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By George Albert Gladney Posted Feb 1 2010

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As I flew to tiny Communist Moldova to lecture on freedom of speech and press, I found it odd that Moldova was home of the so-called “Twitter Revolution,” heralded as the defining moment of the Twittersphere. Like many people, I had presumed that Moldova, Europe’s poorest country, was fairly low-tech and that Twitterers weren’t that numerous.

When I got to Chisinau, the nation’s capital, about a month after the “revolution” there—two days of youthful pro-democracy protests that turned violent following national elections that appeared to ensure the Communists another four years in power—I quickly learned that Moldova is not particularly low-tech, at least in terms of cyberspace technology. It took me longer to figure out that during the April 6-7 demonstrations, there were, in fact, not that many Twitter users, perhaps a few hundred. Twitter’s role, while important, was exaggerated; the role of Facebook and SMS (text messaging) was underplayed.

Much worldwide press coverage reported that in a matter of hours, thanks largely to Twitter, 10,000-15,000 mostly young people congregated at the city’s main square, situated between Parliament and the presidential building. Many Western news outlets (e.g., BBC News, Radio Free Europe) referred to “Twitter Revolution” in their headlines. The Telegraph’s headline (London) proclaimed “Students use Twitter to storm presidency in Moldova. As proof of Twitter’s involvement, some reports mentioned the Twitter hashtag “#pman” (letters standing for the name of the square) that was used in tweets to spread the message and create a “flash mob.”

The protests began peacefully April 6 with protesters holding candles (for what organizers hoped would be “the revolution of the candles,” akin to the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia). Placards carried slogans such as “Down with Communism!” “We want freedom” and “We are against falsification.” The latter went to the heart of the protest—suspicion that the election was rigged, leaving the Communists with a bogus razor-thin victory.
On the second day, however, the situation got out of hand as some protesters ransacked the government buildings, breaking windows, torching furniture, wrecking office equipment, overturning and igniting vehicles, and marring façade with graffiti. When the smoke and tear gas cleared, independent investigations (Council of Europe) reported at least one death, suspicion of three missing persons, more than 300 arrests, 190 policemen injured (87 hospitalized), 105 protesters sent to ER (24 hospitalized) and beatings of scores of protesters during detention.

Some reports specifically credited two youth movements, Hyde Park and ThinkMoldova, for instigating the call to the square. Natalie Morar, a journalist and a leader of ThinkMoldova, reportedly said in her blog at the time: “six people, 10 minutes for brainstorming and decision-making, several hours of disseminating information through networks, Facebook, blogs, SMSs and emails.”

Journalism students and other Moldovans I talked to or corresponded with suggested that Morar’s description was accurate, noting there were few Twitter users at the time of the riots, perhaps a few hundred. While the micro-blogging network got early word out during and immediately after the protests, the other platforms Morar listed spread the word exponentially.

Especially important was the impact of Facebook for English speakers and the popular Russian-language network odnoklassniki.ru. The claim of Twitter’s relative insignificance in Moldova, compared with the much larger Facebook, is supported by statistics showing that in early 2009 there were 250 million active Facebook users worldwide compared with nearly 10 million Twitter users. Further, I found that almost all students at the Center for Independent Journalism, the site of one of my lectures, are on Facebook, but only one on Twitter.
My guess is that “Twitter Revolution,” a name first suggested by an on-the-spot observer, caught on because it’s catchy and fit the needs of headline writers. It has more appeal than the “Facebook Revolution” or “SMS Revolution” or something similarly dull, though perhaps less accuracy.

The Twitter Revolution-as-myth suggestion was raised by Daniel Bennett, a doctoral student researching the impact of blogging and new media on BBC’s coverage of war, in a blog post the day after the riots. He noted that a number of commentators suggested the riots were the start of a Twitter revolution, and that Twitter played “a key role in organizing the protests.” Bennett wrote that he wasn’t convinced and wanted to see some evidence. Not many of the commentators or reporters “have bothered to find some tweets that might hint at some kind of organizational role for Twitter,” he observed.

The myth interpretation is accepted by some Moldovans, though reluctantly. Petru Culeac, a political analyst in Moldova, asserted that the real key was SMS, which he said is the most popular and accessible—and often credible—channel of written communication in Moldova. He pointed out that during the April protests mobile phones were not getting any signal in the main square. The only way to communicate was by SMS after finding a spot with some mobile coverage at the square’s periphery.

Asked if the Twitter Revolution was an inaccurate handle, Culeac stated candidly: “It’s been advertised so much as being ‘first invented in Moldova’ that now I feel bad to have to dismantle this myth. The truth is that the number of Twitter users is quite insignificant in Moldova.” He said one reason for that is the high cost of mobile devices that have web access functionality, such that most tweets are sent from stationary computers. Where Twitter had a huge impact, he said, was with the “spillover effect”—information from tweets spilling over to the much larger social networks.”

Cucleac concluded, “I am very skeptical in calling the 7th of April events a Twitter revolution, or, for that matter, a revolution at all.” His point: The April mayhem didn’t really change anything. However, the protests, and the government’s harsh crackdown on protesters and suppression of the news media and means of electronic communication, set the stage for a comeback by pro-democracy opposition forces in a new election July 29. That election was necessary since April when the Communists came one vote shy of the three-fifths majority in Parliament required to select a new president.

The July vote gave the pro-Western opposition parties a tenuous victory, collectively winning more seats than the Communists (53 vs. 48) but, again, not enough seats to select a president. (As of this writing, the opposition has formed a “European integration” coalition that faces the task of reaching accommodation with enough Communists to assemble a three-fifths majority.)

All of this likely means that real pro-democracy change will come if and when the opposition parties are able to select a president who will advance a pro-Western democratic agenda.

But even with that, Moldova’s problems will be far from over. The country is plagued by severe divisions—generational, ideological, ethnic, linguistic, religious and geographic.

Wedged between Ukraine and Romania, near the Black Sea, Moldova (about the size of the U.S. state of Maryland) is searching for identity after a long history of subjugation by nearby powers (czarist Russia, then the old Romanian kingdom, then the Soviet Union). Younger people in urban areas, especially Chisinau, aspire to Western ways and free-market enterprise, and many seek restoration of historical ties with EU-member Romania, the Republic of Moldova’s largest economic partner. At least two-thirds of Moldovans are ethnically and linguistically Romanian, and Romanian has replaced Russian as the state language. Christmas for Romanians is Dec. 25, and for Russian Orthodox, Jan. 7.

About a quarter of the country’s people, mostly in the east and rural areas, speak Russian and align with Russia. They favor the Communist government’s one-time promise of a union with Russia and Belarus, longing to regain economic security enjoyed in Soviet times.

Amid all these tensions, the young people I consulted were deeply concerned about the government’s efforts to muzzle free speech and press during and after the April riots. Moldovan officials threatened and harassed journalists, arresting and releasing a few (mostly Romanian TV crews), expelled some Romanian journalists and blocked entry to others, including some Western correspondents, blocked portions of the Internet and mobile communication and interfered with some TV signals. After a time, the government resorted mostly to intimidation, notably pressuring advertisers to pull ads from the troublesome Jurnal de Chisinau and its Internet-based TV operation, and putting in limbo auctions for certain broadcast frequencies.

Cyberspace technology has allowed young Moldovans to circumvent or at least frustrate these sorts of government efforts. The technology also contributed to the opposition’s seeming victory July 29.

Marina Vatav, a student who attended my lecture at the Center for Independent Journalism, said the Internet “played an important role in mobilizing people in the last election process.” She said she saw messages on Facebook calling people to vote for the opposition candidates. “I think people were a lot more passionate and emotional about this particular election because of what happened after the previous one. I saw online messages like ‘Send for free 20 SMS a day to people you know. Tell them to vote for freedom.’”

She added, “I think our government didn’t understand yet that we live in the Era of Information and they won’t be able to hide or suppress the information flow for long.”