Tunisia: Goodbye Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Hello Information Age

"Tweeting Tyrants Out of Tunisia: Global Internet at Its Best"
Nate Anderson Ars Technica, Threat Level, Wired, (January 14, 2011)

"Even yesterday, it would have been too much to say that blogger, tweeters, Facebook users, Anonymous and Wikileaks had “brought down” the Tunisian government, but with today's news that the country's president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has fled the country, it becomes a more plausible claim to make.

"Of course there was more to such demonstrations than some new technology. An individual act of desperation set off the last month of rioting, as a college-educated young man set himself on fire after police confiscated his unlicensed fruit and vegetable cart. Tunisia's high unemployment rate, rampant corruption and rising food prices added to the anger at Ben Ali's 20-plus-year rule.

"People risked their lives in the street, with some getting a bullet for their troubles, but the internet played a significant role in organizing these protests and in disseminating news and pictures of them to the world.

"After the worst unrest in his reign, Ben Ali this week promised not to run for 'election' again and to give the country a free press and the right to assemble. He fired his cabinet. It wasn't enough. Protestors sensed weakness, and today they forced Ben Ali from Tunisia. He fled ignominiously with his family for any state that would have him.

"Here's a guide to the part of this battle fought in cyberspace over the last month...."

The rest of the article gives a look at the powers that be - or, rather, were - in Tunisia, Information Age technology, and why the Lemming doesn't miss the 'Good Old Days.'

The discussion starts with Tunisia's government blocking websites.

By the way: if the Lemming doesn't seem properly enthusiastic over regulation of online content, that sort of thing is part of the reason.

As the Lemming has said before, this isn't a political blog. And the Lemming isn't political, not in the sense of always cheering one bunch and booing another. On the other hand, the Lemming likes freedom of expression, and the new media of communications you and the Lemming are using at this moment.

Posts, not entirely unrelated, not all in this blog:

• "Steve Jobs, Censorship, and Who Gets to Choose"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (January 7, 2011)
• "FCC, the Internet, Regulations, Freedom of Speech, and a Ranting Lemming"
  (December 23, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: Argentina's Government Pulls the Plug on Grupo Carlin"
  (August 21, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: Erin Andrews, Policing the Internet, and Power to the People"
  (July 29, 2010)
• "What is an Information Gatekeeper?"
  Another War-on-Terror Blog (August 14, 2009)