Well, it worked. The worldwide publicity generated by the Chinese bloggers forced the sacking of an official for "severe malfeasance." While the party line is that the local officials screwed up, the blogging world really made it happen. That the officer will probably get replaced by someone either more inept or more controlling and oppressive remains to be seen.
Granted, this kind of story needs to be vetted to find out who really did what, to see if the accusations of the bloggers are real or if the bloggers are playing vigilante. But when there's an oppressive regime, the benefit of the doubt will always go to the oppressed, at least for me.
While I applaud the persistence of those rebelling against the regime, in general, this kind of wide open world could be dangerous for anyone who does something in public. Context is taken out of the whole situation. Actions might speak louder than words, but it's like being a referee in a basketball or soccer or most other sports. It is usually an action in retaliation to a provocation that gets caught by referees. The one punished usually didn't start it.
Just so with the world wide web and media technology. We don't know the whole story most of the time. We don't know both sides.
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