The government in Egypt is cutting off communications networks, including mobile phones and the Internet.
The decision to get out and protest is a strategic one. It’s privately costly and it pays off only if there is a critical mass of others who make the same commitment. It can be very costly if that critical mass doesn’t materialize.
Communications networks affect coordination. Before committing yourself you can talk to others, check Facebook and Twitter, and try to gauge the momentum of the protest. These media aggregate private information about the rewards to a protest but its important to remember that this cuts two ways.
If it looks underwhelming you stay home, go to work, etc. And therefore so does everybody who gets similar information as you. All of you benefit from avoiding protesting when the protest is likely to be unsuccessful. What’s more, in these cases even the regime benefits from enabling private communication, because the protest loses steam.
Now consider the strategic situation when you lines of communication are cut and you are acting in ignorance of the will of others. The first observation is that in these cases when the protest would have fizzled, without advance knowledge of this many people will go out and protest. Many are worse off, including the regime.
The second observation is that even in those cases when protest coordination would have been amplified by private communication, shutting down communication may nevertheless have the same effect, perhaps even a stronger one. There are two reasons for this. First, the regime’s decision to shut down communications networks is an informed one. They wouldn’t bother taking such a costly and face-losing move if they didn’t think that a protest was a real threat. The inference therefore, when you are in your home and you can’t call your friends and the internet is shut down is that the protest has a real chance of being effective. The signal you get from this act by the regime substitutes for the positive signal you would have gotten had they not acted.
The other reason is that this signal is public. Everyone knows that everyone knows … that the internet has shut down. Instead of relying on the noisy private signal that you get from talking to your friends, now you know that everybody is seeing exactly the same thing and are emboldened in exactly the same way.
It’s as if the regime has done the information aggregation for you and packaged it into a nice fat public signal. This removes a lot of the coordination uncertainty and strengthens your resolve to protest.
Addendum: Tyler has some related observations.
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January 28, 2011 at 12:41 pm
did bad weather cause a revolution? « pop bytes
[…] “Everyone knows that everyone knows … that the internet has shut down. Instead of relying on the noisy private signal that you get from talking to your friends, now you know that everybody is seeing exactly the same thing and are emboldened in exactly the same way.” — jeff ely […]
January 28, 2011 at 12:46 pm
On the Communications Shutdown in Egypt | The Moderate Voice
[…] Editor in International.Jan 28th, 2011 Jeff Ely on possible unintended consequences from Egypt cutting off communications networks: The decision to get out and protest is a strategic one. It’s privately costly and it pays […]
January 28, 2011 at 12:51 pm
egypt afire | What's that you said?
[…] not the only one remarking on this angle of the Egyptian protests. Here’s a good one: Cutting Off Communications in Egypt — including the very interesting observation that cutting off the internet itself was a […]
January 28, 2011 at 5:14 pm
How Egypt did (and how your government could) shut down the Internet Published on 01-28-2011 Email To Friend Print VersionBy Iljitsch van Beijnum | Last updated about an hour ago How hard is it, exactly, to kill the Internet? Egypt seems to have been able
[…] the mushroom cloud may give protesters hope that their efforts are not in vain. As one blogger writes: “It’s as if the regime has done the information aggregation for you and packaged it […]
January 28, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Wesley
Really interesting take on the situation in Egypt. As someone interested in game theory, it’s fascinating to see how this unfolds. I think the President is definitely trying to signal his commitment to not backing down by taking such drastic (and costly) measures. It’s like watching a game of chicken unfold, as each side acts more and more boldly hoping that the other will back down.
That said, I think you’re dead on when you say the shutting down of communication has only strengthened the citizens’ resolve to protest.
January 28, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Egypt Goes Offline « A Moral Outrage
[…] social networks influence protests. Jeff Ely, an economics professor at Northwestern University, writes: “Communications networks affect coordination. Before committing yourself you can talk to […]
January 28, 2011 at 9:49 pm
How Egypt did (and your government could) shut down the Internet « Gyrovague's Raves
[…] the mushroom cloud may give protesters hope that their efforts are not in vain. As one blogger writes: "It’s as if the regime has done the information aggregation for you and packaged it […]
January 29, 2011 at 9:26 am
twicker
This is a great post.
I think you’re dead-on about the effect of communications shut-off. Best analysis I’ve seen, by far. Thanks. 🙂
January 29, 2011 at 7:04 pm
The Truth Or The Fight » Blog Archive » How Egypt did (and your government could) shut down the Internet
[…] the mushroom cloud may give protesters hope that their efforts are not in vain. As one blogger writes: “It’s as if the regime has done the information aggregation for you and packaged it […]
January 29, 2011 at 7:57 pm
How Egypt did (and your government could) shut down the Internet
[…] the mushroom cloud may give protesters hope that their efforts are not in vain. As one blogger writes: "It's as if the regime has done the information aggregation for you and packaged it into a […]
January 29, 2011 at 8:22 pm
John Lyons
Without communication the protesters have trouble organizing, and the world has trouble finding out about any retaliation against the protesters. But as the article points out, it sends a signal that the protesters are dealing with a desperate government. Perhaps if the United States didn’t back dictators for oil, the world would be better off.
January 29, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Anonymous
i recall a paper by chwe on this
January 30, 2011 at 10:28 am
Egypt’s Internet still offline, a day later « AndFed.com – Breaking News | Latest News | Current News
[…] social networks influence protests. Jeff Ely, an economics professor at Northwestern University, writes: “Communications networks affect coordination. Before committing yourself you can talk to […]
January 30, 2011 at 3:33 pm
James
I agree in the case that the government may fear a protest that is yet to occur that a crack down on communications may have had the counterproductive effect described. But, given events in Tunisia and that the pro-democracy protests had been going on for several days in Egypt, cutting off communications, under a disagreeable set of preferences, make sense.
Prior to clamping down on communications it was already public knowledge that others are protesting and the pro-democracy protests are a threat to the government. Hence, a public announcement to the population that others are protesting and the government is embattled is at this point a negligible cost.
The cutting off of communications networks serves much better to stop the demonstrations/actions of the population from being well directed and purposeful rather than just being a mob. Moreover, it stops them from being able to organize legal defenses and communicate with those in the outside world who may argue/fight their case. Finally, given that they want to change the regime to a democratic one it stops them from being able to discuss the aims of the protests. This can be truly crippling as if there are angry voices and no agreed set of demands then it is easy to claim that you have given people what they want. I believe that while Jeff’s analysis is insightful in a general sense that it is these three reasons that are at the core of the media clamp down.
January 30, 2011 at 4:18 pm
twicker
Interesting comments, James. From my vantage point, if those were the reasons Mubarak’s government used to cut off communication, then they failed (pretty much in the way Jeff outlined).
“The cutting off of communications networks serves much better to stop the demonstrations/actions of the population from being well directed and purposeful rather than just being a mob.”
True, as far as it goes. However, the protesters have been able to regroup and become directed and purposeful overall, and the less-directed elements, while more powerful than they might otherwise have been, have caused far more problems than anything a well-directed protest might have (at least at this point). Note that those *with* communication – namely, the interior ministry forces – have been pulled off the streets, and the military has taken over instead.
Let’s put the mob-potential of your theory with Jeff’s discussion of how the cutoff in communications would make people more likely to come out of their houses; at that point, you’d be more likely to see more looting and pure rioting, more deaths, and a wider dispersal of elements (meaning you can’t negotiate with one, or a few, people; you have to negotiate with large numbers of loosely-organized people). Bingo – we have exactly this.
> “Moreover, it stops them from being able to organize legal defenses
> and communicate with those in the outside world who may argue/
> fight their case.”
I disagree. Welcome to the Age of the Satellite Phone. Reaching people outside the country still happens, whether a government likes it or not (a friend of mine is still able to get news from her relatives in the country).
Further, cutting off communications is, frankly, an act of some desperation, and a movement’s allies outside the country will (rightly) perceive it as such. It means that they now feel pressure to truly commit to the cause. If everything was just happening on a TV, in a controlled manner, those outside could afford to sit and see what happens (and whether their involvement would help). Now, they *know* the situation is critical – so they become more likely to help. Score one for Jeff.
> “Finally, given that they want to change the regime to a democratic one
> it stops them from being able to discuss the aims of the protests. This
> can be truly crippling as if there are angry voices and no agreed set of
> demands then it is easy to claim that you have given people what
> they want.”
So, if I understand the above sentence, you’re saying:
Protesters want X
Protesters cannot discuss X because of no communication; thus, Protesters cannot agree to what “X” means.
Since there’s no agreement on the meaning of “X” among the protesters, Government can do Y and claim that “Y = X”
Again, the problem here is that, because of that lack of communication, there’s no one person that you would be able to negotiate with who can then say, “Yes, Y = X (or is at least close enough to X to suffice).” In this specific case, Mubarak is now negotiating with the protesters, with ElBaradei (who is as close to that “one person” as you get), with the military, and with all the players in the outside world. He’s gone from having a potentially smallish (in comparison) coordination problem (working with ElBaradei and the military) to an enormous one, since the various parts of the outside world (people in other Arab countries, governments around the world, etc.) can now pick and choose their own interpretations of “X” and decide for themselves whether or not “Y = X.” This, in turn, means that all of those allies, recently pressured into action by the obvious severity of the situation, as seen in the lack of communication, can push their own specific agendas.
Here’s hoping that ElBaradei will be able to unfracture the protesters/revolution. Otherwise, I think we’re looking at the disorderly downfall of Mubarak (IMHO, made more forceful and disorderly by the communication cutoff) with no systematic transfer of power. Then again, maybe the military will be able to hold things together during the transition; we can only hope …
January 30, 2011 at 7:31 pm
Lones Smith
Somehow, Moses led his people out of Egypt with no Facebook or Twitter… but I observe that “Let my people go” is under 140 characters….
January 30, 2011 at 9:10 pm
twicker
Lones for the WIN …
January 31, 2011 at 6:07 pm
MMP
I second that. Lones is all sorts of Win.
January 31, 2011 at 11:33 am
How Egypt did (and your government could) shut down the Internet « THE INTERNET POST
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January 31, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Twitter Killed the Radio War « A Spoonful of Win
[…] – their role as a mechanism to signal interest and participation seems overplayed to me. Cheeptalk has an interesting post on this, albeit predicated on the assumption that signalling participation […]
June 15, 2011 at 7:57 pm
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