  Social media have been widely used to organize citizen movements. In 2012,
75% university and college students in Quebec, Canada, participated in mass
protests against an increase in tuition fees, mainly organized using social
media. To reduce public disruption, the government introduced special
legislation designed to impede protest organization. Here, we show that the
legislation changed the behaviour of social media users but not the overall
structure of their social network on Twitter. Thus, users were still able to
spread information to efficiently organize demonstrations using their social
network. This natural experiment shows the power of social media in political
mobilization, as well as behavioural flexibility in information flow over a
large number of individuals.
