“We use Facebook to schedule posts, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.”

These are the words of a protester who participated in the Arab Spring movement, the mass movement that led to the removal of Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak and the advent of democracy. The mass movement, which took place in the year 2011, was part of a series of such revolutions in more than ten countries in the Middle East and African sub-continent. Three countries rulers -those of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, have been overthrown as a result.

The Egyptian revolution, alone saw the assembly of 200000 Egyptians at the Tahrir Square, as a mark of protest. How did the convergence of such a huge number of people take place? The answer is the tweet quoted in the beginning of this blog post. Social media was the tool that channelized mass anger into a phenomenal mass event.

Arab Spring is not the only example of a social revolution getting materialized with the help of social media channels. In late 2014, when Hong Kong faced the prospect of losing its democracy, the citizens responded with protest movements which were largely convened with the help of social media websites. Closer back home, when India saw a mounting number of corruption incidents, a group of noteworthy individuals under the team name, India Against Corruption, ideated a bill countering corruption. The year was 2011. What followed was an year long series of peace protests and demonstrations everywhere in India. Social media platforms were major tools that facilitated the meetings and demonstrations of thousands of citizens who were hungry for change, hungry for a better India. Another incident that saw the use of social media for a mass revolution was in December 2012, when the 23 year old, Nirbhaya was gang raped in New Delhi, the capital of India, a huge number of citizens convened at the peace protests in the capital. Facebook proved to be a major aid that enabled citizens to organize the mass campaign on the grounds of India Gate. The social media platform also facilitated the online movement by the name of black dot of shame, which had millions of Facebookers change their profile picture to a black dot, something which stood as a symbol of shame and protest. Within days of the event and the consequent social media campaigns, the government rose to action with steps that could curb to some extent, crimes against women.

These are just a few examples which saw people uniting against injustice and patriarchy through social media platforms. As we see a more connected world, events that unite humanity for the greater good will keep rising in number.