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After weeks of discussion in the blogosphere over whether what happened in Tunisia was a "Twitter revolution," and whether social media also helped trigger the current anti-government uprising in Egypt, author Malcolm Gladwell says "Surely the least interesting fact about them is that some of the protesters may (or may not) have at one point or another employed some of the tools of the new media to communicate with one another. Please. People protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented. They did it before the Internet came along."

Known only by her Twitter name, Oxfordgirl has emerged as a crucial link between the protesters and the outside world. "Before they started blocking mobile phones I was almost co-ordinating people's individual movements - 'Go to such and such street,' or 'Don't go there, the Basij [militia] are waiting,' " she said. "It was very strange to be sitting in Oxford and co-ordinating things like that."

"An Oklahoma City man who announced on Twitter that he would turn an April 15 tax protest into a bloodbath was hit with a federal charge of making interstate threats last week, in what appears to be first criminal prosecution to stem from posts on the microblogging site. "

Coverage of the New Zealand blackout campaign has reached all the way UK music media (c/o JS).

The Twitter blackout proposed by New Zealander Juha Saarinen was picked up and mainstreamed by Stephen Fry resulting in global support for the initiative.

"Organisers used the social networking site Twitter to rally opposition to a Communist victory in legislative elections ."