released, he was greeted as a hero. a heroic face of the revolution. someone who had done so much for it. that revolution has become of enormous historic significance for the world, holding out hope to people all over the world that they too can find freedom and deso we are honoredmo today that your here with us. thank you very much for joining us. [applause] he is here in part because he has authored a new book, which i commend to you. this is the early release, but there is a textbook out. the power of the people is greater than the people in power, a memoir. you should know there will be a

book signing and the chance to greet him personally at the charles hotel just before 5:15. we are on a fairly tight schedule here. you love a chance to come over and get a book. i am told the first 100 people to arrive will be entitled to a free book. everyone thereafter, you are on your own. i have had the pleasure of having some hours in the past couple of days reading this book and i commend it to you. and i think for those of us that are interested and concerned about public leadership and how one leads in the world, it's a really instructive tale. and now -- exactly. let's turn to the start of the show. i look like for you to tell us

about your life. so people have a sense of context of who you are and where you came from, you tell that tail and long formed in the book but can you tell it to us in short form now? >> first of all, i am happy to be here. it is very hard to be in the u.s. today well what is going on in egypt. i feel very torn. i am following the news as it happens in egypt but i hope i am contributing by being among you for what we aspire for the new egypt. basically for reason why our wrote this book is to answer many of the questions that put me as a leader or hero or the one who sparked the revolution, because i do not think all of this is right. and i am an ordinary person. i happen to use some tools which i think are in the hands

of everyone of us and can make use of the tools. i learned through the experience, which is i wanted to share those warnings with everyone -- learnings with everyone, and wanted to tell people this was no match of thing that made egypt recalled. egypt revolted because there was a regime that was basically are pressing all of the people, not because of the facebook page or individual calling for people to go in the street. i was born in egypt, live there for 15 years, and then came back to cairo. i finished my school, studied computer engineering, and did my eight m.b.a. at american university in cairo. i tried to work for google six

times. >> but shorter than i expected. when you came back from saudi arabia and went on to cairo university, you found commuter -- computer engineering. you had already started a web site when you are 18 or so. >> as a lot of people like to call me, i am a geek. and i love computers more than anything else. and the first time i logged onto the internet, i thought this is heaven on earth. i got addicted to it. the first thing that came to my mind was i want to do something useful and practical. i'm a muslim, and new people did not have access to an educational view and video stuff, and the internet was still new.

so i started uploading audios on the web site but no one would ever known until it was released because that is when the current owners of the web site told people while i was in the present. i learned a lot from this experience. i was working anonymously. and i was working with different people from around the world. but help me develop my skills on wind. -- online. i built a friendship one of the guys who hired me in his startup company. it was an e-mail company. in i made agreements with people i have never met. the consistent thing was i am

always part of the virtual world. it is a nice world. and sometimes for people like me it was better than the real world. >> i am unclear when you came to the united states. you had been communicating with the number of people including young women, on the internet. i>> [laughter] i would not agree with what he said. i wanted to get married. it was very hard to get married and an early age in egypt. i was 18. the website i started not to get married, i started for converts of in slumslam to meet. i found a lady there that we

kept chugging. when i travel to the u.s., one of my friends happen to know her, and we just got married. and to go the whole thing happen very quickly. unbelievable. and you never thought you were going to meet this girl when you went to the united states. you have no idea. >> it was just by chance. that is one of the reasons why it made me keep on happening. we've been married for 10 years now. >> with two children? a lot of issues along the way. >> she is used to it. she had converted by then. >> she converted before? >> yes. >> pure book was quite interesting about how important the mba was and repairing for

life in egypt. >> but as advertising with harvard. [laughter] >> we compete with the school across the river. you said you learned the marketing was really quite interesting about that. and to go the marketing was critical -- >> the marketing was critical. you can apply and see the feedback instantaneously. it is not like the typical market cycle for you have to see the impact. it added a lot of things to the skills i was developing over time. i never thought at that time

when i was studying that i would use the skills i have acquired which we talk about on the page, that would make a bit of a difference compared to the typical relationship between the activists were those who are active and the political or human rights area. that is the mainstream who is listening to us and you want them to relate. and > i want to come back to that. it is interesting the part of your success and why it worked. you came out of the university of cairo in 2005 or so? >> yes. to go only seven years ago? >> yes. -- >> only seven years ago? >> you had a couple of internet jobs, but you really wanted to

work for google. you kept applying, and then you got in. >> i was obsessed with google because of the fact i believe -- i always believed the internet could help change the world. i know this sounds very cliche or does not make sense to a lot of people, but that is just how i see things. working for google, working for a company that does mass scale projects online in our region would make a difference. i remember the typical, why do you want to work for google? it was really the thing is what i liked about google, democracy and of offering people information. probably people living here do not understand the value that we all have equal access to information. in a pressing regimes come out most of the people would only get streams of propaganda

flowing into their brain, and this is how the regime could sustain. making this mar one scared and not willing to change, and the rest of the people who might not be fortunate enough to access other sources of information, would get pulled into the propaganda machine. i believe the internet was one of the forces helping in changing the equation. >> is that an advertisement for google? >> yes. google does not need advertising. >> i do not think is but those of this point either. -- do not think facebook needs one of those either. >> when you started working for google, you move to cairo, but

then they ask you to relocate to the bike. take a 2010. >> 2012. >>010. >> the fat that point you did not see yourself as an activist? to go i am an ordinary person. and you have your limits. you can crack jokes about mubarak, but you are not calling for a process or publicly going against it. this is one of the reasons why ai took a lot of credit and the revolution that should not have happened. from that time there were brave people and the first line of basically going against mubarak while most of us on the mainstream side were watching. we sympathize with them, but do not think they're doing the

right thing, because there is basically no hope, and you are putting yourself in danger. i think that was the mentality of many egyptians. at the time until things were getting worse, we were not seeing light at the end of the tunnel. egyptians created facebook pages and we want him as a president. to under 50,000 joined the page of the time. it became very active. reachin-- 250,000 joined the page at the time. this is how i got addicted to politics. >> if you would come if your cellphone is on, would you please turn it off.

apparently it is interfering with the sound for others. as this unfolded, use of a growing interest. then the incident of the young man who was killed in alexandria. >>tell us about that. that got you deeply engaged. >> the whole process of the change campaign was a very slow. there was one problem, which was change was personal. despite the fact that -- >> he was looked upon as a savior? >> yes. despite the fact that he says continuously to people i am not your savior. egyptian people have to save themselves. but because of the media -- is always the media that creates strong perceptions.

they were around him, and it was easy for the regime to attack. it was easy for them to say he was a traitor. he was the reason for the war in a rock and someone that works with israel and has a global agenda to cut egypt's in pieces and all of this propaganda stuff, and people were buying that. despite the fact that no one, if you talk to everyone in the street, they will say no, i do not think this is the way to go. i got very emotional. i got really frustrated seeing this is basically the regime. no one is held accountable for their crimes. and they keep getting more cruel and brutal, and no one is stopping them. and i thought i should use my talents and exposing the human

rights violation of the minister of interior affairs, hoping to buy the exposure they will create public anger, and by having this done, they would be more kosher. they would change some of their rules and conditions. the worst thing you do to a dictator is expose him to the largest number of people. you counter the propaganda they are doing on everyone. it was anonymous. i started the page anonymously because of two things. one is i wanted to see my kids and keep going. definitely former personal security. the other thing is because change should not be personalized. and they do not question the intentions. i might be doing this to take credit and put myself in a position that is using their

effort. and the second because once the idea is the leader come everyone subscribes -- subscribes to it. this is the biggest thing i personally noticed. everyone was owning it as a their the ones that called for it. it everyone asked everyone on the 14th of january, let's go to the street probably would not have succeeded. and the first day, 36,000 people joined. >> on the facebook page? >> yes. by the third day i had reached 100,000. i started thinking i need someone to help. i got one of the guys who was helping me. i said, do you want to be an ad man on this page? that guy and never met in my life until after the revolution.

we begin to add minced managing the page until the revolution. and-- two admins managing the page until the revolution. and through this i applied what i've learned at school or previous experiences. the most important one is in gauges them is more foreign than activism. -- engaism. at the end of the day a lot of people want to have some belief in start isolating themselves from the mainstream, which should not happen. what you should do is to the mainstream to adopt a belief. the first thing is it did not feel like the page was run by the admins. most of the time projects or ideas come from the members.

we used -- we did continuous service to ask people what they want to do. it was non-confrontational. i know is that the government. all of that has helped with people making the connection with the page. it was one of us speaking the language and speaking the same feelings we have. people were very excited whenever we make the decisions-- it was one of us talking our language and having the same feelings we have. when we made decisions, should we go do this on the stand or not? and people participate in the surveys. based on the results of the survey, we decided on going and so on. it kept going for months. >> there were other pages that had been developed, at least one other page in memory of this young man, but they were much more confrontational. you decided you did not want to

be confrontational. >> there was a page that was created two days before i experienced the page. the page was very famous. my name is khalid sahid. the profile page is we are not going to leave you, you dogs of the regime. they were very confrontational. they had a 60,000 more members. they kept going, and they were very confrontational and so on. and i remember, one time we were doing solid stands, which was an idea by one of the members of the page, let's go to the street, take it back to the streets wearing black and not doing anything for one hour. which, to many people, that was very silly.

the regime does not care about people protesting in front of the ministry of affairs. they care about those who would do a non-confrontational approach. to me, and to the non- confrontational approach, that was one of our ways to express our anger. and the regime does not like this because this can attract more mainstream people. which is a very dangerous thing. dictators want their opponents to seem like extremists. they want to isolate them from being able to reach out to the masses. so back again, i talked to the guy, one of the admins, and i told him -- can you give me the statistics of your page? and it turns out that people participated in our page almost double the participation they have on their page, despite the fact that they had 60,000 more members. i wondered why. you think why.

and we started a conversation where i told them that your approach is the reason. people do not feel connected with what you are saying. if they do not like we are saying. you are very aggressive, very confrontational, and people want -- are prone to be as they wanted it to be. >> so you say in your book gandhi had been an important influence in thinking about this approach. >> i admire gandhi for his approach. the more i read about him, the more i read about what he has done, the more i think he is ultimately right. probably that is not the right approach for many people. that is not going to work. i had some of these arguments with some of the revolutionaries who are more aggressive and on the line than me. i relate more to gandhi.

we were cutting parts of the movie and applauding it to the page. i remember one time people were very angry because of the police reaction and i got the scene when he is was in south africa, telling people, they can kill my body, they can kill me, but one thing will not get out of me as my obedience and respect for myself. i do not know if he said exactly that. off but that was the main message we wanted to give. we were going to get all of our rights by being non-violent, by not responding to their violence, by showing them they are ugly for what they are doing and we are civilized. >> as you know, martin luther king famous it was a student of gandhi. but your approach to the facebook page itself was interesting.

you said in terms of marketing this engagism. >> i'm joking about it. >> bob putnam would like that. we talk about civic engagement. you have four steps that you wanted people that came to the facebook page to go through. talk about that. >> it was like a sales channel to me. at the end of the day, you are convincing people adopting codes. that is the whole thing. it starts with people liking the page and becoming active and liking, commenting. and getting active in online campaigns and finally going to the streets and on confrontational forms. the online campaigns, the first one i launched was meant to be -- we asked people to take

footage of themselves holding up signs of khalid sahid. the reason why it was very important to tell the audience of the page. they are egyptians. my name is ahmed, i am 25 years old. people started to make the connection that people -- this page has people like me. and i am one of them. taking to the streets was not really planned as anything until this guy came up with the idea of the silent stand, which was not confrontational. i have to also say that now i am analyzing what i have done. in fact everything that was happening was happening spontaneously and reacted like without massive planning. it is easy now to analyze and say this is the case.

but that was not in my mind while i was doing what i was doing. >> what about your personal conversion and becoming an activist. you wrote in the book, when you saw the response to the facebook page starting to grow that you had this nice phrase. the stirrings of a rare opportunity to make a difference. that is how you express your own sense of making this commitment. making this the center of your life. >> to get into your life without meaning to do it. one reason is because the fact the internet is very -- the feedback is very innocent and spontaneous. feed back instantly. that was one of the reasons why a lot of people were contributing. they right away see the credit for the good things they have done. once they are below the photograph of themselves doing this, they see hundreds of

others look at them and say, i want to do the same. even the revolution, even the sacrifice for my country came as in the events everything that was happening around us made it happen. and i think a lot of the egyptians, before the 14, they would never have thought, they are ready to go to the street and die for a code. after the 14, everything shifted. >> let me ask you one last question, then we will ask those of you that would like to participate. there is one microphone here, and one there and one there. if you want to ask a question, start lining up now, that would be terrific off. i am going to go ahead. i wanted to ask you another question. we have a member of the faculty here who is a social organizer and dates all with that to the

cesar chavez in this country. and president obama asked him to help organize some of his campaign. and he raised the question with me yesterday, with the internet, if you look at what has happened since the revolution and the elections, the people came out to demonstrate are still disappointed, there is some concern -- we read in our press -- that the islamic brotherhood has done far better in the election process than the people on the streets have done. and marshall's question is, is the internet very good at mobilizing people but not so good organizing people? so you have a formal, party- type of structure. i am curious what you think about that. there is a big argument in this country about the place of the

internet and social change. >> i think the internet is good at doing both. it was only a few months before the election took place. and a lot of us as an activist who are busy with many other things other than just the elections because there are a lot of issues happening in the country, and none have effectively used -- i have not seen anyone effectively using the internet to organize activities. you can definitely manage campaigns on line and make something happen out of it. if there is one thing, i am personally not disappointed. i am not disappointed from the election results. and i think, i am talking about myself not on behalf of everyone else. i took to the streets because i think that the egyptians have been denied the right to choose whom they want the governing them for 60 years.

i did not take to the streets to say that x or y or z is the right guy. i believe that egypt is far better with not having a leader and the revolution that might have taken over and started doing his version of democracy once again. it is better to have the people choose whom they want and a few years, if they do not reform, if they do not solve the problems were most of the people were on the street, many economically, i probably do not have any problem, but most of the people on the streets did have a lot of economic problems. if those are not solved, they will be out of it. as far as there is democracy as far as our, we know exactly that our job is to make sure that egypt becomes an democratic. and no one is hijacking it. and not going to let anyone

join. i'm personally find, and i believe this is one of the most important goals of the revolution. if a muslim brother wins, if any other wins, i am fine. >> that is a very helpful. the tradition here, as most of you know, is that this is a chance for questions. there is one question per customer. if you would -- >> 1.99. >> and please remember that each question ends with a question mark. >> hi. it is an honor to share or remedy after seeing you from afar. a question, a provincial

question about the role of america in all of this. it is interesting that you work for one american level, you are paid on the platform of another american company. there seems to be a continued relevance for what this country does. at another level, you and many others criticize the u.s. crop and up the old regime for as long as it did not supporting the democratic aspirations that you talked about. and now in this country there is so much worry about declined. do we still have a role in your part of the world and others? what you think is a special relevance, if at all, of the united states today? >> wonderfully expressed question. >> i saw you on twitter, by the way. one thing i want to say is, one of the reasons i wrote the book is i am exposed to a certain

side of the story. there is no leader in this revolution, so the wisdom and knowledge about what exactly happened, what led to it, could be argued by many people. so the fact that everyone should get and move it from behind the scenes to in front of anyone and then we have analysts who look at different things. if you ask me, i think what made this revolution succeed was the egyptian people. it was nothing to do with the u.s. at the end of the day, the u.s. is a country that wants to serve its own interests. we have a historical multiple historical transactions where we have seen that even if those interests have the values of the american people, so there is nothing for me, as someone who uses logic to believe that the u.s. has pushed the revolution or has supported the revolution. i think the u.s. has taken sides after the fact that it was clearly going to happen.

and i remember hillary clinton saying that on the 27th, saying the government is stable. our friends and the great hosni mubarak. that was the first part. i do not think that the u.s. had anything to do -- they took sides at the end of the day and it was betting on the winning horse. sorry. also, i think there has been a lot of credit given to me and given to the page. i want to say the same thing again. the revolution would have happened anyway. this is a fact of life. people were not happy. strikes among different workers. people were just missing the trigger, and the trigger was tunisia. it did not have anything to do with the u.s. or facebook. looking at how technology has

helped, i think this is pretty much away from -- i would not give the u.s. the credit for having facebook. people use tools. i know i sound very bad try to get the u.s. out of the picture, because i saw a lot of credit taking happening in some of the western newspapers about the role the u.s. played in the revolution. what do i want the u.s. to do to support the country? i want them to do nothing. i want them to stay neutral. if the interests of the egyptian people does go against -- the country, which i highly respect -- they are basically going to take the side of the american people. egyptians are capable of going through this, learning from everyone else and getting help as much as they can when it comes to the economy and so on.

but we are very sensitive to interference. in fact, every time the u.s. foreign policy has interfered in egypt it's taken in the opposite way. people do not like it. do not appreciate the fact that the u.s. is telling us what is to be done. there are lots of areas where there should be help, and i believe the economy is one of them. and making sure that egypt is going to be an ally of the u.s. in a new forum of mutual respect. i assume the rest is angry. sorry. >> charles cogan. can you decipher from a this is terrible football tragedy. how did this happen? was a spontaneous because most of the casualties' are among of the fans of the al-ali team. was this a spontaneous event? and did the police stand back?

did the port sahid team have orders to attack the cairo team? >> so, does everyone know what happened? so, basically, i do not like judging intentions or getting into conspiracies, but what i can see clearly is that the police have done a very bad job, whether intentionally or unintentionally, a very bad job that resulted in for the first time, by the way, this number of people died in a soccer match in egypt. and there has been a lot of rumors where people are saying they are paying the price of

being -- the ultra -- before that they never gambled and politics and state security was always on them because they're very organized. they can do a lot of process to remove and so on. i think what happened was horrible, and whether it was intentional or unintentional, it is a crime. the problem since january 25 all of these incidents happened. nobody is held, at the end of the day, they established these fact-finding committees, and at the end of the day, no one from the parties pay the political price. somebody has to be politically accountable for the death of all of those people. and this is what frustrates people and creates another wave of process that we have seen in the past couple of days. people do not want to process or die or nothing. i had one of my friends

yesterday lost his left eye. shot in his face. and he's been hospitalized now. i think the situation is very critical. what is the most important thing now is to think how can we get out of this, not how this happened or why it happened. and the past, according to as many people, want to end military rule as soon as possible, three elections. most of the people said yes to the president. we end this vicious circle of violence that is happening right now. >> what would you do if you were there not? >> i would have been protesting today, and the movement, which i belong to, created a political lobbying group. we are calling the parliament to speed up the process of elections. the elections should start as soon as february. we have a president by april.

the road map is that egypt would have a president by the end of june. >> please. >> i'm an undergraduate at the college. i was wondering if you could talk about what challenges egypt faces as it transitions and if it can sustain the buildup of civil society we have seen? >> so, the biggest challenge as far as i see is the economy. egypt, 1 out of 2 people live under $2 a day. a lot of people are saying that we are heading towards a poverty revolution where the poor people are going to go in the streets and start calling for real change. and that would have been a completely different style that what we have seen on january 25. the economy is a big problem. it will require all of the egyptians to unite and work

together. and this is why, when we created our political movement, we had people from different groups and ideology is all together because we believe that egypt is not going to go forward with egypt versus egypt mentality. i am islamist, you are a secular guy. we have to argue about ideology as well someone is lying down on the floor because he cannot afford going to the hospital to get his broken leg fixed. so, economy is very critical. and going to the transition of democracy has been obviously a pain. it is not easy. this country is recovering from 60 years of military rule. it will be very hard, we will see a lot of challenges in the next few years. i think technology can play a role in spreading the awareness and getting more people in power, the movement have -- we have created. now we are building a system

where we can organize or work together and make sure that everyone is quite well informed. the activities happen. we announce them online and so on. as well as an education, there is a huge space that technology can play. that is seen egypt to recover from the military rule, which will not happen before they leave the politics and go back to their main job which is protecting the country. >> jed schwartz. i see, i was wondering if you see also a grave danger that the revolution will be betrayed by the military. you will be unable to overcome the rationale for the military rule. i'm sort of encouraged by your progress so far, but wondering whether it would be good for some of you to begin to study

political philosophy which seems kind of like a non sequitur. and i apologize. remember that -- >> i agree. >> you agree? john locke, voltaire, and david hume. these guys who critiqued the power of theocracy. it seems to me, if you can build on those kinds of ideas that you might be able to overcome the drag of fundamentalist beliefs, which i believe are retarding the economic and social development. and if you could give me your email, i would be very appreciative. [laughter] maybe now or later. >> now would be very hard. i have seen a lot of discussions about the future of egypt and being very worried about

islamists ruling the country. i could be wrong. i do not have a problem admitting that. if you look at the history of egypt in the past, a couple of hundred years, egypt was colonized by the french people and hardly any egyptian speak french. well, if you look at other nations that were colonized by the french, probably they speak more french than error back off. the british people colonized egypt and also most of our people speak broken english as you can tell. and the shia, one religious example, they came to egypt to build the largest institute that spread their belief across our world and ended up with the largest in the organization. i pretty much do not believe in the fact that you can import change on people. if that happens in egypt where

the society is a very maine, a very moderate and mainstream, that will go completely the opposite way. and the second, i know about the media possibly being wrong. but i have been in meetings, and private meetings with the different parties in control they have the majority. i think there have been a lot of misconceptions. they are dragged into discussions. we need to put aside the preconceived a believe about them and put them in the will stage. we want you to perform more, to solve the economy. this is what the taxi driver who voted for the muslim brotherhood that won. he wants them to fix the problems of the country, not to tell them how to worship god. >> good. we only have time for a couple of more. >> hello. i'm with the economics department here. i was thinking about

specifically egypt's youth, and the transition people that may be more interested in politics. i was hearing about your own personal story and the facebook page. personally, today, one of my acquaintances in egypt was active in protests. do you think there is a certain path in terms of what would be most constructive, such as the youth lobbying to oversee the democratic process or the youth participating in running for office or none of these options? and what you think is the biggest challenges for making that actually be realized? >> i think that is one of our biggest challenges at the moment.

how to institutionalize of those who take to the streets, those brave people who are ready to die, facing tanks and sacrificing their lives, how can we move that from this to political participation? we have not done good efforts so far. unfortunately, most of the parties have put mostly senior people as candidates. so very few young guys have managed to run for parliament and won. there is a 27-year-old and the parliament. he is the youngest guy ever in the history of the egyptian parliament. there is a 30-year-old and so on. what i am personally hoping to do and to see is to get people more involved in the lobbying groups and eventually, also

getting people running for office. we have local community elections taking place in a few months. basically, this is for the people that served the small districts. this is more of a job that young people should get in. whether they would be able to win or not, we have to do some pressure on the parties, to make sure that they support the youngsters. they are the future of the country and they are the ones that showed they are not happy and they can flip things around. >> please. >> thank you. i'm a graduate of the college. i know you are an optimist about egypt's future, but other countries are looking towards egypt to see what will happen, especially with opposition movements in other countries. the tragic events unfolding over the last few months have given pause to a lot of these groups. now people say, maybe there is a fallacy that things can never

get any worse off. there is a dictator, but we are putting food on the table. if you're not involved in politics, so this idea that things cannot it any worse. maybe they can. in which case, maybe we should say, it is ok. settled for the status quo. you're saying that with large segments in countries that are ruled by probably more brutal dictators. i am curious about your views on kind of the role egypt historically has had towards arab countries in terms of leading? >> i am not an optimist by choice. i want to see the good side of the story. and i know there is a very bad side to it. i read, and i see how can you look at this negative side? i just believe that being frustrated will not bring us forward. being frustrated will not be good for the people. people want to see hope and they do not want to see

frustration. that is why i am an optimist. do i see the challenges egypt is going through? i definitely see them. and i see that it is not easy at all. sometimes i get frustrated and really worry about the country and its future. but i try to keep myself on the optimistic side. egypt is definitely a role model for a lot of the arab world countries. if anyone thinks that the next few years are going to be amazing and great and everything is going in the right direction, probably they are because after all, when you have cancer and you go through chemotherapy, a lot of bad things happen to you but eventually you get there and you get better. by the way, that was one of the problems of the revolution was the high expectations that were given to the people. if mubarak is out, everything is good.

part of our political naivete is that we thought that. i had thought we would get a better situation. now as we are learning, it is much more complicated. for those young guys that would say, yes, your in a bad situation. it could get worse when the results. eventually, the future will be much better come off because of generation after yours is going to enjoy the democracy and those who are ruling you will be accountable for everything they are doing. >> last question. >> one funny thing. i was praying right after if the 14th of january that nothing bad happened in tunisia. i remember the newspapers were disturbing all the stories about this, people brought the bank's in tunisia. because the regime wanted to tell people, it will get worse

if we do like them. >> last question. >> hi. i'm teaching here at the center on politics and i run a personal democracy forum. well, you're an egyptian. i am american, but we are both netizens of the undemocratic republic of facebook. in your case, you both used facebook in some amazing ways, but at a critical moment your facebook page was shut down arbitrarily. it was a crisis. luckily for you, you were able to scramble with some help others to get it turned back on. but my question is, should activist trust this book, and watch should we netizens ask of facebook to make them safer places for the kind of work that you do?

>> the page was shut because i was managing it from an anonymous account. a fake account. and facebook has a policy that basically, you cannot use facebook with fake identities. when people reported the page right before the egyptian parliamentary elections, there were a huge number of government activists reporting the page. facebook looked and it said, that the administrator is fake. close. they closed it. as you mentioned, we got it back. >> people had to put their names on. >> there is an egyptian-american lady. she offered help and she said, listen, i can put my name on the page. i don't mind. so it was -- the ownership of the page was transferred to her, the page got recovered.

there have been interesting debates about the fake identities and the real identities or the decision that facebook takes to -- they think it's the right one. i believe as, what did you say netizens? you can always pressure these companies. at the end of the day, it is a company. you have no control over it. you should not collect its president who runs it. only the shareholders have the right to say. you either do pressure on them for the changes are seeking, or abide to the regulations and deal with what you have. i do not personally trust any tool. i trust the people behind the tool.

if facebook decides no politics on facebook or it shuts down everything, we will find another tool. i was using a survey tool throughout the entire page experience that had hundreds of thousands of votes. i discovered on the night of february 10, that it was a small company run by two people from their apartment in the u.s. so people will always find the tools that will make them work in the way they want. and companies like facebook, as they become big, it becomes -- it is a huge responsibility on them and their actions. our job is to make our voice loud and clear for whatever we do not agree with. >> fair enough. a lot of people are curious about this. you packed a lot into 32 years. you are very young. where did you go from here? >> to the book signing. [laughter] [applause]

i have to say, i'm happy -- on february 8, when i was released, when i saw all the events taking place, i wrote that we will win because we do not understand politics, because a we are naive. we are dreaming. to many people, the dreams are impossible. to us, this a dream will happen or we will sacrifice our life for it. what exactly will i do? i do not know. i do not think i should know because things have been changing completely. i am very spontaneous. a lot of the stuff that happens on the page happens because someone writes a comment and i react. i know from many established people, this is something very bad. and we will talk forever about the strategizing and looking at putting a long-term plan and

having a vision. i learned all of that and that is cool. [laughter] but, for me, all i am going to do my best. i love my country. most of the time. i love my country. i will do most of what i can do for its people. the moment i see most of the egyptians proud, and we systematically solve the problem of poverty in this country then probably i will come to harvard for an mba. >> your view will always be welcome at the kennedy school. i got this note -- actually it is the first 150. i had not appreciated the two co-sponsors. they purchased 150 books. and they will be there for the first 150 people that come through.

>> all the proceeds of this book, i am not getting anything. i think it is unfair that people died and i become a millionaire off the book. all the proceeds are going to egypt and ngo's and the families of martyrs. >> wael ghonim, i think you can tell from the response of this audience tonight, how much we appreciate your humility, but we also very, very much appreciate what you have done and how you have championed and how much you love -- freedom and democracy in the world. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> coming up today on c-span, in a moment washington"jou"washington journal." at 2:00, live road to the white house coverage from phoenix at an event with republican presidential candidate rick sort -- rick santorum. the american enterprise institute hosts two discussions on c-span2. at 1:30 legal scholars discussed the constitutionality of president obama is recess appointment. in 45 minutes we will take a look of the upcoming primaries in arizona and michigan. our guest is charles heard. in an hour and a half, sunil lyengar.