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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Iranian twitter

Following what's happening in Iran on Twitter is scary and fascinating at the same time. As an outsider on the other side of the world you see the tweets barge in at a tremendous speed, giving you the feeling that you are actually in the middle of it. But when you read stuff like

Xtal RT change yr Twitter settings to show GMT +03:30 Tehran as yr timezone & change home city to Tehran 2 confuse Iranian censors

or the uncountable tweets helping out with IP addresses, offering tech support, warning for iranian intelligence using the same channels, ... I must admit it gets too close for comfort. What is rumour and what isn't? Recounting in contested area's is announced: true or false? people being arrested: true or false? As always, authentic sources are difficult to define on the Web but one thing is sure: what is happening over there and the way Twitter seems to be the one medium standing in a closed down country is a major shift in the use of what we, spoiled brats, only consider as cool-tools-till-the-next-cool-thing-comes-around. This seems actually to be accomplishing something.

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