One, I don’t think I know of any Arab activist or blogger or Facebook user that takes action thinking that his or her Western connections will give them the political influence they need to be sprung from detention or prison. Yes, they are aware that Western journalists can raise the profile of a detention or a blocking of a YouTube account, but as real political influence, I doubt it, and what is achieved is understood to be a one-off, not a change in practice or policy.

Also, when self-censorship is a way of life; to break that pattern by going online, creating an account, and posting something in public is not something that happens by mistake. Is it possible Mr. Lynch underestimates the savvy of the union leaders and others to whom he refers. Can they possibly see it as a “good game”?

Perhaps I misunderstand the premise, but more worrying to me is the idea that we shouldn’t focus on training in favor of pressuring governments to change their ways–ways that haven’t changed for decades. In 2009, how can we separate the tools from the pressuring? These regimes, repressive or not, do not live in the dark ages when it comes to technology and the Internet. Their advisors and telecom ministries will hire every Cisco and use every media at their disposal to control this resource, push their messages, entrench their rule.

How can we favor setting aside the training of activists, civil society actors, union leaders, and ordinary citizens in how to use new media in favor of advocating for more open governments? Advocating with what means and by whom? Diplomatic talks, NGOs? Can he, or we, really expect people to wait until dictators die to begin experimenting and taking risks with the tools at hand?

When asked, we should provide training, which includes addressing risks and following up on your work about blogging anonymously and the work of Tor and wikileaks, and others, and then we should probably get out of the way, and as Mr. Lynch suggests, wait patiently.

We also must remember that these tools aren’t only being used to advocate for free speech and political gains. They are being used to talk about the environment, to dispel myths about people infected with HIV/AIDS, to promote peace. They are providing a place where people can talk about issues that don’t get covered in the traditional state- or party-owned media. It’s again Western myopia that forgets sometimes that, like everywhere, there are other issues to deal with in the Arab world. And these tools are useful for them as well.

Let’s go back to cute cats. The more people using the tools, the more open the environment for speech might become, and the more unpopular government intervention will be. It’ll still take years, decades. No, it’s not sexy or immediate. But to advocate that the tools are for the people who know how to use them, and then say not to focus on training, troubles me.