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.
Scroll down 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.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Get government replica uggs out of education and kids will get educated or fake uggs for sale not, as their parents desire. More of them will actually become educated without government than do now with it.