4.8 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
In Egypt, a ragtag group of young activists uses social media to spark a revolution and remove a dictator from power. They credit Facebook with the fall of the regime… until the platform is turned against them.
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0:00.0 | This is long lead. |
0:05.3 | We're supposed to learn from our own mistakes that other people's errors can be instructive too. |
0:10.9 | From efforts to control the weather that went disastrously awry, |
0:14.8 | to the untimely death of the Segway boss, |
0:17.4 | history is a treasure trobe of mishaps and meltdowns that can teach us all. I'm Tim |
0:22.7 | Harford, host of Cautionary Tales, the podcast that minds the greatest fiascos of the past for |
0:29.2 | their most valuable lessons. Listen to Cautionary Tales wherever you get your podcasts. |
0:40.6 | I... wherever you get your podcasts. I truly admired the courage and idealism of these kids, of these activists. |
0:49.5 | I was so inspired by their bravery and their vision for their country, but I never thought |
0:55.0 | they would topple the government, that they would change the world. |
1:00.6 | And then they did. |
1:06.2 | In the summer of 2008, journalist David Woolman traveled to Egypt to report a story about a group of activists known as the April 6 youth movement. |
1:19.2 | These young people had just started making international headlines for using Facebook. |
1:24.3 | But unlike everyone else at that time, they weren't using it to post wedding photos or |
1:29.2 | plan a barbecue. They were using it to organize and rebel against the oppressive regime |
1:34.9 | of Hosti Mubarak, Egypt's president. |
1:41.4 | We made a plan that I would shadow them during an attempted protest gathering on the beach in Alexandria. |
1:49.0 | So we gathered on the beach, it was sweltering. |
1:53.0 | The group wanted to hand out some pamphlets. |
1:56.0 | They wanted to fly a kite painted like the Egyptian flag. |
2:00.0 | And they wanted to get people talking about democracy |
2:03.1 | and corruption and human rights. |
... |
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