In Other News…
The significant global event of the last few days is of course the Iranian election, and specifically its fallout.
The reports coming out of the country trigger a combination of stunned amazement at the apparent transparency of the fraud (have you seen that graph which shows the growth of Ahmadinejad’s lead being almost entirely consistent across every region and at every point in the count?) and admiration for the people who, in the face of violence and in some cases the death of their friends, are on the streets protesting the theft of their votes and the coup that appears to have been perpetrated in their country.
And in the midst of it, I have to stand up and say “I was wrong” in my somewhat cynical view that much social media, and Twitter in particular, is just a shallow fad. While obviously anything may turn out to be faddish over time, the Twitter feeds of many of those participating in the events have been by turns compelling, shocking, heartwarming, depressing and inspirational. The channel that Twitter has provided for people to tell the world what’s happening, while many mainstream media outlets have either been silenced or failed to provide full coverage (I’m looking at you in particular CNN), is remarkable in its immediacy and effectiveness.
@persiankiwi and @change_for_iran, plus many others, I salute you.
EDIT: And as I just spotted, I salute Twitter itself and its hosting partner NTT for recognising the role they’re currently playing in supporting this communication and postponing critical maintenance http://tinyurl.com/ktwde6