YouTube & Flickr Offer On-the-Ground Look at Protests in Egypt

http://mashable.com/2011/02/02/egypt-images/

Since Internet access was restored Wednesday in Egypt, witnesses of the growing violence throughout the country have been able to share their photos and videos without using a work around.

Internet access in the country had been restricted after the government pressured Internet service providers to block Twitter, then Facebook, and then the entire Internet in response to protests against the presidency of Hosni Mubarak.

Before the Internet block was removed, people were using third-party apps and proxy servers to bypass these blocks, and grassroots communication about the protests continued on social networks like YouTube and Flickr.

New images of the protests have continued to flood into both of these networks now that Internet access has been restored. About 4,000 uploads are currently categorized under the Jan 25 Flickr tag, and YouTube has been working with real-time curation site Storyful to collect uploaded video of the protests in its Citizentube channel.