side Egypt. Correspondingly, “egypt”
alone trends on January 27, while
“egypt,” “egyptians,” and “cairo” ac-
counted for most of the traffic during
the government-imposed Internet
blackout. On January 29, Mubarak
fired his cabinet and installed Omar
Suleiman as vice president, coincid-
ing with a peak in the number of
tweets on the topics of “egypt” and
“cairo” and a peak in sentiment on
“egyptians.” Immediately afterward,
the sentiment value for most topics
decreased, possibly due to decreased
interest outside Egypt or the realiza-
tion that Mubarak would not willingly
step aside as president. The Egyptian
government ended its blockade of
Internet traffic February 2, coincid-
ing with a significant spike in num-
ber of tweets and negative sentiment
on the topic of Tahrir. While most
Egypt-related topics stopped trending
February 4, termed by the protesters
the “Day of Departure,” the protests
continued until Mubarak’s eventual
resignation February 11. 1 Meanwhile,