YNET NEWS: On Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and via text messages: An inside look on how the Iranian political struggle is really being fought
The name Ahmed Maher may not mean much to the average Iranian, but there is a direct link between the 25-year-old Egyptian engineer and the events of the last 48 hours in Iran. Maher was one of the organizers of the 80,000 people-strong rally in Cairo last April that also became know as "the bread riots." This protest was organized mainly through Facebook.
In Iran, where Facebook has been blocked for two weeks, it was Twitter. Anyone following the recent elections in Iran and the clashes that ensued could not overlook the central role the internet and the new media played in the events, especially at the hands of the opposition.
In an interview to al-Jazeera, Saeed Shariati, one of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reformist opponents, said: "For us the internet is like the air force in a military operation. It bombards the enemy's outposts and lays the ground for the invasion of the infantries – our activists, to win the battle."
By this time Shariati has most likely been locked up and silenced.
But nevertheless, it is impossible to keep everyone quiet, especially given the fact that about half of the 46 million voters in the Iranian elections were under the age of 30, the age group that comprises the majority of internet users in a country where the technology's penetration rate has already reached, by some estimates, to 34%.
110 million text messages a day
The Iranian authorities didn't take any chances: Ahead of the elections any website that was deemed likely to jeopardize the regime – from Facebook to Ynetnews – has been blocked. The opponents then turned to another effective mass media tool: The text message, which allowed them to organize rallies supporting the opposition and to update their Twitter accounts, in which they told the world of the developments taking place behind the Persian iron curtain.
However, the government quickly blocked this channel of communication as well, after more than 110 million text messages had been sent on a daily basis in the days preceding the vote.
This was when Twitter, the hottest update service in the Western hemisphere, was recruited for a more noble purpose: Protecting freedom of speech and freedom of choice.
Iranians who own smartphones (like Israelis, the Iranians are big technology buffs), or surfers using services that bypass the blocking imposed on internet providers, continued to use Twitter to organize mass protests against what was later perceived as election fraud by the regime.
Iranian web activists have also managed to develop Twitter navigation tools like the twazzup website, which concentrates all Iran-relevant updates according to categories. >>> Niv Lilien, Nir Boms | Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Niv Lilien, editor-in-chief of Ynet's Computers and Internet channel
Nir Boms, vice president of the Center for Freedom in the Middle East
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