Egypt and the Internet

[darkmane]

So, I've been hearing reporters say that "The Internet didn't cause this."

And obviously they are right, the cause was 30 years of Mubarak failing to actually look out for his people.

Now their example is wrong, they keep pointing to the days when the government cut off the internet and how people still turned out for protests.

I see two possible analogies for the the internet in this case:

1. Internet as catalyst: The internet was necessary for the revolution to start, the presence of the internet allowed non-violent revolution to start be reducing the amount of energy needed to organize and get people in the same place. Then a self-sustaining reaction continues whether or not the catalyst is present.
2. Internet as electrical system on a diesel: Again the internet starts the process and allows the everything to organize, then when it stops working things can continue for a bit but eventually die.

Neither of these analogies are perfect but I strongly believe that were there no internet to put together a framework for communication then there might have been 5-10 protests all over Cairo and none of them big enough to be self sustaining. I don't know whether it would have been enough to over through Mubarak.