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Friday, January 28, 2011

Quote of the Day: Nemo on Obama on Egypt

"Somehow, if George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams etc. were alive today, I do not think their first concern would be restoring access to Facebook."

More here, from Nemo @ Self Evident.

EDIT:  related:  Josh Brown on how the bad guys can use Twitter too, quoting from the New York Times.

-KD

6 comments:

EconomicDisconnect said...

Sorry for the profanity, but fuck Facebook.

You had some comments on Groupon at Drogen's site I saw; I argued it was deflationary and he did not agree. Lee is smarter than me but after thinking about it, I am right, HA!

Adam said...

It's not about Facebook.

It's about oppressive governments censoring whatever the most effective means of protest is.

Pamphlets, newspapers, blogs, whatever it is at the time. Social media, despite not being cool to like these days, is real goddamn important these days.

Were the founding fathers concerned about censorship? Goddamn right.

Kid Dynamite said...

Adam - all good points, and yet, I'm sure you realize that freedom is possible without Facebook. Expression is possible without Facebook. Protest is possible without Facebook.

Said differently, what would Egyptian protesters have done had they had these aspirations 5 years ago? Sat in wait, despairing that they didn't have the social networking outlet to organize their protests? I don't believe it...

Anonymous said...

Just for the record, I have hated Facebook since long before it was cool to hate Facebook.

Thanks for the hat-tip, KD!

Easycure said...

It's not about Facebook at all, just access in general. It's much easier now (than five years ago) for Egyptians to communicate with each other without govt intervention. Cell phones, texting, and blogging is all more important than Facebook itself.

Add that the jobless rate is 90% for people under 30, this is what you should expect. Mubarak is going down, and not even Obama can save him.

Easycure said...

It should be noted that China is worried, they blocked the word "Egypt" on their internets. You know Iran is clamping down on information. This is a big deal, and coming off the heels of Tunisia, it could set off the whole Middle East.

Egypt just closed all of their banks for further notice too; that's not going to play well.