No matter where we are in the world, we change the dynamics of power when we use the Internet for political ends. Take a familiar case: the way community organizers used new technologies in Barack Obama's 2008 election bid, which helped his cause and established a benchmark for other campaigns. In Kenya, the fact that bloggers are reporting publicly on debates in parliament for all the world to see gives politicians reason for pause before they speak and take action. In Switzerland and other advanced democracies, new technologies establish an important space for experimentation in public decision making. Each of these is a good thing.

We know, too, that the Internet is used as effectively by states as it is by activists, though often not in the interest of democratization. The Turkish government alters the political discourse when its censors tell the country's Internet service providers to block all access to YouTube--which is widely popular there, as it is in the United States--because a video critical of Atatürk, the country's modern founding father, popped up somewhere on the site.