No, Bloggers Did Not “Snub Hariri’s Rally”

I like Antoun and I’m usually a fan of what he writes for Global Voices Online, an influential website that tells the news from the perspective of international bloggers and, most recently, social media members (Full disclosure: I was Lebanon’s Editor in GVO when it first started)

But his latest post about the reaction of the Lebanese online to the “Hariri’s Rally” unfortunately missed the mark. In spite of having quoted me and having quoted a blogger who listed 13 reasons why he’ll attend the rally, this was the conclusion he came up with:

Despite attracting thousands of supporters to the rally, Hariri failed to make an impact online as the Lebanese blogosphere largely snubbed his demonstration. […] Although Hariri may own a large number of Lebanese mainstream media outlets, he appears to have little sway over a major independent voice in the country: social media.

There is one big omission that would have completely changed Antoun’s conclusions: Bloggers didn’t stop writing about politics in Lebanon because they are no longer influenced by politicians. Bloggers stopped writing about politics because they are becoming Twitter friends, and they are realizing that their sharp divisions are making it awkward to write their real point of view in polite social media company.

In the old days, bloggers didn’t care about what they wrote because they were almost anonymous. They felt free to write their real, controversial points of view. But now, there’s timidity in the air and tremendous peer pressure to say what is SocialMedially acceptable (I just invented that phrase). Perhaps GVO should start looking more at Facebook. Over there, people say what they really think.. They are social media members too, aren’t they?