Recent news from Iran is intriguing and the most interesting aspect about this global topic is how social media services like Twitter and YouTube are helping to fuel a revolution.
Over the weekend, a major election in Iran between hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his opponent Mir Hossein Moussavi erupted with claims of voter fraud.
The election was Friday, but there really wasn’t too much online about the event until Sunday. That’s when I thought about turning on the television to feed my curiosity, but instead of switching on the tube, I decided to explore what people were saying on Twitter.
Twitter is a fascinating new Internet micro-blogging service that has caught my interest over the past several weeks and almost immediately I could see a firestorm brewing. In particular, Twitter users were criticizing CNN for lack of coverage about this important historical event.
User were posting short-messages using what is called a “hash-tag” method and writing comments with the phrase “#CNNfail” to complain about the lack of coverage. A search of this tag revealed thousands of protests.
Most people who question Twitter’s relevance wonder why anyone would use this service to inform others about breakfast, but it’s much more important than that because Twitter is reshaping the Internet with “real time searching.”
Twitter’s unique distinction is the ability to look up any subject and see what’s being said right now and by using the phrase “#CNNfail” before online comments, users probably influenced CNN’s coverage because the rest of the night was spent in features and debate about the situation.
When you sign up for a Twitter account, the home page has a Top 10 index of topics that are being discussed on Twitter. In a glance, you can see what the “Twitterverse” is talking about and right now, the buzz is all about Iran.
When using Twitter, you can only publish 140 characters of commentary, but that’s enough, because Twitter is an incredibly efficient channel for the ground war in this torn country. Students, protesters and reformers from Tehran are publishing messages via Twitter that point to cell phone photos, blogs, videos and all kinds of information from the inside out.
It only takes a few seconds for hundreds of new Twitter comments to pile in on your browser. As you refresh the screen new details are keeping the major media sites tuned in as photos of club-toting vigilantes on motorcycles beat citizens and even journalists lives are at risks as they attempt to cover this revolution.
Below are a couple of the recent street videos and be warned, these are both gripping and unsettling.
The government in Iran has made every attempt to shut down all reports revoking visas and shutting down sites like Friendster, Facebook and others. Their attempts to darken this breaking news story is futile though because the streets are in control of the media now and the regime will have a hard time keeping this one under cover.
It’s hard to keep up with all the information via Twitter, but the service provides a deluge of information to explore and it’s obvious the media giants are watching this channel with the rest of the world. Furthermore, CNN, Wired Magazine and New York Times all agree that Twitter has played a influential role in this current wave of political activism. See the links below, or visit Twitter today and click on the search topic #Iranelection to view what’s happening…right now.
Twitter’s growth has been in an meteoric upward graph for the past several months.
They were hoping to take a break last night to run some maintenance for about 90 minutes. However, Twitter users convinced the service to delay their scheduled downtime to ensure that citizens in Iran had a window to voice the events taking place in their country. It was a good move and brought on by users who suggested the extension using the hashtag “#nomaintenance” throughout the day on Monday.
The downside of the real-time functions of Twitter is accuracy and filters. Breaking stories, images and comments coming from cell phones are hardly reputable in many cases and you never know what’s going to show up next – even spammers are learning ways to infiltrate this popular audience. However, it does give us an avalanche of detail and the media is consumed with this efficient method of street level reporting and thankfully, the debate and conversations are helping a country make an important transition.
There’s no doubt these new tools are powerful channels for swaying popular thought too.
A colleague of mind reminds me that revolutionaries use whatever weapons they can to report atrocities in this global age. And yes, it wasn’t that long ago fax machines and satellite phones communicated around the world.
What makes this event different is the realty that we all have a front row seat to this raw coverage. Twitter is simple to use and available for free to anyone with a computer. With your account you have access to a tsunami of real time information as change comes to the desert in the Middle East and it’s reshaping how news arrives to the social conscious.
It’s hard to tell how this will play out over the next few days, but it’s certain we’ve never seen anything quite like this and social media tools are only going to become more powerful as we move forward giving everyone a platform to promote a cause in The Digital Age. For the people in Iran, we can only hope the phrase “people lead – governments follow” has a chance to come true in this part of the world.
Follow me on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/davidcate
Other related stories;
CNN’s Coverage of Iran Protests Criticized – NYTimes.com
Tear gas and Twitter: Iranians take their protests online – CNN.com
FriendFeed Blocked In Iran, The Service’s Most Active Region
Taking to the Streets — and Tweets — in Tehran | Danger Room | Wired.com
Activists Launch Hack Attacks on Tehran Regime | Danger Room | Wired.com
Iran election: state moves to end ‘Facebook revolution’ – Times Online
Twitter Reschedules Maintenance To Allow Iranian Protests To Continue