The repercussions of a Twitter revolution

I've got an op-ed that runs in The Boston Globe today. It's - you'll never guess - about Iran's Twitter revolution (or lack thereof). Here are some excerpts but check out the entire piece here:

       Perhaps we should not read too much into the government’s reluctance — or, some have argued, inability — to ban tools like Twitter. The reasons for these may be much more banal: These tools are simply too useful as sources of intelligence about what is happening in the country. Not only do they help the Iran government to follow the events closely (as well as to understand the perception of the government’s actions) in every single locality with an Internet connection,  they also help it to understand the connections between various activists and their supporters in the West. From the intelligence-gathering perspective, Twitter has been a gift from heaven.

     However tempting it might be to attribute the Iranian protests to the power of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, we should be extremely careful in our conclusions, especially given that the evidence we are working with is extremely sparse. By sticking labels like ‘‘cyber-revolution’’ on events in Tehran, we overstate the power of social media and make it look much more threatening than it really is.

     Thus, should Ahmadinejad stay in power, the vibrant Iranian blogosphere would also inevitably pay a dire price for this; jailing bloggers in Iran is hardly a novelty these days. But the  repercussions of a false ‘‘Twitter revolution’’ in Tehran might be global too. Unfortunately, it is going to be bloggers in Russia, China, or Egypt who would eventually pay the price for such exaggeration; their governments, already suspicious of new media, may now want to take preventive measures — that usually involve intimidation and arrest — well in advance.