Why censoring social media might mean more-violent protests – GigaOM

The authors attribute their findings (albeit computer-generated) largely to the idea of “vision,” which plays a pivotal role in sociological experiments trying to determine how individuals act during times of protest or rioting. Put simply, less censorship means more vision, so citizens (called “agents” in the computer model) know what’s going on around them and can act in more uniform and rational manners. More censorship means less vision, so citizens are less aware of their surroundings and tend to act randomly.