Research in recent years has highlighted the specific communicational characteristics of the Internet. In particular, the Net is said to broaden conditions of access to the public sphere and could thus activate 'antiregulation'? tendencies in the sense in which Habermas opposes regulation and communication. The author uses the protest mobilization triggered by the September 2001 explosion at the AZF chemicals plant in Toulouse to show the limits of this thesis. The play of relations that developed in the collective demanding the closure of all chemicals plants in the area tends to turn the Net into a vehicle of regulation rather than communication in these debates. The potential of the Net to contribute towards the democratization of public debate implies that the conditions of that contribution are debated.