'We Shouldn't Overrate Facebook'  'We Shouldn't Overrate
Facebook' Noha Atef « You cannot give the credits to Facebook
and Twitter… it helped to some extent but it was not a factor of
success »  Egyptian blogger and Global Voices Online contributor
Noha Atef was in Armenia recently upon the invitation of the
Yerevan-based Public Journalism Club. Noha was at one point the
editor of the blog Torture in Egypt, but now she's a junior
researcher at the University of Birmingham. Noha describes how
during the 2011 Egyptian revolution, every activist had a sms
ready in her phone that said "I've been arrested."  How did
social media develop in Egypt in recent years?  The first wave
of protests began in 2005. Back then, there were a small number
of blogs and the common person would not know what is a blog.
Internet was there, but wasn't that common. And the word "blog"
was really weird.  When the opposition movements began to stage
protests on the streets against the president, these weren't
covered by the mainstream m