Egypt crisis: Twitter’s role [Infographic]

Egypt is on the world’s stage. The on-going political and civil unrest that peaked on January 25th when Twitter was blocked has been the topic of conversation on many social media platforms. All around Twitter the “Jan25“, “Egypt” and “Mubarak” hashtags are being put to use.

The battle between social media users and the government has raised some alarming concerns about censorship as well as highlighting the power of social media.

Twitter has played a key role in getting the citizens’ voices heard. Their recent collaboration with search giant Google, made it possible for Egyptians to tweet through voicemail.

Sysomos, a social media intelligence firm, has analysed a number of the Egypt-related tweets using keywords and location data.

“Given how social media is being increasingly leveraged as a real-time reporting tool, we wanted to look at how many people are using Twitter in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen – places in which there is active political protest,” writes Sysomos strategist, Mark Evans.

Evans also added that the analysis included, “52-million Twitter users,” which led to the discovery that “only 14 642, or 0.027%, identified their location as Egypt, Yemen or Tunisia”. Of the 14 642, 88.1% were from Egypt.

Below is an infographic of a summary of 14 642 Twitter users in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen.