Not a Twitter revolution but social tools surely helped

Another fascinating Al-Jazeera feature on Empire about the role of the internet in the Arab uprisings:

Carl Bernstein, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist; Amy Goodman, the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!; Professor Emily Bell, the director of digital journalism at Columbia University; Evgeny Morozov, the author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom; Professor Clay Shirky, the author of Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.

Apart from the fact that it would have been important to have somebody with a deep connection to the Middle East, the ideas under discussion include the consistent failure of the mainstream media to normally give voice to the activists and non-state players in repressive regimes. Being too close to power happens in the US and beyond:

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