What will happen to bit.ly links if Gaddafi shuts down the Internet in Libya...

Also note the downvoted and marked not helpful answer by bit.ly's founder as well.

Apparently the domains will cease to function anywhere between 0 and 28 days after if the Libyan registry is cut offline

excerpt from the top voted answer now:

_"John Borthwick in his original answer stated that because the authoritative servers (they are not root servers) for .LY are located outside the country it is safe, but the authoritative servers outside the country are reliant on being capable of obtaining updates from the .LY registry inside the country. If they are unable to succeed in getting updates, at some point they will consider the data they have stale and stop providing information on the .LY domain.

In the case of .LY, the absolute maximum for that is configured for 28 days (SOA expiry TTL is 2419200 seconds). Without external intervention, the availability of .LY domains would be compromised somewhere between 0 and 28 days if the Libyan registry is cut off the Internet."_