The Revolutionary Tweets



"hughru RT @bloodfeast Change your twitter location to Tehran and your Time Zone to GMT +3:30. Help shield #IranElection and confuse Iranian censors"


"triplenickel RT @avdeev: Продолжение сериала Я Грузин: меняем локейшн на Tehran и Time Zone на GMT 3.5! Типа: Help shield #IranElection and confuse ..."

"kitisoares RT @dodoazevedo: #IranElection change your time zone to GMT +3:30 and your location to Tehran--make it harder to shut down the bloggers."

"the_weary RT from Iran our scout at Evin reports many many prisoners being brought and high security outside #Iranelection #IranElection #gr88 #Tehran"

When will the revolution come to your door? It's already there in your house, on your computer. Instantly you can see the movements of a crowd, the emotions, the shouts, the pain, in the time it takes to type out 140 characters you will know more than the news stations and newspapers. I have long berated Twitter as a forum of ego driven tweets, but in the last few days, I have become a follower again, because of the force of nature that is Twitter when it fills a void. Twitter saw this and delayed their maintenance to facilitate communication on the ground and around the world.

"GadyMayen @ricksanchezcnn Hey Rick, no one will really know who won the election. Twitter users in Tehran said they burned ballot boxes."

Within 30 seconds there were 373 new tweets about Tehran.

"haverholm RT from IRAN :Toronto Globe reporter in tehran detained, beaten http://bit.ly/UspA0 #IranElection #gr88"

"jasonwatkinspdx wow, the march in Tehran is huge: http://bit.ly/B01wq http://bit.ly/wo4Cb http://bit.ly/MRNaH "

"eampire RT from Iran Confirmed Multiple Sources: Peaceful Rally Tomorrow(Wednesday) Haft Tir Sq Tehran at 4pm, Spread to all iranians #iranelection"

"mcshelleyshell RT @TehranBureau Tehran Rallies confirmed Wed jun17 5pm SILENT PROTEST 7 Tir Square . Tehran Thurs jun18. 2pm bolvare sharzad sazmane melal"

The power of communication is in the speed and the reach, will it be the fastest fingers with the most followers win?

To see the latest tweets on Twitter.com, go here

Image: Screen shot of active Twitter window

Comments

Since the dawn of the social networking phenomenon—which by the way is now years old (sarcasm mine)—critics have rightfully scoffed at the phenomenally popular sites as anything but an avenue towards adequate political mobilization. Much more likely, it seemed, ‘Facebook’ and ‘Myspace’ were instead distracting an American youth that seemed more interested in finding Paris Hilton on Rodeo Blvd. than Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

But this Twitter thing, or rather this Twitter in Iran thing seems to be something entirely new. Maybe it is that the 140 character-limit imposed by the site panders to something earlier sites could not: raw, spontaneous emotion. I’m left wondering if Twitter could be something of a climactic step towards a true decentralization of information, a final push towards a more comprehensive understanding of what life is like at the base of a social movement inside Iran. Livejournal, eat your heart out.

Thanks for this! It's pretty amazing to see how the experience (for lack of a better word) of international news events has shifted with the advent of these tools. It used to be that I would tune in to CNN when I felt that I needed immediate connection to an event, but now the web gives me a faster line.

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Los Angeles is the ultimate networked metropolis, and in 404 City blogger Ophelia Chong takes a look at our diverse web of communities, all of them interwoven by freeways, shared history, media, automobiles, and the ever present digital penumbra of cell-phones and computers.

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