More on Twitter and protests in Tehran

Posted By Evgeny Morozov Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 5:13 PM Share

So back to cyber-protests in Tehran! One of the most discussed online initiatives of the last 24 hours has been a campaign to change users' Twitter location to Tehran. This has been done in order to confuse the authorities about the real users tweeting from Tehran and thus make it safer for them to continue operating. Nice in theory, but I am not sure it works in practice. The Iranian authorities already have lists of probably a hundred sensitive bloggers and Twitter users that could snatch easily; I don't think they would go after those who have just started doing this. I don't think it's the lack of knowledge that prevents them from doing this; it's a combination of political factors.


However, this confusion over locations would also make it next to impossible to elucidate Twitter's actual role in fueling and sustaining protests in Tehran. If I had a “Twitter revolution” thesis to protect here (and I don't – I only do Moldova), this is exactly would I be encouraging people to do: the more Twitters we have on the ground, the easier it is to argue that Twitter did play a role. In short, you can kiss good-bye to any scholarly research into the actual impact of Twitter on protests in Iran, simply because the number of Twitter users in the country would be severely inflated and impossible to arrive at.


Another downside here is the ability to aggregate the voices of those who are physically in Tehran. Can't locate the URLs now, but I remember seeing a few very interesting Web-sites that aggregated all posts tagged with #iranelection that listed Tehran as location. Now, those would probably be much more interesting to read than the armchair speculations of 99% of Twitter users. Now, I think we can kiss good-bye to such initiatives as well.


Now, wouldn't it be much better if those who were really concerned about their safety would simply change their location to, say, San Francisco? I think this would not introduce any of the noise we are seeing now. I wonder why the movement is in the other direction – i.e. inflating the number of those who are based in Tehran...If Iranians are really smart, they probably have databases with all relevant Twitter updates anyway, so they would be able to use, say, yesterday's data to figure out who really listed Tehran as location.


However, I am skeptical that addressing Twitter-discontent tops Iran's agenda at the moment. When you've got real riots in the street, Twitter-riots do not look that threatening. I do think that the Iranian authorities would become much more cautious and attentive to new media if Ahmadinejad's regime would survive, but I don't think they will get to their Twitter lists until mid-July or so.


Overall, I am skeptical about the claims that Twitter has been instrumental in organizing the protests. I grant that it may have been very influential in publicizing them. But I'd like to see tangible evidence that 10 random Iranians found each other via Twitter and – communicating in Farsi –actually planned a rally. I think we are still short of this – most of the reports I've seen about the use of Twitter have focused mostly on the role it played in publicizing the violence or the already planned protests and rallies.

 

I know that this different may seem subtle to some, but I think it's very important that we do not give Twitter et al more credit than it deserves. My FP colleague Dan Drezner has some useful thoughts here but most of the evidence I've seen so far is inconclusive about the role that Twitter played in facilitating coordination among Tehran-based protesters (even though it has certainly made it easier for them to liaise with the outside world).



 

MCJ

7:42 PM ET

June 16, 2009

Good point

I've read criticism of the "Twitter Theory" elsewhere that mainly focused on the fact that Iran is not as "wired" a country as, for example, the US, and therefore it was not as likely Twitter magnified the outcome of activists' actions. You're undoubtedly right that the Iranian authorities could have obtained IP logs, etc, if they really wanted to zero in on troublemakers (and anyway I have yet to find a way to search by time zone on Twitter).

Where I think Twitter does make a difference, though, is by supplementing information provided to the outside world as the MSM is slowly (or quickly as the case may be) choked off by the regime. It was never going to be well-covered by the Western press, but the regime made sure initially that it was sparsely examined, and has progressively reduced the number of foreign journos on the beat through visa cancellations and other harsh restrictions. So maybe Twitter's real role in this instance is to cover the ground upon which the MSM feared -- or simply was not allowed -- to tread.

 

JEFF BAREA

9:41 PM ET

June 16, 2009

This is more than a sociological case study

It's a conflicted set of choices that face the protesters in Iran as well as those of us from around the world that are avidly watching.

I can see your perspective, but it's the perspective of a professor - not a protester.

Changing location to Iran would bring the complications you are mentioning, but cyber warriors are a smart peoplez. They don't just google. They set out Easter Eggs (hidden messages) more easily than you and your friends can google.

Finding the information/people is not very hard in that respect for those so inclined to participate. Currently, the MSM is not very effective in gathering their messages. The MSM is finding out the news on the backs of those involved.

Take for example the move to setup proxies capable of giving protesters anonymity and a way around the proxy censors.

In the instance you mention, the needs of the protesters far outweigh any post-protest lessons.

More Iranian locations keeps the issue as Iranian. And it does make it more difficult for tracking, but that's the point. They gather the information, cyber warriors get the information out and into the hands of the rest of the world.

You've seen the footage. This is not a game. This is life and death for some of them. Anything that can be done to protect them even at the expense of poli sci post-game intel is what will be done.

 

AT

2:54 AM ET

June 17, 2009

A Twitter from the Mousavi campaign

No solid proof that twitter helps spread news within Iran but certainly interesting is this twitter from the Mousavi campaign:

"mousavi1388: Twitter is currently our ONLY way to communicate overnight news in Iran, PLEASE do not take it down. #IranElection"

check it out for yourself:

http://twitter.com/mousavi1388

You'll note that his Twittering is half Farsi, half English.

 

SOLITAIRE

4:40 AM ET

June 17, 2009

Value of Twitter

I'd say that Twitter is still in the midst of finding its role as an activist medium. In the past two days, I've seen a modicum of discipline develop on the #IranElection trend, as sympathizers fumble through providing effective aid. I agree that tweeters are not as fundamental to the effort as they'd like to be. Nonetheless, I'd like to think they have provided some useful services, such as providing proxy servers to enable Iranians to escape government censorship, as well as to keep a world audience attuned too the situation there.

 

VADIM

11:27 PM ET

June 17, 2009

No-so-Twitter Revolution

Western media are so hungry for a "Twitter Revolution" that any event involving Twitter is vigorously and unapologetically labeled as such without even considering an actual meaning of the term. As in the recent case of protests in Moldova (you, Evgeny, had a great post on it), Twitter did not serve as a primary tool for organizing numerous protests in Iran. The platform did help to report on the protests (and events in general). It is a revolution of international reporting but it has nothing to do with the actual "Twitter Revolution."

 

JTEPPER2

11:55 AM ET

June 22, 2009

Twitter isn't the only site covering Iran

Twitter is a great tool, but it isn't the only site covering the elections in Iran.

Demotix is a citizen journalist outfit getting photographers from photo amateurs and freelancers around the world. Many of its photographers have been beaten for taking photographs, but they have bravely reported events that the mainstream press has been unable to cover due to restrictions.

Demotix's Iran Hub on Demotix has been booming. www.demotix.com/iranelection When the internet choke is lifted, content streams in from its citizen journalists. Demotix has been getting steady content all week and supplying it to the NY Times, Reuters, AP, and EPA. You can see it here: http://www.demotix.com/iranelection
Foreign correspondents have been barred from reporting openly from Iran, and Demotix has got images out the world. This past weekend two of its reporters' photographs were featured twice on the front page of the NY Times: http://twitpic.com/80c0t and http://twitpic.com/7tbj9

The mainstream press has focused on the role of Demotix and citizen journalism - http://www.cnbc.com/id/31410538, and
http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=106521&videoChannel=6, and Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=agG.8N3uePtI

 

Evgeny Morozov, originally from Belarus, is a visiting scholar at Stanford and a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation.

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