---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Bauwens <michelsub2003@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 7:26 PM
Subject: social media blog update, use as blockquote
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004@gmail.com>


http://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/tony-curzon-price/cupids-freedom-how-web-sharpens-democratic-revolution


 Tony Curzon Price:

" How does the Net affect the leap of faith? Not, as the Net Utopians whom
Morozov rightly criticises might have it, by making truth and transparency by
themselves powerful and indisputable agents. Rather, they make the leap of faith
easier and less risky by providing a ground where alternatives can become
commonly accepted. The Facebook groups, the Wikileaks cables, the blogs all show
that any one person is not alone in a particular set of beliefs about the
regime. Another form of common knowledge is allowed to take hold. It is not
indubitable, and it may have been infiltrated, manipulated and it may in time be
switched off - as has happened in Egypt. But the reality of the critique of the
regime is believed to be commonly shared. That moment of catching someone's eye
and deciding it is OK to act as if you are in the presence of a common soul has
been moved online. In just the same way as dating sites have transformed the
world of love, so social media have transformed politics: through the greater
ease of making common knowledge."