Accordingly, Chinese officials are terrified by social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. They’ve seen what can happen in places like Iran, where resistance can spread exponentially with the power of Web 2.0 tools. , and there’s no end in sight.

Yet these repressive tactics will have a negative effect on China’s economic development. Twitter and Facebook are exploding in popularity in the U.S. and around the world. The collaborative nature of these tools presents incredible opportunities for businesses, entrepreneurs and educators. By blocking these tools, China is falling behind.

How long can this last? I suspect their finger in the damn strategy is doomed to failure.

In the past week or so, a meme has circulated on the Web: “Tiananmen + Twitter = Tehran.” But it’s not just about the so-called “Twitter Revolution.” That’s a nifty catch-phrase — the YouTube election, the Facebook effect, etc. — for many in the mainstream media who are still trying to understand how people live their lives in this social networking age. In this world, a tweet from Canada leads to a Facebook fan page created in the United States, which then leads to a YouTube video from Iran. But these platforms are merely tools that allow people to connect over ideas. A more accurate equation, said Ho, who teaches information technology at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), is “Tiananmen + Web = Tehran.”

Yet, what this online activity ultimately will amount to — inside and outside Iran — is an open question.

“The only thing I don’t like about that analogy,” Ho said of his take on the meme, is “that I hope Tehran ends better than Tiananmen did.”

Will online energy concentrated in various pockets of the Web translate to offline activism?

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I suspect it will be harder for all regimes to put down their people in the future without resorting to levels of brutality seen in extraordinary cases like North Korea. Time will tell.