I don't think so.

Calling it "{arbitrary brand} revolution", when pretty much every messaging platform is indistinguishable feels crass and tacky. The brand isn't the one in the trenches making the sacrifices.

It could be called a smart phone revolution instead. A revolution of the people.

It was reported that Telegram was the only thing that somewhat kept working when the internet was down country wide.

Also, I installed Telegram for the explicit purpose of following the events in Belarus directly from sources. By doing that I noticed that apparently the local press in my country have done the same, as it seemed that most of the updates in online media have come from the same Telegram channels. So, it has also served the role of information dissemination beyond the borders of Belarus at a time when journalists working there were harassed and sometimes imprisoned.

Uhhh how did it work when the internet went down ?

Yeah, no idea really. It'd be nice to find out from someone more in the know. Was the internet merely heavily deteriorated instead of shut down completely?

I also read that most of the VPNs wouldn't work, with the exception of psiphon.

They didn't fully shut down the internet the entire time. I.e. at least for a while, apparently port 80 was still open when other things were blocked.

I believe the Telegram app has a peer-to-peer feature that allows communication to be routed through other devices rather than requiring communication with the Telegram servers

That is not the case. It is a plain old client-server architecture.

You might be thinking of FireChat.

Nobody sees "Telegram revolution" and thinks the revolution was all about or solely enabled by the brand/technology. It's just a unique aspect of the revolution used to identify it. A good example of how a brand/technology was used to name (but not describe) an event over 30 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War

Telegram has some distinct features that makes it quite good during protests:

- location based chats, you see people around and can start a local group. So you can easily get in contact with other protestors around you.

- Broadcasting channels

- Not by default, but you can creat encrypted chats, with auto destruction

- Since a few days, encrypted video calls

- Not owned by Facebook

>- Not owned by Facebook

"nine out of ten Egyptians and Tunisians responded to a poll that they used Facebook to organise protests and spread awareness" [1]

"During the Arab Spring the number of users of social networks, especially Facebook, rose dramatically in most Arab countries, particularly in those where political uprising took place, with the exception of Libya, which at the time had low Internet access preventing people from doing so" [1]

As far as I'm aware Facebook is actually owned by Facebook.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_the_Arab_Spri...

I don’t get your point. Telegram is not owned by Facebook. A potential alternative, WhatsApp, is owned by Facebook. That’s the point I was going for.

And you have a huge difference between Facebook 2010 and 2020.

Facebook 2020 isn't the same as Facebook 2010. Their public image has changed a lot in between.

> Their public image has changed a lot in between.

Keyword "public". It is the same useful for protests as it was then.

However they have only gotten worse over time. It's just now that they're willing to block some far right/far left groups trying to fraudulently dump info in the form of ads and memes on Facebook.

Given the relationship the current US administration has with Russia, it seems like Facebook would be a less welcome alternative for a pro-democracy Belarusian protestor.

> Since a few days, encrypted video calls

Careful though, since video calls are currently in alpha.

Except that isn't the case.

Reportedly, Telegram has kept working when other apps did not.

That makes it a "telegram revolution".

In defense of the journalist, it's a direct quote from a protester who is presumably in the trenches making the sacrifices.

Well telegram is what they're using, do you suggest that the name of the app be left out of the article? The statements are coming from excited & anxious activists. Of course they're going to be overstated. I hope they are successful in their peaceful coupe and get honest elections. Can't you just have hope for them as well?

>But it can be a crucial tool that changes everything.

this is the exact same narrative that took place when the Arab Spring happened. What determines the success of revolutions isn't what makes the news media, it's what happens on day 1 after the revolution is over and the cameras are turned off

You're not disagreeing with OP's point that this is "tech propaganda at its best."

Same logic would apply if, say, a camera company had tried to brand Selma.