years of being seen as non-strategic drudgery.

If we can make our current donors feel happy and respected, they, in turn, will tell others about us, energizing the mini-groundswell within our organizations to the point where it will allow us "to embrace the groundswell of customers outside," (Li and Bernhoff, 2008, p. 199), hopefully bringing in new business.

So even though social media provides us with new tools for connecting with our customers, it is most effective if it uses the proven methods of customer relationship management (CRM) that preceded it.



Social media: The last great hope of democracy

When I first joined Facebook three years ago, with the goal of seeing photos of my great-nieces and great-nephews, I never thought I would someday hail social media as the last great hope of democracy, but that's what's happened. I went from looking at adorable photos of the little people in my life (below) to reading about the power of social media to create the Arab Spring.

My great-niece, Alena, sporting a matching cast and boots.

But even then, the real power of social media seemed far away. It wasn't until we entered another election cycle, in which corporations are now seen as people, and stratospherically wealthy individuals can ban together to buy elections, that I really came to appreciate the powerful opportunity social media presents for the "99 percent" to be heard.

We already had a chance to see its power last fall, when Bank of America (BofA), which already boasts $3 billion in annual profits from its debit-card business, was forced to rescind its proposed $5.00 monthly fee on debit card customers who had less than $20,000 with the bank, because of a social-media inspired "Bank Transfer Day." This grass roots movement, begun by one person on her Facebook page, went viral and resulted in BofA abandoning corporate greed rather than risk tarnishing its brand even further and losing customers to credit unions.

 

An ATM that "Occupy" protesters covered with yellow crime-scene tape in

downtown Los Angeles, Oct. 6, 2011, Chris Carlson / AP Photo.


As the 2012 election approaches, social media seems to be the only tool the disenfranchised have to make their views known and they are embracing it with a vengeance. In a world where the masses are steamrollered by the concerns of big business and big government, and a dysfunctional Congress cannot serve the American people who elected it, sites like Facebook and Twitter are cutting through all the noise and giving entrenched interests a run for their money.

When I start to feel hopeless about what has happened to our country, I take heart in the voices of the people I hear so powerfully through social media, and I still feel that democracy has a chance.

Listening to the Groundswell

It is perhaps chapter 5 in Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's excellent book groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies (2008), that has affected me most, because it shows what a sea change social media has brought about in traditional public relations and marketing. Because of these new technologies, we can now listen to our customers and constituencies in personal and immediate ways we could only once dream of. As Li and Bernoff put it, listening is now so easy that "not listening . . . is criminal" (p. 93).

Josh Bernoff: Five Objectives in the Groundswell

(Listening) --  Forrester's Consumer Forum 2007

Chicago, IL -- October 11, 2007

   This has HUGE ramifications for the types of relationships we build. In the old model, public relations and marketing was very much a "top-down" effort, with companies deciding what they wanted to say in order to increase sales and then "shouting" (p. 101) this information at the public through repetitive advertisements or other forms of media. These strategies were often based on what companies thought they knew about their customers, or what they wanted to convince their customers they needed to buy. But social media has changed all that and put the power back in the hands of the people.

   Today, instead of companies telling customers what they should want, customers are telling companies what sorts of products and services they should give them. In the process, these customers are not only reclaiming their power, but they're giving companies valuable product ideas for free that these companies might never have thought of otherwise.

   This development just confirms the theories of Ricardo Guimarães, founder of Thymus Branding, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who has declared that "brands belong to customers, not companies" (p. 78) and that companies are just tools for creating value for a brand. In this sense, brands live "outside the company," not within it. The brand is an "open structure" and harder for traditional media types to manipulate, whereas a company is a "closed structure" (p. 79).

   Thinking in this way is revolutionary and opens a world filled with possibilities. Because of social media, companies no longer need to use costly surveys that can only provide answers to the questions they ask or focus groups that occur in artificial environments. Instead, they can observe consumers in their natural habitat through social media and hear their often surprising and ground breaking ideas. 

   Li and Bernoff highlight two caveats about the new media. The first is that the people you hear from are not a representative sample, and, secondly, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the VOLUME of responses you receive. Help can be found, however, from the technology companies that have arisen to help users of social media solve just these types of problems (p. 81). 

   So even though I'm excited about all the opportunities social media has created, I now understand why so many marketing folks lost their jobs during the Great Recession. Social media made them obsolete. I am still astonished at how quickly the PR and marketing landscape has changed over the past 5+ years. It will be a challenge for all of us to remain relevant.