The January 25th uprisings were instigated by youth social protest movements which were organised through online social networks and that had the experience and capability of taking their activism from the virtual world to the real. A number of factors enabled the youth to unify ranks before the uprisings through a strong inner circle, which was then able to mobilise the middle‐class and poor through different nodes, all joining forces at key sites, and all bound by common demands for reform, which then culminated in the one unified call upon Mubarak's ousting. Thanks to the political errors of the government in its security handling of the situation, and strengthened by the signals from the military that they would not strike against the people, there was nothing stopping the snowball rolling.