Here Comes Everybody Chapter 7

Here is the nub of the chapter, on page 163:  "Shared awareness allows otherwise uncoordinated groups to begin to work together more quickly and effectively."

Anti-government protesters use this in totalitarian regimes, but as I recall in Iran, some of the government's supporters also used social media, to get out their side of why the demonstrators had to be put down.

I'm not sure I believe part of page 168:  "Now the organization of group effort can be invisible, but the results can be immediately visible."  If a social networker is trying to organize a lot of people, he or she is going to send a lot of messages.  I would assume a smart secret policeman could probably infiltrate such a loose online community.  Although Shirky is correct to point out that flash mobs make protests impossible to stop, and video and photo technology makes protests easier to document, I suspect a wise regime would simply wait until the protest was over, to met out punishment in ways that make for poor pictures.  A demonstrator's father getting fired from his job would probably not make for a good picture for the west, but could be a very effective way of preventing future demonstrations.  Let's hope the regimes are less ruthless than I am...

Meanwhile, in an update to the passenger bill of rights anecdote, the bill is still in a holding pattern.  (Sorry.)  Here is a different take on that topic, from a the Consumer Travel Alliance, which seems to oppose part of the passenger's bill of rights.

I see the return of a theme from earlier chapters on page 181.  "The old model for coordinating group action required convincing people who care a little to care more, so that they would be roused to act.  What Hanni and Streeting [activists on plane waits and bank treatment of college students, respectively] did instead was to lower the hurdles to doing something in the first place, so that people who cared a little could participate a little, while being effective in the aggregate."  This strikes me as similar to Wikipedia, because no one would have time to write an encyclopedia for free, all by themselves, but when people come together digitally, they can each contribute the limited amount of spare time they can afford.  For most people that is one edit, for a few, it is a full-fledged hobby.