Palfrey, Etling and Faris -- Why Twitter Won't Bring Revolution to Iran - washingtonpost.com

Description

Pray that today at 4pm Toopkhane Sq. will turn into a sea of green, biggest march in 30 years, Mousavi WILL be there #iranelection

This message, posted on Twitter Thursday morning, is one of countless tweets emerging from the Iranian Revolution Version 2009, in which a love affair between elite young Iranians and the latest Web technologies has become the feel-good story to the otherwise frightening standoff in the streets of Tehran.

Yes, this revolution is being tweeted, blogged and Facebooked -- and not just in Tehran. Blogger Andrew Sullivan helped kick off the cyber hype with his June 13 post "The Revolution Will be Twittered?" in which he argued that the use of this platform means that "you cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer." And after the State Department asked Twitter to delay a scheduled maintenance last week so that this line of communication between Iran and the rest of the world could remain open, the company's co-founder Biz Stone offered a somewhat self-congratulatory aw-shucks post on his blog: "It's humbling to think that our two-year old company could be playing such a globally meaningful role that state officials find their way toward highlighting our significance."

Certainly, a powerful new force is developing here. Citizens who once had little public voice are using cheap Web tools to tell the world about the drama that has unfolded since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of Iran's disputed election. The government succeeded last week in exerting control over Internet use and text-messaging, but Twitter has proven nearly impossible to block. The most common search topic on Twitter for days has been "#iranelection" -- the "hashtag" for discussions on Iran -- and global media outlets are relying on information and images disseminated via Twitter feeds.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/19/AR2009061901598.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/19/AR2009061901598.html