“ [Respective role of Twitter and of Iranians] Here’s the myth – some Western journalists shifted their focus from the role of Iranian people to the role of technology. Tehrani considers it amazing – and shameful – to suggest that there should be a nobel peace prize for Twitter, rather than for the Iranian protesters. “Twitter does not organize demonstrations.” The Iranian government can read tweets, so this is a lousy place to organize. Twitter can spread misinformation. One tweet claimed 700,000 people protesting at a mosque in Tehran – this “fact” got spread around Twitter… but it seems that fewer than 5,000 people actually showed up in real life. We can misunderstand who’s actually speaking on Twitter – people represent themselves as being on the ground, while they’re actually in the diaspora… or in some cases, might not actually be Iranian activists. Finally, he warns that citizen media may be becoming “militant media” in an Iranian context.
September 8, 2009
