On Tuesday evening June 16, I saw a news report about the Iran election and the Iranian government’s attempt to impose a media blackout. They do not want the mass protests regarding the results of the election out there. I think I saw it on CBS but wasn’t sure, so found this story today on Variety.com. Not my regular news source but I feel it covered the gist of the story I had seen. Given recent forum discussions on intellectual freedom that included discussing international differences in intellectual freedom as well as discussions about social networking and its pros and cons, I felt that this article would be appropriate to share in this week’s blog.
This is definitely an exciting pro stance for the value of Twitter and other social networking sites.
To summarize, on Tuesday the Iranian Culture Ministry banned all foreign journalists from covering opposition rallies in Tehran. There are reports that eight opposition supporters have already been killed. Foreign journalists in Iran had not been able to leave their offices or film in Tehran for much of Tuesday.
However, this is where Twitter and the other social networking sites come in. Eyewitness accounts of the street confrontations and protests have been transmitted via Twitter and other social networking sites. So the news is still getting out by the citizens! The U.S. State Dept. had even urged Twitter execs to delay a planned upgrade for fear it would cut Iranian citizens off from using the service. So despite widespread mobile phone and Internet outages in Tehran making it difficult for the journalists to cover the situation, the truth is still getting out. The attempts to stop the flow of information have had the reverse effect. A new kind of protest is at work!
Here is the link: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005038.html?categoryid=19&cs=1
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This story is all over today, here is another link to a Time article on the same:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1905125,00.html
It's great that these technologies are helping people get their voices heard.
ReplyDeleteI was watching CNN yesterday and they spent quite a bit of airtime showing pictures and video that had been posted on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. I'm glad that they can't blokc people from hearing about the tings happening.
ReplyDeleteComrades,
ReplyDeleteWriting about this subject and reading these news articles gives me goose bumps. I have never used Twitter; however, I am seriously thinking about joinging...just in case I ever need it. Viva la revolution!
Michael
What a great use for social networking sites! The Internet makes it much more difficult to suppress information from global view. Oppressive governments are still trying to keep matters quiet, but it was far easier to achieve that before the technological revolution. Despite the bad news, these stories about Iran demonstrate a real triumph of sorts for intellectual freedom and the power of regular people.
ReplyDelete