BusinessWeek

"Some Iranian Election Protesters used Twitter to get people on the streets, but most of the organizing happened the old-fashioned way..."

This article discusses the utility of social networking tools in organising protests like the Iranian post-presidential election protest of June 2009. According to the article, though media focused on an Iranian "Twitter Revolution", Iran experts and social networking activists, while noting the use of social media tools, say that no particular technology has been instrumental to the organisers' ability to get people on the street. "Indeed, most of the organizing has occurred through far more mundane means: SMS [Small Message Service] text messages and word of mouth."


The article describes how the notion that Twitter was playing a major communication role caused the United States (US) State Department to ask Twitter to defer some scheduled maintenance work in order to keep its service active in the day or two following the election when organising for protest was beginning. However, according to web analysts quoted here, the number of Iranian resident Twitter users did not support the numbers who appeared to be protesting the election.


The government responded by blocking the Twitter service. However, "[t]ech-savvy netizens can use proxy addresses such as Tor or Proxy.org to bypass the government block of certain IP addresses. But for many users, circumnavigating the government's blockage is too big a hurdle, and organizing in more conventional ways, such as over the phone or by knocking on doors, can be both quicker and easier. Moreover, Twitter does not support the Farsi language, which limits its utility, particularly in more rural areas of the country."


One of the functions of Twitter, according to social activists, is that it can raise interest and attention in international media and among tech-savvy users outside of the country. It also gives reporters, who have limited access to news on the streets during protests, a way to cover the story through the reports of organisers and eye-witnesses within the country. Sympathisers from outside the country can also express their support, as was reported to be the case in Moldova in April 2009. Of the 700 people twittering there during the protests, less than 200 were in Moldova at time.


"A study by Mike Edwards, a social network researcher at Parsons The New School for Design, examined 79,000 tweets related to the Iran protests, and found that one-third are repostings of other tweets. The general ratio of reposts to posts is 1-to-20, and even in other fast-breaking global news events, when reposting might be more common, such as the swine flu outbreak, Edwards says he has seen the number go only as high as 1 in 5. This could indicate the amount of information deployed by protestors in Iran is small compared to the amount recirculated by outsiders, although Edwards cautions there are other possible explanations."


There is the possibility that new technologies might serve a dual role of 1) keeping the world's attention focused on protests, while 2) at the same time exaggerating the movement's momentum. One analyst commented that the Iranian president had a base of support that was not apparent internationally because it was composed of primarily rural people who lacked access to newer communication technology. Thus, they lacked the access to international media that might give them, as well as the protestors, a voice outside of Iran.


The article concludes that governments facing participatory uprising are now having to contend with protestors’ access to social media in otherwise closed societies where television and newspapers are state-run. Their strategy of containment of opposition voices is now facing the challenge of social networking tools which have an international reach.

BusinessWeek website [7] on June 17 2009.