#IranElection #gr88

by: Natasha Chart

Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 10:00

If weren't following what followed the election in Iran over the weekend, that might be due to its not being televised, but Twittered and shared on other internet social media.

As I write this, the most retweeted (RT or rt) comments seem to be a call for protestors to wear black today in mourning for those killed by the security forces and a declaration that the only violent actions are being taken by the Basij/Baseej volunteer militia.

There are also calls for the crowds at rallies to remain quiet and calm, mixed with warnings that plainclothes Basij may mingle with the crowds and try to stir up trouble. Rachel Maddow's segment on the uprising last night shows what at least one crowd of demonstrators have been doing in response to police - sitting down. This clip shows another group calmly standing beside and talking with police:

The Maddow clip was also interesting, as it ended on a discussion with Reza Aslan, a contributor at The Daily Beast and a senior fellow at the Orfalea Center on Global and International Studies at UCSB, who talked about the power of mourning rallies, such as the one Mousavi has called for today, in honor of those killed by security forces. Aslan notes that successively larger mourning rallies, followed by even more repressive crackdowns, were what brought down the Shah.

Aslan also pointed out that Mousavi (a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad) and Rafsanjani were among the original leaders of the revolutionary movement, so not only do they know how to bring down a government, the current situation represents a serious split between the Iranian religous leadership. The two Grand Ayatollahs, Montazeri and Sanei, also among the original revolutionaries and publicly condemning election fraud, even outrank Khamenei in the religious hierarchy.

It's worth noting here, as the Obama administration seemed to realize even before the election, that the effects of any given outcome to this power struggle are "unpredictable" and "not wholly straightforward." All factions support talks with America. All the faction leaders have been long-time members of the ruling political establishment. This is not to say that it's a uniform polity, but as Robert Fisk says, (though I've been told that some particulars of this article are in dispute,) "[The protest] is absolutely not against the Islamic republic or the Islamic revolution."

No one at all knows what Iran is going to look like when things settle down again and even if it looks quite different, it isn't going to look like the US or Europe, even if it is as democratic as its people want it to be.

Still, chances are that if the protests are halted through successful government attempts to cut off communication among the crowds before an acceptable political solution is reached, this will go exactly as previous protests have gone and the uncoordinated, thinning crowds will be put down through a resurgence in violence. Right now, Twitter seems to be at least useful to them for some internal coordination as well as getting limited information out to the rest of the world now that the journalists are all being sent home.

As of yesterday, Mashable said the #IranElection tag reached 221,744 Tweets per hour at the peak. (They also offered a how-to guide on tracking the election through social media and blogs like Revolutionary Road.)

But there are issues. Aren't there always? For one thing, Twitter is just Twitter and you lose a lot of nuance in the medium - we'd all rather have social media be an adjunct to regular news, but that's slim pickings. These are the things I've been told, and a couple I've observed, can be done to help keep communication channels open so that Iranians can talk to each other:

- Watch out for these spam Twitter accounts that seem to be malicious, possibly operated by Iranian security forces, and spreading scurrilous or intimidating rumors.

- Do change your Twitter location to Tehran, GMT +3:30, or to another city in Iran, to help hide genuine Iranian accounts.

- Don't change your location to Kabul, this is government disinformation.

- Messages claiming that the rallies are all upper class, liberal kids, or that the security forces being called out are Hamas or Hezbollah, are disinformation. Don't RT these.

- Don't RT the names of Iranian bloggers or proxy IPs in public, replace the name with "RT from Iran", and only follow the #iranelection and #gr88 tags.

- Even the #iranelection and #gr88 tags may be subject to spamming. Take it as read that people calling for protests contrary to the country's Islamic law ('Iranian women should all remove their hejab'), accusing Iranian bloggers of being foreign agents, or calling for violence are illegitimate.

- Keep communications clear by using the tags only for pertinent information, no trivia or low info messages, but do RT the times and locations of marches (without the names of the bloggers attached) in order to help get the word out.

Anyway, that's about it from me. If you want more, check out the Guardian's Iran news feed, the Huffington Post's Iran page, and BoingBoing's reading list. Also, Chris Anderson of TED has more on Twitter and Iran from Clay Shirky (@cshirky), and Shirky recommends that everyone read this Rebecca MacKinnon article about internet censorship in democratic countries.