Facebook vs. Mubarak

Absolutely fascinating:

[I]n Egypt, Facebook is the stage for the latest twist in the generation gap, playing host to politically hungry young Egyptians eager to take on their aging leader.

On May 4, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak turns 80. To mark the big day for the man who has ruled them for 26 years, Egyptians who have known no other leader and who are increasingly going online to challenge him have urged their compatriots to go on strike, wear black, and write “No” to Mubarak on their money.

I know all of this, not through news stories, but because activists publicized the details and demands of the strike on Facebook....

A group promoting the May 4 strike has almost 74,000 members, up from about 60,000 a month ago....

To understand how rattled Mubarak’s regime is by the increasing popularity of what one young man called the “Political Party of the Internet,” look no further than Egypt's queen and king of Generation Facebook: Esra Abdel Fattah, 27, and Bilal Diab, 20.

Esra was detained for more than three weeks for forming a Facebook group calling Egyptians to take part in an April 6 general strike. Her group collected more than 60,000 names. She was released after her mother personally appealed to Mubarak and his wife.

What but desperation would inspire a regime with 26 years under its belt to detain a 27-year-old over a Facebook group?

Well, I think the writer is being a bit cavalier, and undercutting her own story. There's little difference, in terms of the threat they pose a repressive regime, between a woman running a Facebook group and an opposition newspaper editor. I'm not saying the woman should be arrested, but don't discount the power of the Internet. Facebook may be "cute," but it and online networking are powerful forces. That's the point of the entire story. So it's not "desperation" that's making the government detain her. It's the real power of the Internet to threaten corrupt regimes in closed societies.