Once the success of the protests in Tunisia reminded the world that governments can be changed by a wide spectrum of people and not a political cadre or religious group or opposition politician but the people themselves, those people went to town prodding and testing for weakness.
The people of Algeria, Libya, even Yemen were seen on the streets. But Sudan seems to be hidden behind the Egyptian flare up. Now, crisis mapping shows how deep and widespread the discontent is in that country.
With Noor, the last ISP in Egypt now apparently shut down, how can Egyptians get their tweets out?
There are a couple of ways: audio tweeting and dialup.
Last Thursday, after having blocked Twitter, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak reacted to the increasing protests against his reign by shutting down the four major ISPs that provided Egyptians with connections to the Internet. Land lines and mobile phones followed, but the shutoff was intermittent. Today, the cage has slammed down again, according to multiple sources.
Among the communications vehicles closed off today are the Internet, SMS, mobile phone systems, Al Jazeera news network and even the country's train system.
Most people were extremely grateful to ditch their old dial-up Internet connections. But for the last couple of days, some Egyptians in the darkness of the Internet blackout, have been grateful to have it back. After over 90% of Egyptian access was shut down with its major ISPs, some have been coordinating these old-style connections through the country.
Manal and Alaa, an Egyptian couple currently living in South Africa, and Jacob Appelbaum, and American hacker associated with Wikileaks, have both contributed to the establishment and promotion of dial-up connections in Egypt during the #jan25 uprising.
Qatar-based news service Al Jazeera has a long relationship with Creative Commons licensing. Now, for its coverage of the Egyptian uprising, it has released photographs via Flickr and video on a CC license.
Available photographs and video are available for free use so long as the user gives attribution and does not alter the products. For the record, all the photographs and video in this post are from Al Jazeera.
Update: The answer to the question in the headline seems to be no, for now.
Following Egypt's severing of its main ISP connections to the Internet, Syria has now reportedly done the same. Possibly anticipating the political wildfire that has leapt from Tunis to Algeria to Libya and now to Egypt, authorities may be trying a preemptive block.
Syria certainly is a candidate for revolt: One of the real tyrants in the Arab world, it possesses an outsized security apparatus, little in the way of citizen rights, a smart, young population and a fear of the Internet.
After blocking Twitter on Tuesday and, intermittently, Facebook and Google on Wednesday, the Egyptian government has upped the ante, throwing a complete Internet access block across the whole of the country. Additionally blocked are Blackberry service and SMS.
Reports are pouring in, many to Twitterers via landline, that the country has been "cut off" and is now a "black hole."
Egypt has followed yesterday's block of Twitter with reported intermittent blocks today of Facebook and on Google tools and services.
Although too much can be made of social media's role in political activities, it certainly is not unimportant in the Egyptian uprising. The young, digitally literate Egyptians have made good use of them to bring the actions of disparate groups together.
As the effects of the Tunisian protests roll out across the Middle East, those who are not going up in flame are going out on the streets.
Today, Egypt has seen tremendous anti-Mubarak protests. In retaliation, the Egyptian government is doing what governments all-too-often do, blocking, cutting, filtering. Specifically, Twitter is blocked in Egypt.
The shortcomings of the so-called mainstream media have become something of a stale trope. Traditional media does some things well, other things poorly, vice-versa for blogging and other social media. But the neglect of the situation in Tunisia by the media in general, and American media in particular, is beyond the pale.
Since a young Tunisian, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire on December 17 to protest conditions in his North African country, and the country went up in flames, most Western, and all American media, has been unearthly silent.
