Twitter is being credited for the political makeover in Iran! This is a milestone, no doubt! Information technology appears to be facilitating public awareness which may perhaps lead to an informed and empowered electorate in Iran that will ensure that they get their leader of choice.
"Monday afternoon, a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran.
The request, made to a Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, is yet another new-media milestone: the recognition by the United States government that an Internet blogging service that did not exist four years ago has the potential to change history in an ancient Islamic country.
“This was just a call to say: ‘It appears Twitter is playing an important role at a crucial time in Iran. Could you keep it going?’ ” said P.J. Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs.
Twitter complied with the request, saying in a blog post on Monday that it put off the upgrade until late Tuesday afternoon — 1:30 a.m. Wednesday in Tehran — because its partners recognized “the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran.”
NYT June 17, 2009
4 comments:
Usually all new communication technology ending up being used mainly in catastrophic situations.
In normal situations I hate twitter I like this quote:"
That's the grand irony of Twitter: Even the real people on the service are fake. They are their own simulacra. No one actually lives their life 140 characters at a time. What we do is turn ourselves into works of fiction. Who's real? Who's not? Who cares?"
absoluted loved the cartoon
and I think barak is handling the Iran issue verey smartly
Something certainly needs to be done in Iran, so if it helped the people I'm certainly for it.
Personally I don't use Twitter, but many people do.
Welcome back!
when there was no reporters here to tell the world what was happening... and when the SMS service was down in Tehran, internet and sites like Youtube, Twitter, and Balatarin could help people connect... and they were all reporters for the people of the world...
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