On one hand, the protests demonstrated the capacity of native and expatriate Tibetans, as well as foreign tourists, to use the Internet to get news of the protest

cell phone image of protests published on the site of a Tibetan rights NGO based in India

According to the Vancouver Sun, “Amateur cellphone photos and video clips showing what were described as confrontations between police and Tibetans protesting Chinese rule poured onto websites big and small, including those for major news media,

Today that paragraph, written in 1993, seems naive and ill-informed. There certainly are censors on the Internet. Look at China and Saudi Arabia. While there is no "Internet Inc." the Internet is most certainly a commercial entity with its associated "bosses," "boards of directors" and "stockholders." I am not just talking about the

For the lofty academic goals of pure research I have recently been joining online social networks, specifically Facebook, Change.org, Care2, and LinkedIn. The only one I became attached to was Facebook and actually, I am embarrassed to say, I visit the site every day.

My affinity for Facebook is a bit of a surpise to me. My original reason for signing up for these networks was because I am interested in the possiblity of online communities for activism. I'd really like to see people using online social networks

A man (center) wears a gas mask to protest a proposed toxic chemical plant in Xiamen

Despite the fact that China has the most elaborate system of internet censorship in the world, creative Chinese activists are still finding ways to use the medium for political activism.

On June 1, one million residents of coastal Xiamen protested against the proposed construction of a toxic chemical plant near the city center. Cell phones and the internet made it possible. The Chinese blogger collective Bullog used the internet and SMS to promote the event.

Because the state-controlled media refused to broadcast details of

J. N. Jayashree created a website to detail her husband's whistle-blowing

It's an old rule of thumb on the internet that if you are a dissident you should maintain your anonymity on the internet. The logic is simple: if the government doesn't know who you are, they won't be able to harass you - or worse. However, one Indian woman is showing that the opposite can also be true: she made a website about her whistle-blower husband, M. N. Vijayakumar, to protect him. Said J. N. Jayashree, creator of fightcorruption.wikidot.com, "I wanted to inform the people that this is

In 2003, four young Chinese men were handed out prison sentences due to their participation in the online forum New Youth Study Group, which discussed ways in which China might advance and prosper. They were charged with subverting state power and given sentences of between 8 and 10 years. Friends of these young men started the New Youth 4 group to try to get their friends out of prison.

Across the world, something was happening that New Youth 4 coordinator thought could have a direct effect on what he was doing in China. In February 2007, the Egyptian blogger Kareem