A great reminder from Ryan Evans in a blogpost about Talcott Parsons' classic statement from nearly 50 years ago:
Since in social conditions the most effective action is collective action, the most important liberty is liberty to co-operate with others to participate in collective action. Furthermore, the most important single condition of effective co-operation is communication with others. The most important deprivations of liberty are therefore those that block communication, in order to limit or prevent altogether co-operation with others. (Parsons, pp. 41-42 in Eckstein 1964)
Evans then quotes from Wael Ghonim's new book Revolution 2.0:
Together, we wanted justice for Khaled Said and we wanted to put an end to torture. And social networking offered us an easy means to meet as the proactive, critical youth that we were. It also enabled us to defy the fears associated with voicing opposition. The virtual world seemed further from the oppressive reach of the regime, and therefore many were encouraged to speak up. (p. 66)
In the video below Ghonim speaks on TED about his experiences:
