From AP News. Interesting observation on how lack of online information encouraged Egyptian protesters to meet face to face:
"The government of Hosni Mubarak tried to stop protests in January 2011 by switching off the Internet. The shutdown halted businesses, banking operations and - at the height of the demonstrations - the ability of the protest leaders to organize and communicate with one another.
During the five days that the Internet was out, anti-Mubarak activists had to rely on help from abroad to spread their news and update Web pages. The outage harmed protesters' ability to organize or to counter government propaganda that portrayed them as agents of foreign powers, said Ahmed Saleh, who was in charge of managing the Facebook page that was credited with mobilizing thousands of Egyptians to take to the streets.
With the shutdown, the protests swelled as people unable to follow minute-by-minute what was going on took to the streets.
"No Internet meant that more people went down and realized that this was for real. The protests grew, and so did the anger against the government domestically and internationally," Saleh said."
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