Egypt Tries to Shut Down Social Media

After watching the crowds in the streets on CNN and hearing about the various government buildings on fire, I would say Egypt is in full revolt.  Not surprising since the president there has allegedly been re-elected over 30 years. Nonsense, it's a dictatorship posing as a democracy, and though there are more freedoms than in some totalitarian countries, Egypt is still not a democracy. 

Meanwhile, the government is trying to stifle the revolt by shutting down the country's ISPs.  They are afraid of the communication and advantages offered by social media.

From an interview on Computer World: "Twitter, Facebook, and the Internet have made civil disobedience more efficient," said industry analyst Rebecca Wettemann from Nucleus Research. "The government is reacting to a civil problem by cutting one channel of communications, and there are always other ways."

The beauty of the internet and the web is the ability of information to reroute and it makes things very difficult to control.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the country's main opposition party seems to be behind much of the protests.  What this means for the future of Egypt is still unclear.  As this uprising plays out, it will behoove the United States to avoid getting embroiled in it.  I personally think Egypt should be governed by Egyptians.  My hope is that it won't become another radical fundamentalist nation like others in the middle-east. For LGBT Egyptians life is not rosy, I could only assume that under a fundamentalist Muslim regeim things would get a lot worse.