While the reaction by Facebook was interesting, it was somewhat unnecessary by the time the protests in Tunisia started.
Social media was definately pivotal to the PEACE REVOLUTION sweeping the Middle East, but, it's work occured 'leading up to' these moments and not so much 'at the time they broke out.'The leadership of the countries was reactionary. The protests were spontaneous and the organization rapid. Why? Because everyone was literally 'on the same page' when the momentum took shape. The worst reaction a nation's leadership can make is to retaliate against an established movement that is unshakable long before it was noted to becomes a reality.
A nation's leaderships reaction should never be to resist in a way that turns on its people, so much as 'recognition.' To oppress the ESTABLISHED values is only to prolong the 'events of change.' The communication to move forward was resolved and it has its casualities. It is not a matter of IF, it is a matter of WHEN and the length of time is dependant upon the continued and futile resistance.
How The Tunisian Government Tried To Steal The Entire Country's Facebook Passwords (click title to entry - thank you)
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Jan. 24, 2011, 12:01 PM
...Basically, the Tunisian government, through internet service providers, tried to steal the Facebook login info (usernames and passwords) of everyone in Tunisia. They did this through keyloggers, a piece of software that records the keys you hit on your computer.
When Facebook realized this was going on, they quickly switched the entire Tunisian site to https, the encrypted version of the HTTP protocol on which the web is built. (As an aside, we wonder why they don't do this by default for everyone. Https is slower, but it would sitll be more secure.)...
