Was Mubarak killed by Facebook?

I would not go as far suggesting that because 'Facebook' and 'Twitter' graffiti appeared around Tahrir Square and terms like "Facebook Revolution" and "Egypt 2.0" were adopted by the Egyptian youth should debunk anti-social media claims. But I have to stress this: perceptions shape reality. Egyptians believed social media was important, that it inadvertently governed their activities on the ground. All of a sudden, post-Mubarak, a spring of Facebook based political groups have sprung up all vying for a role in shaping Egypt's future.

A Norwegian professor once told me that to measure a country's mood, listen to their jokes. Egypt has no shortage of jokes, but the one that has made the most rounds is this: Mubarak dies and meets with former Egyptian presidents Nasser and Sadat. They asked him: "How did the Egyptians kill you?" By poison, like Nasser?, By gun, like Sadat?'. Mubarak said, 'no, they killed me by Facebook.'"

In some respects, I cannot blame the critical elements. The Doubting Thomases of scholarship have written a vast amount of academic literature on the Middle East and revolutions. Then comes the Wael Ghonims' and "kids" who threaten to overturn their paradigms.

The Arab uprisings have jolted the political science and Middle East departments of universities. In one stroke, a swath of books and journal articles on the Arab world became obsolete overnight. To further undermine their standings, many academics are on record for stating that Egypt will not go down the same path as Tunisia following the ousting of its dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on 15 January 2011. They all rehearsed it from the same script: Egypt does not have a large middle class like Tunisia, Egypt is highly illiterate, Mubarak has a complex and entrenched security apparatus. Yet they never factored that things look quite different from the streets of Tunis, Cairo and Alexandria.

The subtext of this piece raises the question; would the same intensity of the uprisings have happened in Tunisia and Egypt in the absence of social media? It is too early to tell.