YouTube is not for activists. This is a good thing.

YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms are not exclusively - or primarily - a tool for political activism, despite the sense you'd get from folks like us writing about them. This is a good thing. People living in closed societies are mostly just living, like everyone everywhere. Most content generated, whether media or text, isn't going to targeting a thuggish government; folks are going to share random slices of their life. Except for the few activists. That low ratio is important. Mao nailed it on insurgency strategies: the guerilla is a fish that swims in the sea of the people. That's what is going on here. If a big swath of the people are using, say, YouTube as part of their life, a complete block or shutdown is going to be wildly unpopular. The masses will be more pissed at the government and sympathetic to the activists. This dynamic is at play with the YouTube videos being gathered regarding the Egyptian Elections. It's also the case in places like Syria, where lots of people are online despite laws banning it. Take that away, and folks get angry. Authoritarians can end up in a catch-22: empowering tools are used for activists. So they should be shut down. But they're popular with the people, who will be angry if they're shut down. That will spawn more activists. If they've got the money, people and know-how, the government can push the censorship a level down the stack and block selectively, but that's a lot harder. And anything that makes governments have to work harder to impose control is a good thing.