Reason TV: Tweeting Around Egypt's Web Blackout—Meet John Scott-Railton
The Egyptian government may have blocked Egyptians' access to the Internet, but it couldn't block the Internet itself. Thanks to the likes of John Scott-Railton, voices of countless Egyptian protesters continue to wend through the web.
Once the government imposed muzzling began, the 27-year-old UCLA graduate student reached out to friends in Egypt by telephone, gathered updates, and posted them to his Twitter account @Jan25voices, named after the day the protests began.
Nearly 700 tweets later, Scott-Railton (who up until last week was a Twitter newbie) soon found himself in the midst of the Middle East revolt. In one week he has attracted 6,700 followers and counting and his audio clips of Egyptian voices have been played more than 3.5 million times.
Reason.tv caught up with Scott-Railton at his UCLA office.
Approximately 5 minutes.
Interview by Paul Detrick. Shot by Zach Weissmueller. Edited by Detrick.
Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of this and all our videos, and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new content is posted.
