No this is not the damage suffered to Anderson Cooper in Egypt. When Egypt turned off the Internet to prevent everyone to connect to their Facebook and Twitter so the message could not be spread.
When I read this I laughed a bit. I Disagree, writes Anne Applebaum at The Washington Post: "Note that the Egyptian government's decision to shut down the country's Internet access over the weekend--something it can do because Internet access is still so limited--had almost no impact on the demonstrators. For all the guff being spoken about Twitter and social media, the uprising in Cairo appears to be a very old-fashioned, almost 19th-century revolution: People see other people going out on the streets and decide to join them."
The only reason I knew what was going on was because of people updating on Twitter and Facebook. Prior to that I had no knowledge of Egypt except of the ancient history of it I read in a book. When China blocked the word " Egypt" in their search engines that made you realize the impact of the internet. Anyone can post and share the information which makes brings me to my next point.
Nicholas Carr's blog " Rough Type" has a line that seems very true. "I will choose the latter. I will take the professionals over the amateurs." The protests in Egypt has given everyone a voice. So yes there is a lot of white noise and many different blogs and news sites that give out information so quickly. And there is also a lot of "opinions" and various points of view about everything. It is a giant collaboration from everyone.
But it is up to you the person seeing the content to determine if it is information you will use and share with others. When Howard Rheingold stated in his video about desktops is becoming a printing press, a television studio and a marketplace that is true. We use whatever trusted sites like hulu or more local news sites like Patch.com and Mlive.com. Since when has the internet come in the plain of existence have labels like professionals? We need professionals to set up the networks and web pages but we the people like the content that is in the newspaper or any book we just have someone to rise and fill with their view on the world. People have become self-made because of the internet and giving them a voice in the world that perhaps they never could have had before.
I think we live in a melting pot society. Since the early 1900's we have take foods from all over and we have shared them all. That is how I view the internet. We take products and various other types of media and share it with everyone else. The internet has become a hive of information that we can share. The fact there is moderation and monitoring for good information that exists helps us decide what to watch or read.
Most sites are monitored for content. People use search engines to seek out answers to questions. People got information about what was going on in Egypt because they found it because people could post their thoughts and actual information on what was going on around them. Social Media has raised awareness of the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the dealings he had with the people in Egypt. I know his name now. I did not before.
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