April 16 2008

Twitter Saves Man From Egyptian Justice

Michael Arrington

63 comments »

Twitter. Don’t leave home without it.

I don’t know if this is as good for Twitter as the Charlie Rose incident was for Apple, but it’s close. UC Berkeley graduate journalism student James Karl Buck was arrested on April 10 without any charges in Egypt for photographing a demonstration.

He used his mobile phone to twitter the message “Arrested” to his 48 followers, who contacted UC Berkeley, the US Embassy and a number of press organizations on his behalf.

The next day Buck twittered ” Alive and ok. Still in jail,” but was released not too long afterwards. He’s still worried about his friend, Mohammed Salah Ahmed Maree, who was arrested with him and remains in jail. Buck says he is on a hunger strike until his friend is free.

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Twitter

Website:	twitter.com
Location:	San Francisco, California, United States
Founded:	March 1, 2006
Funding:	$5.4M

Founded in March of 2006, Twitter is social networking and micro-blogging site that allows users to post their latest updates. An update is limited by 140 characters and can be posted through three methods: web form, text message, or instant message…. Learn More

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TwitterMedia

April 16th, 2008 at 2:38 am

Wow… that’s powerful…
Greg

April 16th, 2008 at 2:41 am

You just have to love twitter!!
Shafqat

April 16th, 2008 at 2:41 am

You couldn’t pay to get better PR than this. I’m a believer.
cem dalgic

April 16th, 2008 at 2:42 am

superb pr for twitter
Scabr

April 16th, 2008 at 2:46 am

Great Twitter!
Honor Gunday

April 16th, 2008 at 2:47 am

Which PR company does Twitter use? Maybe you can write a post on “top web 2.0 PR news of all time”?
lisa coultrup

April 16th, 2008 at 2:49 am

this is a wonderful resolution , i hope we can learn how to make twitter a necessity in daily life.
EndPoverty2015

April 16th, 2008 at 2:58 am

Even, United Nations Millennium campaign is also on twitter.
http://twitter.com/endpoverty2015
Last year, 43.7 million people set a Guinness world record. Let’s cross 100 million this time. Follow me and be a part of the noble cause.
mayaintimates

April 16th, 2008 at 2:58 am

The role of press organizations and community is highly appreciable!
Rushabh Choksi

April 16th, 2008 at 3:03 am

Twitter is surely a killer application. And James surely knew how to use social media to save his life. I really get amazed by people who use social media in an innovative manner.
Nikhil Narayanan

April 16th, 2008 at 3:05 am

Thats great!
Hail Twitter!
Tre Martin

April 16th, 2008 at 3:09 am

Censor me if you want, but…..

Buck is a dunce. Do not go to countries with laws contrary to your own and look for Big Brother Tech to bail you out. And IF you do get bailed out, don’t go on a freakin’ hunger strike because your fellow co-conspirator is still locked up.

Too many people thinking the amazing rights that they enjoy in the US extend elsewhere. I wish they did, but when they don’t: do the crime and do the time!!!!

Tre
xoost.com

April 16th, 2008 at 3:13 am

is this story for real?
Craig Bohren

April 16th, 2008 at 3:16 am

Twitter still sucks
TwitterMedia

April 16th, 2008 at 3:18 am

@14 - yes (downtime frequent) but smaller time these days… :-p
Faramarz Hashemi

April 16th, 2008 at 3:20 am

Must be a fast typer! (that’s quite the feat if he did it while being arrested)
PyramidView

April 16th, 2008 at 3:26 am

Finally a good use for Twitter. As a foreigner, Mr. Buck was unlikely to be held for long but it is good that he was able to inform others of what happened. So many Egyptians are simply taken off the streets and it can take some time to find them. Perhaps we should use Twitter on May 4th.
Zoli Erdos

April 16th, 2008 at 3:28 am

Glad to see him released - and I’m not sure “justice” is the best choice of words in the title ….
113.com

April 16th, 2008 at 3:28 am

@16 - could program on phone a one-key activation to trigger an emgergency msg?
Roald Cyberath

April 16th, 2008 at 3:32 am

Granted, this is one good utile example use of Twitter.
Besides that, how many futile uses ?

disclaimer: I love Twitter, I just think that as a crowd we still haven’t the right skills or tools to sip what’s right from the firehose of twits that gushes in our face when we “follow” hundreds of people…
(I’m sure Michael agrees to some point: he seems to be following closely Twitter tools lately)
Siddharth

April 16th, 2008 at 3:38 am

I am glad that Twitter is good for something, I never used it but many my blogger friends just saying that it is to addictive and thats why they are leaving that.
Uhh

April 16th, 2008 at 3:57 am

Couldn’t have been that serious of an arrest if they let him keep his cell while he was being taken in and while he was in jail … This story = FAIL
wayne sutton

April 16th, 2008 at 4:11 am

Only with Twitter can something like this happen, but I don’t think that will work in the US, maybe or maybe not.

I”m @waynesutton on twitter and I support twitter justice
Chris C.

April 16th, 2008 at 4:37 am

Y’all, this story is absolutely real….I live in Cairo and watched the whole thing unfold since by chance I was following @JamesBuck on Twitter.

Cairo peeps like @NoraYounis & @3arabawy were tireless in getting the word out about James’ situation, which was no doubt a huge driver for getting him a lawyer, and getting him safe. Not only are real people out of harm’s way, but much attention is being drawn to the important issue of the Mahalla strike/demonstration in Egypt.

Twitter or no twitter….social media played an important role in helping real people in serious trouble. Regular Egyptian folks aided a U.S. citizen when his Embassy could/would not.
gregory

April 16th, 2008 at 5:21 am

i don’t believe it, if arrested his phone would have been taken immeidately
Jaan Kanellis

April 16th, 2008 at 5:50 am

Why did he have a phone in Jail?

Hunger strike?
Duane

April 16th, 2008 at 6:38 am

I’m with comments # 22 & 25. My immediate reaction when reading this was, ‘no way.’ Assuming there’s any truth to the story at all, he probably wasn’t formally arrested, but simply ‘detained.’
You all crack me up

April 16th, 2008 at 6:38 am

Great PR but Twitter is still worthless.

Let’s assume there are 500,000 Twitards who send on average 10 Tweets a day meaning there are 5,000,000 messages generated per day. If one of these actually produces something worthwhile, then how can we claim that Twitter is useful? 1 in 5,000,000 sounds like the odds of winning the California lottery.

Get over it. Twitter still sucks.
PyramidView

April 16th, 2008 at 7:05 am

@27 Duane, there is no such thing as “simply detained” here. In Egypt there is little difference between detained and arrested. It is common practice to be detained indefinitely by the police without being formally charged or processed. Often groups of people are placed in holding cells and held overnight, or longer, until the officers decide what to do with them. Yes, the police often do not take phones. Who would most people call? Egyptian police culture is one of violence. The police feel quite free to do whatever, and I do mean whatever, they want to a person. It is true that recently some policemen have been punished for brutality. However they were punished only because they were found out and identified.
Matt

April 16th, 2008 at 7:30 am

@#28 … get me some of those lotto tickets… your math is pretty bad. hehehe…

the odds of winning big-pot lotteries are in the billions to one…

Let’s run your same “logic” on the commenters here pro-twitter vs. anti-twitter…. looks like the odds of you not looking like a troll are about the same as winning the Nebraska Lottery.
Jim McNelis

April 16th, 2008 at 7:31 am

@28

You don’t get it. In all the “noise” there is a wealth of information. It’s almost like eaves-dropping in on a conversation you would never even have a chance of hearing if Twitter wasn’t there.
Ian Lamont

April 16th, 2008 at 7:50 am

Good for James, but substitute “mobile phone,” “email” or “IM” for Twitter and this story doesn’t seem that remarkable — except, perhaps, to Twitter’s PR boosters.
Marshall Kirkpatrick

April 16th, 2008 at 8:13 am

Ian, if you used Twitter much you’d know that the mix of synchronous/asynchronous communication, friends messaging/public broadcast and multiple media types through which to use the service all makes Twitter very different from phone, email and IM.
Shashi Bellamkonda

April 16th, 2008 at 8:20 am

Great story. I think the value for Twitter is that he could broadcast the message to all his followers. Maybe they would not have let him make a call. I know you can send group messages on SMS too but there its possible a totally unconnected stranger can also see the tweet and who knows act on it.

I am glad this story has a good ending and I hope his friend is out of prison too.

Shashi
Ian Lamont

April 16th, 2008 at 8:27 am

Marshall, Twitter is a network-based communications service. Just like IM. Or a cell phone. Or a blog. Yet when someone uses voice, an IM client or a blog to let people know that the cops are kicking down the door, it seldom makes the news.

What do you think would have happened if James had instead used one of those tools? Would you have cared, or written about it?
Merrell Ligons

April 16th, 2008 at 8:32 am

I think the real story here is the power of social networks.
Bill

April 16th, 2008 at 8:37 am

Could send an SMS message just as well. Twitter is still stupid.
Paul

April 16th, 2008 at 9:30 am

I don’t understand why he didn’t use an sms? Maybe he did everything (sms, call, email) and then just mentioned that Twitter was one of the methods he used. That got picked up on the informal gossip networks and has been used as a nice little PR tool.
Evan

April 16th, 2008 at 9:45 am

The value of Twitter, to me, seems to go up everyday when I see it used in ways I never thought possible. At first glance, it’s a seemingly self centered application: “Look at me!” But after using it for awhile, I am really starting to see it’s value and versatility.

Now, if I could only get people to follow me or care enough the next time I get arrested. (Has been never, and hopefully never will be either.)

http://evansnyder.com
Mackenzie

April 16th, 2008 at 9:58 am

@ 35:
Emailing from a phone…kinda hard. Calling 48 people on one call…not very possible. Texting 48 people at once…I’m pretty sure phones limit it to 10 people. Twitter gets all 48 and puts it on a publicly accessible webpage all in one go.
Eric

April 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am

Am I missing something? How many people are detained here in the US w/out charges? Oh that’s right, THOUSANDS. Who cares if some Berkeley trustafarian Twittered his way out of jail.
Uhh

April 16th, 2008 at 10:48 am

@29

So apparently the egyptian police force which hates amateur journalists from Berkeley taking demonstration pictures thought it was best to just arrest him & let him keep his phone & probably his camera as well. Obviously, according to you, the egyptian police have no idea how to deal with journalists.

Lets not be naive here …
The demonstration was more than likely illegal and without city permits & the police simply detained anyone who was in the vicinity taking part (or taking pictures). His expedited release was most probably the result of his American citizenship to avoid a foreign crisis than because of a mass text on twitter.
Sach

April 16th, 2008 at 10:49 am

Pure luck IMO

http://tinyurl.com/47xo3q
James Buck

April 16th, 2008 at 12:18 pm

update: egyptian consul in SF press secretary says Mohammed /was/ released.. he’s just not, uh, answering his phone?

http://jameskarlbuck.com/

http://twitter.com/jamesbuck
PyramidView

April 16th, 2008 at 1:59 pm

@42 Of course the demonstration was illegal. There is no right of assembly in Egypt. Mr. Burk was where he should not have been, doing something the government does not allow. The police scoop up anyone they can get and sort them out later. Certainly his American citizenship was the key to his release but Twitter led to attention. The one thing the police do not need is attention.
Ryan

April 16th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

Good thing he isn’t doing this “hunger strike” thing in France. He’d be thrown in jail! Oh… wait.

But in all seriousness, fight the good, non-violent fight, mon ami.
NGUYEN~

April 16th, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Helleo everyone!!! I’m a Vietnamese student and as a political refugee from my Communist homeland, I totally understand what’s like living in such a regime. The Communist Nationalist knew nothing of the outside world and everything in their eyes is all about their national and their party interest. FCK CHINESE COMMUNIST FCK VIETNAM COMMUNIST!!!!! BOYCOTT CHINA OLYMPIC IN EVERY YOU CAN!!!! and SUPPORT TIBET AND TAIWAN INDEPENDENCE!!!!!AND SUPPORT (VIETTAN.ORG) FOR DEMOCRACY IN VIETNAM!!! NO COMMUNIST AND NO TERRORIST!!!!!DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALIST RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NGUYEN~

April 16th, 2008 at 7:07 pm

AND FCK ALL YOU TRAITOR WHO LIVE IN DEMOCRACY, BUT SUPPORT Authoritarianism !!!!!!
NGUYEN~

April 16th, 2008 at 7:09 pm

Sorry about the bad word guys, but I got to used the worse of word to voice againt them