The Web helps reformers, but Egypt's autocrats are using it for their own ends

[Commentary] Hosni Mubarak isn't the only one caught flat-footed by the revolt against his rule. The suddenness of the popular movement against his regime, powered by Facebook and other tools of fast-developing technology, shocked everyone from telecommunications executives whose companies were turned into instruments of state repression to leaders of authoritarian countries far from Egypt.

Technology is now shortening the cycle of political change, leading to what seem like instant revolts in unlikely places that were long thought stable. Authoritarian regimes are reacting to this new reality. Authorities in Cairo last week added a new element to what the OpenNet Initiative, which tracks controls on the Web, calls "just-in-time blocking." Western telecommunications companies were instrumental in closing off the Internet in the country almost entirely. The Egyptian government does not have direct control of the Internet from a central, state-run service hub. Instead, authorities ordered Internet service providers to shut down service. Cyber-optimists will point out that the lesson of Tunisia and Egypt so far is that technology empowers reformers more quickly than governments can react. Just as no one could have predicted the events of the past few weeks, we cannot yet know the results of these uprisings. All we can know is that as technology speeds everything forward, politics must now also adjust at a faster rate, as change-resistant autocrats seem to be learning too late.