By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-02-08 18:03:20 | Word Count: 664
The voices of Egyptian protestors will still be heard around the world thanks to a group of genius engineers at Google. You may be aware that last week Google acquired SayNow, a startup in the telephony space where, according to SayNow’s co-founder, “Through the web, smartphones, and even land lines, our products will bring communities together through the power of voice.” A week later, and the service is doing exactly that.
On Monday, after working diligently over the past three days, Google introduced this service which allows callers to tweet simply by calling one of three international numbers ( 16504194196 or 390662207294 or 97316199855) to leave a voicemail. The service will then instantly tweet what is said in the voicemail and adds the hashtag #egypt to the tweet. SayNow has aided in completely eliminating the necessity for internet connection as a way to communicate through the social network. “We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there,” states Ujjwal Singh, co-founder of SayNow. People can also listen to the messages left on SayNow be dialing in on the international numbers or by visiting twitter.com/speak2tweet.
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I recently afforded myself the opportunity to listen in on the voicemails left by many of the Egyptians suffering during the protest and I am completely at a loss of words. What is to be said of the terror and pain in some voices only countered by the hope in others? Many of these voicemails are left in Arabic (which I do not understand) but I do have a great understanding for tone, passion and emotion. It is apparent and unmasked. I found that some messages seemed to be left in secret as they were whispered into the lines. Many of these citizens feel unsafe, they whisper because there is no hope for privacy. They feel these whispers will go undetected in a civilization where everything is under control by censorship and surveillance. It is disheartening. If you can bear it, take a listen.
I champion this loophole. I offer great thanks to Google, Twitter and SayNow on behalf of myself, the citizens of Egypt and others that empathize greatly. This diligent work at allowing connectivity in a place that is chaotic and at the very least, disconnected, is proof that social networking is not just for the idle, the opportunist and the fun seekers. This medium potentially saves lives through respect of voice and consideration of the human spirit. If never I have seen a purpose of this magnitude in social networks before, it is clear and apparent now.
It is unclear if this service will remain in place in the future as it was implemented to help the Egyptians express amidst the protest. In the meantime, we smile at this triumph (however small in the grand scheme of things). We take necessary steps and hope that little by little, through use of technology and beyond, we can advance far beyond silence, oppression and the unjust.
