It isn't any different. It's still a few thousand first-world armchair warriors thinking their click matters. I'm sorry for this guy no less and no more than any other Syrian, but I can't believe anybody who knows who Assad is is fool enough to think they will touch his emotions with an email. It's not a damn breast cancer avatar ribbon, stop acta or save the whales, he got arrested by a regime making massacres on it's own citizens. I'm sorry to burst somebody's bubble of trust in the power of internet, but sadly guys like him will be very lucky to get out in one piece, and even if he does, there's very little to celebrate as thousands like him are there, without a hacker community support. Still good that you are worried about your email, let's choose a good platform, follow me on twitter and change the world with a click so we can sleep well.

You are correct that just clicking links and tweeting about issues such as the detainment of Bassel might not be very useful, regardless on which website this happens. I've felt like this many times before. Yet doing nothing will most definitely have no effect positive whatsoever. Therefor we try to do something, maybe it is utterly futile and maybe not, but at least we've tried to help a fellow human being getting out of a dire situation.

Personally I hope getting signatures will send a signal to other entities (perhaps more powerful) that helping out with this cause might be beneficial for them. Just because so many people, strangers and friends a like care. Signatures might be useful to fuel other channels like calbear81 is suggesting.

The worst thing in my opinion would be just forgetting people like Bassel and many others in countries with oppressive regimes.

Slacktivism is in fashion because it's just too easy, and it encourages even more of this behavior. One campaign justifies another one, although none of them accomplished anything significant. People justify it like you did, and they feel they are doing something. Are they? Better be honest with ourselves that we can't do crap, but it's a hard truth to endure.

Let's assume for a moment that one campaign to free someone in such situation would be successful. One person. From hundreds/thousands in one country. Probably tens of thousands throughout all oppresive countries. What would be the result? I'll tell you: the interwebs would proclaim it's own great success, that's a small leap but a giant step, blah blah. And happily in their chairs keep clicking, feeling like a hero while per every petition there is a thousand people keep being locked up and tortured and/or killed... Instead of exploring new ideas to act and engaging in more 'on the ground' action to help opressed people (probably the least but something practical you can do from home is keeping Tor running[1]), the web keeps signing up petitions. Taking part in such slacker campaigns is IMO a lose-lose situation, sorry.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwMr8Xl7JMQ&feature=relm...

btw Tor worked with Avaaz on collecting donations for communication devices, yet: 1) it was a Tor initiative. 2) https://secure.avaaz.org/en/egypt_blackout/ "$25,197 raised so far. Help us get to $100,000". From the frontpage "14,921,795 members worldwide" with a minimum ammount of $15 it gives only about 1700 members who wanted to pay anything (and I can only guess that this number is much lower and there were bigger donations from single entities).

Thanks for sharing your opinion, I've been saying the same things as you've said, except it won't help one bit.

Personally I've decided it's better to strive towards helping out with both new methods like your suggested Tor nodes and 'old methods' like petitions, than doing nothing at all. Only the latter will definitely preserve a status-quo and change nothing. Not for 1 person nor a thousand.