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This Revolution will be Digital

It's truly amazing what is going on in Iran. In the span of a little less than a week, our public perception of the Iranians has done one huge 180. No longer do we think that they all hunkered down in some mosque planning the next attack on America or hacking into our computers trying to steal nuclear secrets of burning American flags and effigies of our leaders.


All of a sudden, they look very different to us. We can relate to them better today that we could last week. They are simply standing up for themselves, trying to point out to the world that, "Hey, we're not all bad people - there's just a few at the top that are making things, well, difficult for us."

And during this crisis, a seemingly unlikely ally has rushed to their side - the global digital community. Since their government has imposed a virtual media and Internet blackout, the only way to get news out is via the Internet, specifically social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

What was truly amazing to me is how Twitter changed the timing on a major upgrade to occur at 1:30AM Iranian time - smack in the middle of our business day - so that they would get a minimal disruption of service. That statement alone sums up the efforts of thousands of others who have stepped up by providing anonymous proxy servers, virtual machine images and the like to the Iranian bloggers, so that they can get their message out past the government censors.

No one can predict what will happen next, but I think that we are all seeing how powerful a community organized with new social networking technologies can truly become.

Comments

BK_Denmark said…
Im sorry if you have been so ignorant to think that all of iran has been a bunch of terrorists just waiting to put a bomb in your house, but fortunately we are not all like that.

The younger generation of iran has been like this for a long time.. Actually there has been a huge resistance to the sitting government ever since it got in.

Well, this could be a long one but im ending it here before it gets out of hand. I do hope though that you read up on a little history.
Scott said…
I was afraid that if I got a little off topic, I would be completely misunderstood.

I personally do not, nor have I ever believed that Iran is chock full 'o terrorists. My point was that what the media has been reporting has drastically changed in the last few days, altering many - but not all - people's perception of what is actually going on in Iran. I challenge you to find any clip two weeks or older from the US media that portrayed Iran as anything but a country whose sole ambition was to destroy the US.

My main point of this entry was to underscore just how far technology has come in just a few short years. I don't think anyone could have predicted what Twitter and Facebook would become just a few years ago, let alone what they are being used as during this crisis. And speaking of Twitter and Facebook, they have trumped traditional media outlets like CNN when it comes to credibility, accuracy, and speed in which the news is being reported.

I also wanted to acknowledge those who were spending their time and resources to help the Iranians by providing a variety of technical resources.

I'm sorry if you misunderstood what I was trying to get across here. I hope that you have a better understanding now.

- Scott -
Anonymous said…
Scott,

Why depend on what the media says?

After all it is owned by them who are most interested in shaping public opinion.

And for your info, the technological revolution you appear to glory in, is the same technology that is gonna be used to enslave all of us.

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