Some thoughts inspired by a Personal Democracy Forum Conference session on social media and Iran

Blogger and tweeters represent the information elite.  For true change to happen, information must disseminate.  Information that stays elite is useless to the broader community.  In open societies, social media has had success because information bubbles up from the information elite and seeps into the mainstream as newsapers and television networks pick up on it.

In closed societies there is no “up”.  The government controls means of mass communication.  Information stays elite.  Insular communities stay insular.  And governments can let bloggers/tweeters say whatever they like, because governments can make sure that their ideas never reach a wider audience.

Of course, this only remains true as long as blogs have a relatively small audience.  Should any blog become sufficiently large, a closed government would have to shut it down.  But as long as no particular blogger becomes too influential, authoritarian governments probably won’t worry too much about the blogging community at large.