Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – The public outcry over the attack against Ahmadis in Pandeglang, Banten, and the burning of churches in Temanggung, Central Java, reached a feverish pitch on Twitter. But when it comes to taking concrete action, there was little the popular microblogging site could do.

As if to confirm what writer Malcolm Gladwell said that "revolution will not be tweeted", Twitter users in the city apparently think updating their 140-character status update was more than enough.

On Feb. 6, when dozens of Muslims attacked an Ahmadi compound in Pandeglang, killing three of the sect's followers, news about the attack travelled fast on Twitter and nearly everybody in the city with a Twitter account quickly expressed their anger.

People responded in disgust when some tweets that day carried links to a YouTube video depicting the attackers lynching one of the three victims.

On the night of the attack, the daughter of late president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, Anita Wahid, posted her tweet, inviting people to attend a rally at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle the next morning.

One hundred people attended the rally in the midst of the Monday morning hustle and bustle.

The response on Twitter was also deafening when Muslims in Temanggung burned churches. But beyond channeling the outcry, there has been no direct outcome that Twitter could produce.

Burhanuddin Muhtadi of the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) said that social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook could only provide tools, but not solutions.

"Social media like Twitter is very useful to raise awareness on a number of problems, but people need to do more to get into concrete actions and make Twitter an effective tool," he said.

Twitter users themselves are also aware of the limitations of the social networking site in effecting change in the city, especially in the face of social media-generated changes in Egypt and Tunisia.

"Twitter is very effective if you just want to express anger or let the world know about individual emotions, because a lot of people are on Twitter. But I don't believe that it will be effective to solve our problems. Not just yet," said Gilang Ayunda, a Twitter user living in Jakarta.

Girez Gitareza, another Twitter user, concurred. "All the anger on Twitter would completely be useless if the government decided to just ignore it," she said.