An Iranian eruption driven by YouTube and Twitter

Start getting used to this pattern: Shortly after the Iranian government announced the results of last week’s presidential election, the system that supports cell phone text-messaging in Tehran went dead.

Supporters of the loser, Mir Hussein Moussavi, rushed to YouTube to post video of impromptu demonstrations and clashes with police. It was a footrace to the Internet.

This was posted on Mousavi’s campaign web site, and distributed through a web site in the U.S.:

On Friday evening Iran time, and in the middle of live internet coverage by Mowj-e Sevom (Third Wave), several officers without uniform and without a warrant attacked the office of Mowj-e Sevom in Gheytariyeh, Tehran and threatened the journalists and others who were there for interviews, beating them up and using tear gas.

This from The Nation:

Forget CNN or any of the major American “news” networks. If you want to get the latest on the opposition protests in Iran, you should be reading blogs, watching YouTube or following Twitter updates from Tehran, minute-by-minute.

Some absolutely riveting and thrilling reporting has been done over Twitter by a university student in Tehran who goes by the moniker Tehran Bureau. The Iranian authorities shut his website down over the weekend and he was attacked by hard-line militias but he’s been able to send short posts around the world over Twitter.

Search for “iranelection” on Twitter, and you’ll see dozens of new entries — every second:

— “khamenei website is back online – waas hacked before”
— “confirmed – homeowners in Rasht are giving refuge to people running from Baseej attacks.”
— “3 of our group missing from afternoon – we have no news from them.”

The thing one must be wary of, of course, is the fact that these are all English-language communications, which means most of the messaging we’re reading is coming from Iran’s educated elite.

But there’s no denying the drama playing out over the Internet, via devices that hadn’t been invented two or three years ago. This BBC video of Iranian police charging a crowd was captured by an Italian journalist using a cell phone:

Remember that the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2007 was preceded by intensive cyberattacks that blocked in-country, Internet-based communication.

Nor is it a coincidence that Twitter, Google and YouTube are the topic of a study newly posted on the web site of the U.S. Army War College:

“During conflict, proliferation and accessability of New Media have played havoc with traditional notions of informing, shaping, and swaying public opinion,” a summary begins. Specifically, the paper compares the manner in which Israel handled new media during the 2006 incursion into Lebanon, and the 2008 conflict in Gaza with Hamas.

New media can’t be dismissed in rolling conflicts, the report said:

With easy access, enormous reach, and breadth, this upstart has flexed sufficient muscle during recent conflicts to alter or transform our traditional view of information and its impact on populations and military operations. Simple to use, new media leapfrogs ordinary rules and conventions.

At the same time, its very user-friendliness encourages unconventional adversaries to manipulate a growing number of related technologies to generate favorable publicity and recruit supporters. For these reasons and more, civilian and military leaders can ill-afford to ignore it.

Perhaps more importantly, they must not fail to understand and use the new form of information dissemination, as it possesses serious implications for military operations.

So that PDA in your hands is more powerful than you thought. And more vulnerable, too.

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