Two episodes from 2011 and 2016 bookend public expectations regarding the role of digital media in politics. In the wake of the protests and demonstrations in North Africa and the Middle East that we discussed in Chapter 5, the dominant public narrative portrayed social media as the keystone that enabled the opposition to coordinate a challenge to otherwise seemingly unwavering autocracies. Only social media offered disgruntled citizens the possibility of taking their discontent to the streets. Decentralized networks on top of real-time communication systems enabled activists to level the playing field against authoritarian regimes that previously had taken full advantage of their control over the official media and showed an unfettered capacity to repress any sign of dissent. It does not matter whether we see digital media as a causal factor; no account of the events in Egypt would be complete without a reference to the #jan25 hashtag on Twitter or the “We are all Khaled Said” site on Facebook (see Chapter 5).