Micah L Sifry assesses the political limits of social media.
The internet has been hailed the greatest communications platform ever invented for the expansion of democracy.
To be sure, in countries where internet use is relatively unhindered, there is far greater freedom of expression than in the days when just a few gatekeepers decided what was news. And in more authoritarian countries peer-to-peer technologies like the internet provide a vital outlet for dissent.
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