jaunthie | The Revolution Will Be Tweeted

I've been following the developments in Iran with a great deal of interest over the last few weeks. (In case you've been under a rock, Iran held elections last Friday, the "outcome" of which was almost certainly fraudulent.) The last few days have seen massive protests every day, of students and supporters of the moderate "losing" candidate marching for hours, massing in protest, and demanding (in the face of violent suppression and death) that their votes be counted, that their voices be heard. Predictably, the powers in Iran have tried to stop this and stop coverage of it by many means, including trying to block all Internet access and phone access, particularly in Tehran.

They're largely failing. And the primary sources of organization and communication, both between protesters and with the outside world?

Facebook and Twitter. (Not to mention people voluntarily setting up proxy servers for Iranian ISP traffic to help circumvent the government's attempt to shut off acccess.)

I admit I am a Twitter skeptic. Despite having a blog, I don't consider my life so interesting that people need 149-word constant updates on what I'm thinking or doing or whatever. But there is absolutely no denying that it has been hugely invaluable to the Iranian people, to the point where the State Department asked Twitter to defer scheduled downtime for server maintenance, as it would disrupt service to Iran during crucial daylight hours. Twitter agreed.

And my respect for Tweeting and Twitter just went up. I am definitely a digital old-fogey now(I've been online since the days of BBS-es, before the World Wide Web), and unlikely to open a Twitter account myself (although I know enough to never say never). But I'm also enough of a tech-head to be massively chuffed at how this social "fluff" software is being used.