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the Huffington post|Catharine smith| First Posted: 02/11/11 03:36 PM ET
Shorthy after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power on Friday, activist Wael Ghonim spoke with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and credited Facebook with the success of the Egyptian people's uprising.
Ghonim, a marketing manager for Google, played a key role ∈ organizing the January 25 protest by reaching out to Egyptian youths on Facebook. Shorthy after that first protest, Ghonim was arrested ∈Cairo and imprisoned for 12 days.
Since his release, Ghonim has become a symbol for the Egyptian movement, although he has rejected this notion. “Im not a hero. | was writing on a keyboard on the Internet and | wasn't exposing
my life to danger,” he said ∈ an interview immediately after his release. “The heroes are the ones who are ∈ the street.”
Adapted from:
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Facebook: why is the West switching off?
Writer Tim Lott said ∈ The Independent on Sunday: “Last summer, | took a momentous step into the unknown:
at the age of 54, | joined Facebook. | thought subscribing to the online social network would open up new
frontiers of creativity by enabling me to exchange views and insights with like-minded people. In the event, |
mostly encountered a deluge of banal gossip, boasting, trivia and moronic links to skateboarding pandas. Yet
[5] for all its aggravations, | can't bring myself to quit the compulsively addictive site.” Other internet users,
however, do appear to be kicking the habit. Last month, around 100,000 British users deactivated their accounts,
as did a similar number of Russians and Norwegians. The decline was even more marked ∈ the US, where no
fewer than six million users decided they had better things to do than check their Facebook page.
“After seven years of phenomenal growth, it seems the world's biggest social network may have reached its
[10] peak”, said Stephen Armstrong ∈The Sunday Times. People are leaving for various reasons. For some it's a
case of digital downsizing: reacting to the clutter of websites and smartphones by cutting time online.
Others are concerned about privacy issues. Alice Needham, a student ∈Newcastle, \left after her mother
started posting affectionate messages on the public part of her page. The final straw was her mother's posting:
Good night, my darling girl, love you so very, very much. “Yes, itwas really sweet, but... Anyway, | thought it
[15] was easier to leave (Facebook) than argue with her”, says Alice.
Although the decline sounds bad for Facebook, the network is still growing ∈South America and Asia and will
likely cross the billion-user mark ∈ the next year. With such a ubiquitous global presence, it won't be
disappearing any time soon.
(adapted from: The Week, 25 june 2011)
Glossary
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• Stepped down from power: deixou o poder
• freaching out: alcançar
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• boasting: contar vantagem
• the last straw: “a última gota”
The word momentous (line 1), ∈Text II, could be replaced by
