Saturday, February 11, 2006

Mobile messages propel anger over images

A recent article in The Washington Post writes about how modern digital technology -- especially cell phones and Internet blogs -- helped turn an incident in tiny Denmark into a uniting cause for protesters around the world in days or even hours.


"From London to Kabul, Afghanistan, to Jakarta, Indonesia, the digital revolution has given unprecedented access to information -- accurate or not -- to anyone with enough money to buy a secondhand cell phone.

E-mails, blogs and text messages have been used to press a boycott of Danish goods in Arab countries and a "Buy Danish" campaign in the United States. Text messages were used to organize anti-Danish protests in Brussels, while Canada's largest Muslim umbrella group sent e-mails to 300,000 members urging them to avoid such demonstrations."

Similar methods of using text messages and blogs were also used to organize protests during violent unrest in Paris last year, as was covered on this site.

Thanks to Smartmobs for the above.

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