Does the internet drive people-powered revolutions? Maybe. It’s complicated. But 2011 began with the Arab Spring chasing out the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, and ended with Moscow’s middle classes taking to the streets in Facebook-organized protests against electoral corruption. Facebook did more than just make it easier to organize; in a year of popular revolution, it let some Russians feel they were part of something bigger, that they had a chance. It was a profound shock to Putin’s government. To Putin’s ex-KGB mindset, there is no such thing as spontaneous, popular protest. In his world, power is vertical. Someone is always pulling the strings. So the Russian state married its existential pessimism to the West’s internet cheerleading. The internet had to be brought under control.
