Is Social Media Fanning The Flames of Democracy In North Africa?

You may have seen in the news overnight that the popular protests in Tunisia seem to have spilled over to Egypt with an unprecedented number of people taking to the streets of Cairo to protest against the Government.  The Los Angeles Times article (click on link embedded in title of this post) mentions that 80,000 people signed up on Facebook to attend the protest.  The Egyptian government has blocked access to Twitter in an attempt to prevent further organisation and communication - a move that echoes that taken by the Iranian government previously.