U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said it was "pure coincidence" that she spoke Thursday at the San Francisco social networking site Twitter moments before Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak refused to step down - a move that enraged street activists, many of whom have been using Twitter to organize their three-week-long uprising.
While not sending a diplomatic message, Rice acknowledged "the enormous impact" social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have had on the "emergence and coalescence of these political movements. And governments are increasingly cognizant of their power."
Some governments "have chosen to try to suppress expression, and others have recognized that's futile, and some have done both," Rice said. "I think it's an extraordinary moment in the power of this technology, the power of social networking to channel and champion public sentiment."
Rice appeared before Twitter employees for an hour to answer questions tweeted from some of Twitter's 200 million registered users - 60 percent of whom are international. Rice praised Twitter employees, saying that "your work is having real impact."
But unbridled praise for recent "Facebook revolutions" overlooks how governments have used social media as tools of repression, too. Governments in Syria and elsewhere have used social media sites to compile information about dissidents.
In the United States, federal investigators in Virginia have asked the courts to order Twitter to turn over information it is seeking in connection with activists associated with the WikiLeaks release of confidential State Department and military files. A hearing is set for Tuesday.
"I think there is too much focus on (social networks) as a driver of the protests," said Evgeny Morozov, a visiting scholar at Stanford University and author of the book, "Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom."
"Maybe because we don't know who is driving the protests, we focus on the tools," he said.
Rice acknowledged that social media have "made the already complex business of diplomacy even more multidimensional. While there are increased challenges," she said "there are equal or more opportunities."
"It gives those of us who are diplomats and communicators many more avenues to get the message out. And it gives us many more avenues from which to receive input and insight from people around the world," Rice said.
"We are much more cognizant of and sensitive to not just what we hear from government and officials but what we hear from civil society and (nongovernmental organizations) and bloggers, and people on the street."
Rice didn't stray from the Obama administration's diplomatic line Thursday. She told reporters after her appearance in San Francisco that the United States would like to see "an orderly and genuine transition to lasting democracy that truly and fully reflects the will of the Egyptian people."
"That process needs to proceed and be irreversible," Rice told Twitter employees.
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