The creativity of suppression

While Bahrain is accused of intimidating the families of students who were photographed taking part in peaceful demonstrations outside their embassy in London and the United Arab Emirates having arrested three pro reform activists in their attempt to suppress dissent other countries are getting a little bit more creative.
As the Egyptian example has shown the Mubarak regime did not know its pokes from its tweets and that surely helped protesters accelerate the fall of the regime. In retrospect, it's shocking how few pre-emptive steps Mubarak's regime had taken to control the Internet. There were no China-style attempts at Internet filtering; no Kremlin-style online propaganda chiefs or government-paid bloggers; virtually no cyber-attacks on the websites of bloggers and activist organisations. Mubarak's only foray into the world of Internet control was to beat up and jail bloggers—a tactic that only helped to publicize their cause.
Murder and shootings apart state apparatuses are fighting back using social media tools  to disseminate propaganda and to to announce fake demonstrations to lure and then arrest those that turn up in an attempt  to stem the tides of change.
Syria's "concession" of allowing Facebook and You Tube is more about monitoring public dissent as opposition groups expose themselves on these social media sites.
All this must prove very frustrating as a conflicted West has to see their proxy Governments use methods which should be abhorrent to the norms of decency but which they turn a blind eye to as their ethics and morals are compromised for their greed.
The light at the end of the tunnel is however visible and change is inevitable so it is better to accept it with dignity than to be complicit in its suppression.