It took a revolution to turn Twitter into a household name in a country where a little less than half the nation lives below the poverty line — set by the World Bank at $2 per day — and where internet is only utilized by the educated middle class with penetration rates that hover around the 24 per cent margin.

The international press has probably given Twitter too much credit for fueling activism among the youth, perhaps because #Jan25 is one of the most popular hashtags in Twitter’s five years of existence. But exaggeration or not, nothing can negate that the social network, where users are limited to 140 characters per message, was a powerful tool that enabled youth to communicate with the world.

Just like it did during anti-government demonstrations in Iran, Twitter — and possibly with a strong push from Facebook — proved during the Egyptian revolt that brevity and a network of people can get the snowball rolling and make a cause grow.

Before the revolution, Twitter had around 100,000 subscribers from Egypt. Shortly after, the figure jumped to 1.1 million, according to rough estimates released by internet experts in Egypt. Compared to 80 million, that may not be a significant margin, but to Egyptian internet users’ count, the figure is significant and growing.

But what is it that makes Twitter so powerful that post-revolution policy makers from the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) to the prime minister have scurried to create accounts?

In a nutshell, prominent Twitter user Mariam Ayad says it “connects like-minded strangers together. The interaction is instantaneous.” And on Twitter, you can be as anonymous or open as you’d like to be, she adds. “Its power, especially in the Middle East, lies in its easy connectivity.”

“The new users who joined Twitter in Egypt following the revolution found that they can communicate directly with famous celebrities such as [movie star] Amr Waked and others who were replying directly to them,” says Mohamed El Tahtawy, another Tweeter, noting that new Twitter users discovered they could similarly communicate directly with and get responses from power brokers and politicians. “They found out that they can talk with the government and the Supreme Council of Armed Forces through Twitter directly and that the [authorities] will answer their requests plus they can send their objections directly — even with cursing — without any fear,” El Tahtawy continues. “People felt that Twitter is their freedom channel.”

Twitter is not just a sanctuary for those who want to express themselves or get to know their favorite pop star a little better. It is being increasingly used by activists, journalists and writers, even marketers and advertisers — in essence, it is proving to be one of the best ways to propagate a thought, an idea or a piece of news.

Ahmed Ragab, an investigative journalist for the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, is an incessant Twitter user, or tweeter, himself. He shares his views through the networks, but it’s also where he scours for contacts and sources, and gets in touch with hundreds of members of his generation simultaneously. “It helps activists find each other, left and right [wingers] are now facing off each other on Twitter, publicly,” says Ragab, who goes by the Twitter handle @Ahmed_Ragab. “In the past, we were used to not being listened to. We were merely receivers in this country. With the rise of bloggers, this has changed. And Twitter [is an evolution of this]. You don’t need to be super educated or a good writer to be on Twitter. And this makes it accessible for all.”

Ragab says this has turned Tweeters from people who “things are being done to” to actors. “Now, we can change public perception and opinions, and we have forced the mainstream media to listen to us and to engage with us, including the most conservative news outlets who would have otherwise ignored us. We have enforced our agenda. Some journalists now only use Twitter in getting hat-tips and tip-offs for their coverage. Twitter in itself has become perceived as a credible source.”

“The medium has turned people into activists and witnesses of events into civil journalists,” Ragab continues. “And the Wael Abbas experience has shown this.”

Abbas is one of the Twitter elite with over 43,000 followers. He has been blogging and tweeting for several years. Using both his Twitter account and his blog to spread the word, Abbas has blown the whistle on government corruption, police brutality and torture in detention facilities in addition to exposing rampant sexual harassment through videos taken on cell phones.

In this respect, the appeal of Twitter is that it puts a face on news. In Egypt, it has created a network of users who aggregate news, produce it and share it. Throw in a history where the mainstream media [TV and print] has been manipulated and abused by the powers that be, and it’s understandable why people trust those who seem to have nothing to gain — more or less — from tweeting news updates.

“On Twitter you mostly find rebels who are against the regime, bloggers who blog about it and, recently, news people who are seeking the on-the-spot news that the ‘social media’ gets out,” says Menna Fawzy, a housewife and another active Tweeter. “Its like a world of its own. Those with insights use it to spread their ideas, simple and clear. The ‘only 140 characters’ [restriction] forces you to be selective with your words in order to express the best [ideas] with less [words].”

Because of this simple mechanism, some users like El Tahtawy predict that “in terms of aggregation and sharing information, Twitter will be the number-one news channel in Egypt among youth for the next two or three years.”

Another Twitter feature is how easy you can tweet on the go. Smart phones have special applications, and if your phone is not so smart, you can always text-to-tweet by syncing your Twitter account with your phone, and voila, you can SMS your own twitter time line with updates.

“You can know and share information easily, especially on mobiles,” says El-Tahtawy. “I don’t have to have access to TV or a laptop all the time to get news. I just check the tweets on [my] mobile to know what’s going on so I miss nothing.”

“Tyranny of the Crowd”
But Twitter’s easy access and the trust that people have in its users can also be a pitfall — many skeptical observers are perturbed and worried about the culture of Twitter as it stands and how it’s evolving.

“Twitter’s great point of strength is also one of its defects,” says Fawzy, who is also a blogger. “It’s so isolated from the rest of our community.

When I log on, it feels you are in another country. Everybody is on the same wavelength. For example, while we continue to object on ‘military trials for civilians,’ people on Facebook cheer for the army for ‘catching the thugs.’ For them, the protesters who we consider heroes are thugs for disrupting the peace.”

“It is a little too polarized, and somehow we seem to be speaking to ourselves on Twitter,” agrees Zeyad Mourad, who works in corporate but immerses himself in the sociopolitical discussions on Twitter. “Quite often, it is way too divorced from reality.”

Fawzy believes that accessibility means that “misleading” and false news also leaks out — and why not? Then again, those who use it “are not trained journalists. They’re merely concerned citizens.”

This reporter had a Twitter exchange with Lawrence Pintak, founding dean of The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University and a veteran of more than 30 years in journalism. Pintak, who is closely following the evolution of citizen journalism, and online activism, said that “new media is a key activist tool,” but cautions “not everyone with a keyboard is a journalist. [Journalism] involves standards: fairness, balance and ethics.”

For this very reason, pundits are extremely worried. News is aggregated and spread on Twitter by faceless activists — yes, it does have its own filtering system where the most prominent Tweeters are those journalists and activists who have a strong presence offline. Still, “who’s watching the watchmen?” remains a key question.

In a Seattle Times oped, Pintak wrote about Twitter and whether it’s possible to separate “electronic rumor from reality” in light of its role in the Tunisian revolt. It was on January 21, ironically four days before the Egyptian revolution which utilized the same social networking tool.

“Like YouTube and blogs, Twitter is simply a tool — no different from a telephone or email account — that can be used by anyone: political activist, government provocateur or trained journalist,” wrote Pintak. “The images on YouTube can be compelling; some tweets and blogs give gritty insight from the streets. But not everyone with a cellphone can be believed. The more retweets, the higher a tweet moves in the “top tweet” hierarchy. That doesn’t make it fact, just the most popular rumor. The tyranny of the crowd.”

In the absence of guidelines for what makes “news” reliable on Twitter, the technology remains a raw pool of information — one where news seekers, and media people perhaps should step in cautiously.

“The luxury of freedom of speech also makes those who oppose each other on Twitter much more aggressive,” Fawzy adds, illustrating how it’s easier to be hostile or outspoken if your identity is shrouded in mystery — or if people can’t see your face.

There is no easy verdict. Twitter is there. Its own followers are out there too. And both will remain loud for a while. It seems that how people use it in these testing times is what makes all the difference.