When Yarema Sadh created Ukraine’s official Twitter account in 2016, she knew social media was the best way to get her message out to her country.
“We have never had the means, like the Russians, to find multinational media like RT or Sputnik,” the former government communications adviser told AFP over the phone from Kyiv.
Since the full invasion of Russia last month, the Kyiv government has used social media to highlight atrocities, issue messages of defiance and even share a joke or two.
Young Ukrainians have used TIC Toc More tech enthusiasts have taken command to chronicle life under Russian siege Wire Channel for organizing the donation of cryptocurrency.
Russia, on the other hand, has launched an attack against Western tech firms and all but ended free speech online.
The Ukraine war marks the expansion of social media in the struggle from a tool of outsiders to a truly ubiquitous presence.
But its bitter history of relations with protest movements and governments – from the Arab Spring of 2011 to present-day Myanmar – shows that Ukraine will have to struggle to maintain its gains.
amplify the message
Back in 2011, Facebook Was far from the situation it is today and Twitter is barely registered in many countries.
“We were fighting for a place in the margins,” said Hossam al-Hallawi, an Egyptian activist who became a prominent voice during the Arab Spring protests.
The rebellion in the Middle East and North Africa became known as the “Facebook Revolution”, but the jury is still out on its overall role.
Hamalavi said the real power of social media was not as an organizing tool but as a way to amplify the message.
“I knew everything I wrote on Twitter would be picked up (by the mainstream media),” he told AFP from his home in Berlin.
In Ukraine in the early 2010s, Sadly says the most popular social media was a blogging platform called LiveJournal.
But then a journalist posted a message on his Facebook in 2014, promising to launch an anti-government rally if he got 1,000 replies.
When they got enough answers, they went to Maidan Square in the heart of Kyiv and started a protest that toppled the pro-Russian government.
Exposure helped Facebook become by far the number one social network in Ukraine.
During this period, the American tech giant was happy about its engagement with outsiders and protesters.
Company boss Mark Zuckerberg wrote in 2012 that the firm’s interest was not in profits, but in empowering people to make social change.
However, social media companies were already in a much more complicated situation.
very naive
Burmese journalist Thin Lei Win said 2012 was the moment Facebook “became the Internet” in Myanmar.
“Everything was on Facebook and everyone was sharing everything,” she told AFP.
But some of the messages being shared were incendiary, spreading false information that led to violence between Buddhist nationalists and the Muslim Rohingya minority.
As of 2018, a UN correspondent called the platform a “beast” and accused it of inciting racial hatred.
Wheels came to a halt in Egypt too, where street protests between factions were seen as bitter fights online.
Protest leader Val Ghonim, whose Facebook messages helped spark the movement, told US broadcaster PBS in 2018 that he soon became a target of online propaganda.
“I was too naive,” he said, “thinking these were tools of salvation.”
Meanwhile, the Maidan revolution in Ukraine was also turning sour.
Moscow used this as an excuse to annex Crimea and spread unrest in the east of Ukraine.
Sadly, as a new recruit on the government’s communications team, he finds himself battling a Russian troll farm.
three finger salute
Activists in Arab Spring countries now mourn that the platform they once admired has been remodeled to serve the powerful.
A group of NGOs wrote an open letter to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube last year accusing them of supporting repression by systematically closing the accounts of dissidents across the region.
In Myanmar, a military junta seized power in a coup early last year, ending several years of liberalisation.
Discontent quickly spread on social media with the three-finger salute borrowed from the “Hunger Games” movies proving popular.
But Thin Lei Win said officials knew the Burmese were enthusiastic participants and began blocking people on the streets demanding to see their phones.
“If you had posted anything on your social media that criticizes the public or a supporter of NUG (National Unity Government) then you can be arrested,” she said.
whack a mole
Facebook and other platforms shut down Burmese generals’ accounts shortly after the coup and, according to Thin Lei Win, established platforms have significantly improved their record with propaganda.
Thin Lei Win and the activist group point out that the general has since moved on to other networks and his messages are still received.
“It’s like whack-a-mole, you pop something off, something else pops up,” Thin Lei Win said.
Smaller companies such as TikTok and Telegram have been criticized for continuing to host Burmese military propaganda.
In Ukraine too, both TikTok and Telegram have been accused of failing to combat Russian propaganda.
But the sadness that left the Ukrainian government in 2019 continues to see the positive side of social media.
He said Ukraine has learned lessons from its years of dealing with Russian propaganda and can share them with the world.
“We are good learners and I hope we will be good teachers after victory,” he said.