Iran: Twitter’s defining moment?
Iran: A nation of bloggers from Mr.Aaron on Vimeo.
Over the weekend I posted about how Twitter told me more about what was going on in Iran in an hour than what I’d learned from the mainstream media in a day.
And over the last few days, the trend of Twitter making the running has if anything increased.
This hit home when on tonight’s BBC News we had reports from foreign editor John Simpson in Tehran not actually being allowed to report on anything, followed by a BBC correspondent in the studio walking over to look at a computer screen to see what was happening on Twitter.
Whatever the outcome of the situation in Iran, I wonder if this might prove to be Twitter’s defining moment.
How after several weeks of doubts being raised about the Twitter bubble, Twitter’s fans have been able to point to a very powerful example of, no it’s not about people talking cr*p all day – or more to the point talking cr*p and talking about themselves.
Instead it’s providing a vital function, so much so that the US State Department asked Twitter to postpone its scheduled maintenance to keep things open for Iranians broadcasting to the outside world.
And the community in the US, UK and elsewhere has responded enthusiastically with many people changing their profile location to read ‘Tehran’ to confuse Iran’s spooks (point four of this article on how tweeple in the West can help Iranians explains why).
Will we look back in a year’s time to this week being the point when Twitter proved it definitely wasn’t the Second Life of 2009? Time will tell, but I suspect that this will be the case.
Above, I originally posted this video from the Vancouver Film School in November, but it seemed appropriate to include it again. It explains, in 90 seconds, how young Iranians have used the Internet as one of the only ways to express their opinions and thoughts in relative freedom.
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Thanks 'anon', sure the number of Twitter users in Iran is apparently only 8000 odd (I was surprised it was even that high) so Twitter has not caused the current wave of street protests.
What it has done is allow a select few who use the service to keep the rest of the world informed and, once you allow for the inevitable half truths and rumours, often done a better job of it than the mainstream media.
Good article. I do think this whole Twitter stuff is a bit overblown though. Most Iranians don't even have Twitter.
I think that's right, the downside is that you can get a lot of breathless hype and the need to turn off – for example I heard that the 'twitcopalypse' bug was being compared to Y2K (what?)
However, the bottom line is whenever someone points to Twitter and says 'people with too much time on their hands pontificating', you can point to some of the Iranian people and say 'the only way for them to communicate with the outside world.'
Dirk and Gavin,
I agree, but also am a bit torn. I like the immediacy of Twitter news but I also miss the editorial filter of major papers. We need a way to put them together.
Many, many years ago I began my career as a business journalist. I recall the first time I sat in front of an AP wire feed and watched a report of an earthquake come in. Earthquake! I thought. Then, I quickly learned that there is an earthquake somewhere in the world every few hours.
Twitter can drive news, but it also can build overblown perceptions of urgency that doesn't really exist (see: Motrin moms). I feel for the people in Iran. I also need to filter Twitter, because not all massive amounts of tweets signal real news.
It feels like we keep hitting multiple turning/tipping points … there was Mumbai which was astounding. There was Moldova which was surprising. And Iran, now.
Interestingly, all of these are "revolutionary" for the fact that they put individuals in control of communications – and the technology outflanks the business and government hierarchies that seek to control "who speaks", and when.