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The Proof Is In The Posting

Thu, July 9th, 2009 by Manuel Hernandez | 1 comment

The YouTube, Facebook and Twitter Effect on Iran and the World

(Editors Note: This commentary contains no reference to Michael Jackson, Dirty Diana or Bubbles the Chimp. Thank you for your cooperation.)

Could it be more dramatic: videos of Iranian street clashes uploaded to YouTube; chilling first-hand accounts posted to Facebook; mass Iranian demonstrations internationally tracked with the help of Twitter; and a state-mandated news blackout-blown away by all three. Regardless of who you believe in the Iranian conflict, you better believe that social media technologies have established themselves as powerful tools for educating, advocating and organizing the masses.

Over the last year and half, even with the explosion of social media, some critics insist that applications like Facebook and Twitter are flashes in the pan-limited in use-and about as substantive to advocacy as Paris Hilton is to the U.N. Well I don’t know what crow tastes like, but you can rest assured the critics of social media do and, as hundreds of thousands of Iranians just proved, that limited view of what is or isn’t substantive media, just flew out the window.

So, what is different? Well, let’s begin with state-controlled media or even so-called free media in the West. It’s clear that “new media” is not your mothers network broadcast model, and it’s clear that state media no longer has the ability to shape and manipulate the nature of the conversation without challenge.

But, social media has evolved a lot since the days of Radio Free Europe which, in its Soviet era days, served as an alternative news source (and that’s saying a great deal) for those living behind the Iron Curtain. Right now, we’re experiencing a social media groundswell that not only allows the free flow all news and media, but creates a new hierarchy for political participation and social organization under the right circumstances.

Just look how YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have shown different sides to the Iranian story:

• Twitterers posted messages with the terms like #IranElection, allowing users to search all tweets on the subject. #IranElection became a top trending topic and Twitter was getting about 30 news posts a minute with that tag, according to The New York Times.
• The feed “mousavi1388” (named for Ahmadinajad¹s leading opposition candidate Hussein Moussavi) gained more than 29,000 followers (and is still growing) and is filled with protest news, links to photos and encouragement to keep fighting, both in English and Farsi.
• One Twitterer wrote: “We have no national press coverage in Iran, everyone should help spread Moussavi’s message. One Person = One Broadcaster. In #IranElection”
• Mousavi himself has used text messages, Facebook, and Twitter to reach out to voters. His Facebook page has attracted more than 110,000 fans (and growing by the minute literally), and his slogan during the election was “Every citizen is the media.”
• Protestors in Iran used Twitter for battle cries and to spread word about clashes with police and hard-line supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
• Twitter messages, some with links to pictures, streamed from Iran despite reported efforts by authorities there to block news of protests over Ahmadinejad’s claim of having been fairly re-elected.
• Pictures of the wounded and dead (who senders claim were Iranian protestors) flooded Twitter and wound up posted on online photo-sharing websites such as Flickr as well as on YouTube.
• Recently, there were 12,000 videos available on YouTube under the search term, ‘Iranian election.’
• Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School who is an expert on the Internet, said that Twitter was especially resilient to censorship because it had so many methods to post- from a phone, a Web browser or specialized applications-and so many outlets for those posts to appear. As each new home for this material becomes a new target for censorship, he said, a repressive system faces a game of whack-a-mole in blocking Internet address after Internet address carrying the subversive material.
• Ironically, “It is easy for Twitter feeds to be echoed everywhere else in the world,” Mr. Zittrain said. “The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful.”
• “Iranelection” became the top Twitter trend at one point, and a message thread led by “Persiankiwi” appeared to be orchestrating hacker attacks on official Iran websites while firing off updates on developments in the streets.

Each of the above postings and points demonstrate the power of social media. But, there’s another more fascinating aspect to the application of social media in Iran: the offline coordination of activities.

Twitter was being used as multiple communications, command and control headquarters by dissidents intent on keeping news flowing and coordinating events on the ground through online social-networking services!

Examples:

• “We are going offline to get a phone free for calling out,” Persiankiwi tweeted at midday. “We are also moving location—too long here - is dangerous.”
• A subsequent Persiankiwi tweet reads “Attacked in streets by mob on motorbikes with batons—firing guns into air—street fires all over town roads closed.”
• Twitter users were also slamming mainstream media outlets for not covering the Iranian election aftermath more intensely. A “CNNfail” thread at the US-based micro-blogging service critiqued the cable news network’s coverage throughout the weekend.
• Twitter users such as “bwernson” shared lists of proxy computer servers that could be used to sidestep Internet traffic blocks in Iran.
• A Twitter user with the screen name “GeniusBastard” weighed in to make sure collaborators use private feeds and keep proxy server addresses from publicly streamed tweets.
• Tweeting was ongoing, giving details on the protest of the day, the location of violence, and planned events for the forthcoming days.

Even if a regime manages to block Internet and mobile telephone communication, there is still “sneakernet,” a reference to taking hard drives or memory sticks loaded with data beyond the reach of the censorship.

So what is the upshot? We always need one, so here’s one to think about.

Robert Putnam spent a great deal of time telling us we were “Bowling Alone”; that civic or the political fabric was rotting in this country. Well, the recent events in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran indicate otherwise.

Imagine health reform advocates, small business activists or oil speculation opponents organizing and energizing each other around these issues, using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter as their battle cries. When you think about what’s happened and happening in Iran, it doesn’t sound so crazy. Now, “being connected” means having the ability to use social media tools to define your own personal narrative freely, linking to interest and passions that might be fleeting, but intense for a short period, and world beating in the moment.

Heed the lessons of Iran: the ‘proof’ (whatever that may be) will be posted for all the world-including your opponents-to see. So, get out front, online and uploaded when it comes to shaping your issues, organizing around them and having people take notice. Trust us, you’ll see for yourself that victory has never tasted so tweet.

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