why taking Egypt offline backfired

This article explains why. It both angered some indifferent people, and also forced people onto the streets to get their news. Notice that even Libya restored net access after a few days of protests. Pulling the plug doesn’t seem to work.

“‘Frankly, I didn’t participate in Jan. 25 protests, but the Web sites’ blockade and communications blackout on Jan. 28 was one of the main reasons I, and many others, were pushed to the streets,’ wrote Ramez Mohamed, a 26-year-old computer science graduate who works in telecommunications.

‘It was the first time for me to feel digitally disabled,” he wrote. ‘Imagine sitting at your home, having no single connection with the outer world. I took the decision, “this is nonsense, we are not sheep in their herd,” I went down and joined the protests.’

For Mr. Mohamed, as for Mr. Gabr, it was like going back in time. ‘During the five days of the Internet blackout, I was at Tahrir Square for almost every day,’ he recalled, referring to the hive of the Cairo protests. ‘Tell you what, I didn’t miss Twitter, I can confidently say that Tahrir was a street Twitter.'”