As I write this post today. The future of Libya is uncertain. The events in Tunisia and Egypt spread the urge for revolution throughout the Middle East like a virus. When the people of Libya took to the streets and demanded that Col. Gaddafi step down from power we all expected Libya to be the next to crumble but weeks after the initial protests the revolution has escalated into full-on civil war between 'rebels' and Gaddafi hired mercenaries.
Now, despite the protests of the Arab world, the UK has scrambled fighter jets and bombers over to Libya in what it says is the construction of a 'no fly zone' to protect civillians from Gaddafi organised air-strikes. But the fear is that Cameron and Co have ulterior imperial motives, such as the world’s oil springs? But no matter what the outcome this is going to be a tense year for the Middle East.
In fact the recent events have rocked the entire world. The UK has seen huge student protests and anti-cuts protests (with more to come) and now there are calls for Revolution in Communist China. From a tech point of view, what's interesting here is the role of technology in the recent events.
Social networking is bringing people together and empowering them like nothing seen before. We reported a few weeks back that an Egyptian child had been named Facebook in honour of the role of the technology in the ousting of Mubarak. World governments are taking notice of this and paranoid China (who have been accused of this before) are said to have been hacking Google and causing trouble for its users.
Gmail accounts have been hacked and Google has said its engineers could find no technical problems with Gmail or its main website.”There is no technical issue on our side; we have checked extensively. There is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail,” the company said in a statement. In a time when tech companies bow down all too easily to political preasure it's good to see Google are not afraid to point what's going on. It's important that we protect these social tools.