Twitter Saves the Day

Since Friday’s Presidential election, the Iranian government has blocked access to several social networking sites, such as Facebook, and cut off cell phone services. But updates have continued to stream in from Iran via Twitter. While these updates are only 140 characters or less– they are certainly packing a punch.

Recent tweets read:

“Demo spread from Azadi sq, to streets and hwys around it. Cars honking horns, smaller groups marching. False hopes?”

“Dispersed fights in Tehran; sound of shooting heard”

“Tho today’s protest is illegal, police not moving in. Possibly too big to handle, or images of attax beg. to embarrass ldrs”

Follow the election protests on Twitter here. The Atlantic has a page called “Live-Tweeting the Revolution” with Twitter updates, as well. Other sites, such as Flickr, are constantly uploading photographs from these rallies.

It almost seems like 24-hour news networks just can’t keep up– they’ve even been accused of falling behind on coverage by bloggers!

Update: Twitter has pushed back its scheduled down time due to how important it has become for communication with Iran over the past few days.

Samah Choudhury contributed to this post

AIUSA welcomes a lively and courteous discussion that follow our Community Guidelines. Comments are not pre-screened before they post but AIUSA reserves the right to remove any comments violating our guidelines.

17 thoughts on “Twitter Saves the Day

  1. dear sir/ madam
    i am mehwish aleem daughter of hector aleem. my father has a ngo named peace worldwide i have been trying everybody to help us but nobody is helping us. my father hector aleem is in jail for a balsphemy offence but he did not do blasphemy he is being trapped i continuously wrote to amnesty intl UN IJM and other orgsanizations but nobody is helping us. i want everybody to pressurze the government of pakistan to release my dad i want amnesty intl to take action my father has worked a lot for human rights he has received a peace award from the government of Pakistan. but when he is helpless nobody is helping him. now different cases are being lodged against us so that we could not go after him so please help us

    mehwish aleem

  2. dear sir/ madam
    i am mehwish aleem daughter of hector aleem. my father has a ngo named peace worldwide i have been trying everybody to help us but nobody is helping us. my father hector aleem is in jail for a balsphemy offence but he did not do blasphemy he is being trapped i continuously wrote to amnesty intl UN IJM and other orgsanizations but nobody is helping us. i want everybody to pressurze the government of pakistan to release my dad i want amnesty intl to take action my father has worked a lot for human rights he has received a peace award from the government of Pakistan. but when he is helpless nobody is helping him. now different cases are being lodged against us so that we could not go after him so please help us

    mehwish aleem

  3. امروز در تهران یک سر تظاهرات خاموش مردمی در خیابان آزادی بود و سر دیگرش در خیابان تخت طاووس.

  4. امروز در تهران یک سر تظاهرات خاموش مردمی در خیابان آزادی بود و سر دیگرش در خیابان تخت طاووس.

Comments are closed.