Interviews with Mahmoud Salem

In 2007, when Facebook got introduced– or 2000– and 2006, 2007, once Facebook started being open for everybody, you know, that´s when we started realizing that Facebook is much better at, you know, coordinating events and organizing stuff. So the blogs lost that function. And then, once Twitter showed up, you know it became– we first started to find out who out of our friends was getting arrested. Because, at that time, Twitter was– we didn´t have smart phones, the Wi-Fi was not really that rampant. So you had to use Instant Message to Tweet. And yeah, the good old days. And now you know, we realized that this is a fantastic way to let people know what´s happening and when it happens.

And it´s a good way to let people know if you´re getting arrested. And that´s when kind of the blogs lost their lackluster for like, you know went lackluster for a few years. But now, they are very useful again. Because, as much as you can use Facebook to organize things, and as much as you can use Twitter to let people know what´s happening instantly or provide them, you know, with your latest brain fart or whatever and even– even express your opinion– people need analysis; people need content.

That´s why blogs are necessary again. Because where else are you going to get analysis? So it´s interesting, because being in the game for six years, a lot of people consider you like a veteran activist. Which is impossible for me to comprehend. I meet lots of activists who are like 20 and 22 and whatever, and they are like new, and, you know, and they look at you as the experienced veteran. It´s very strange to think that I have spent, what, six years of my life now, seven years almost, you know, being an activist. Blogs are basically a place to go and find new content and new information, new fun things and answers. It was a fantastic way to also meet people. Because you didn´t have social networks, and, you know, everybody thought they were like screaming in the wilderness, you know, on their website. And, you know, more and more people started coming out.

They´re like, “Hey, you know, someone thinks like me. We should be friends.” And stuff like that. So it was a good, you know, thing, socially, I guess. It made people find each other. But 2007, that was the end of it. That was– that´s when we moved towards the 200,000 blogs in Egypt category. And that´s when you just could not– not know who was where doing what. But that´s mainly like how our Egyptian blogosphere started. After that, there were people who were mainly the Facebook people, who´d just write notes on Facebook. And Facebook made it a lot easier for people to get audiences. Because you know, let´s say, you start a blog and you want to get some traffic for it.

So you start sending out the links to your friends and harassing them in emails, and being like, “Read this. Read this. Read this.” And then, your friends have to open the email and not ignore you and then press on the link. And it opens another link. And then, they have to read. Facebook, on the other hand, just took that link and just put it up there and like you could read it on your wall. So you didn´t have to go anywhere; it´s all here, happy and safe, sound. So it made it a lot easier for people to actually get lots of exposure on others.

Mahmoud Salem is a blogger, activist, writer and a business development consultant. His blog is the most prominent English-language Egyptian blog, entitled: “Rantings of a Sandmonkey” it won the best Middle East and Africa blog awards in 2006 and 2007, and Best English Blog in the Deutsche Welle Best of Blogs award in 2011 and has over 6 million unique views and his Twitter account has over 87,000 followers. His human rights activism areas have been in freedom of speech, human rights, religious rights, and women’s’ rights.

In 2005, he started the first anti-terrorism demonstration in Cairo, and participated in monitoring the Egyptian parliamentary and presidential elections.

In 2006, he was the principal organizer of the first Egyptian anti-sexual harassment demonstration and marsh after the Eid sexual harassment incidents. Incensed by Police torturing Egyptian people on videos and sparing them, he and friends collected the videos, posted them online and pushed for a public persecution of the police officers who committed those acts, leading to the unprecedented convictions of two police officers.

In 2007, he was a stage speaker at the Atlas Foundation’s 25th anniversary conference, head of the new media panel in the Qatar Foundation democracy conference and started the Tafkir project, an Arabic language blogging website to facilitate and promote ideas and online dialogue.

In 2008, he was an organizer and a team leader of 8 Egyptian bloggers for the “Egypt blogs America” project, which monitored the US elections and created a documentary film about it.

In 2009, he was picked for the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow conference and the US Islamic Forum conference, and started the IRIS social campaign company.

In 2011, he was one of the leading voices of the January 25 revolution that brought down Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, ran for Egyptian Parliament, started the Tweetback initiative which developed two impoverished communities in Egypt with a population over 700,000 and raised millions of pounds for social entrepreneurship projects. He also initiated the “Egyptian Bill of Rights Project,” which was later on sponsored by Mohamed El Baradei.

He co-authored two books – “Tweets from Tahrir” and “18 Days” and founded “7etan,” the first Graffiti School in Egypt. His writings have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Guardian and various online websites.