Social Networking: Obama's New Weapon Against Iran, Cuba, Sudan

This policy is very good -- if not great -- news for journalists and advocates in countries where access to Twitter might one day lay the groundwork for regime change. I've written before about the importance of such Google applications as Gmail and Gchat as a vital means of communication for underground activists, and this latest news can only be greeted with open arms by those who ordinarily find themselves handcuffed by repressive regimes.

Still, it's not exactly open season for the opposition movements. In mid-February, the Iranian government slowed Internet access to a crawl in advance of presumed protests. Opposition tweets -- so prevalent in the aftermath of the country's 2009 election -- were largely silenced. Though social-networking applications will soon be widely accessible in a way they haven't yet been, to connect to the Internet, you still have to go through Big Brother.

It's worth noting that this policy is coming at a time when the president is showing an increasingly confrontational attitude toward rogue regimes he once said he could and would engage with. Secretary Clinton minced no words when she condemned Chinese cyberattacks on Google: This was as much a call for free speech as it was a stinging repudiation of Chinese policy. A lot of folks think the president and his team have backed themselves into a corner on the heels of a failed engagement policy -- in this context, it's interesting to see what weapons they are now pulling into their arsenal. What remains to be seen is whether the administration's stance on Google, Twitter and Facebook is an opening salvo in a tougher-foreign-policy campaign or merely saber rattling.

In the meantime, here's to hoping that the reporters, freedom fighters and human-rights activists around the world start downloading these new applications with gusto. May their wireless hot spots be plentiful and their connections crystal clear.