Photo Gallery
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- A supporter of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi forms a heart shape with her hands, while wearing green ribbons – the color of the party, amidst a festive atmosphere at an election rally rally in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, June 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
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- Supporters of former Mir Hossein Mousavi wear the green colors of the campaign as they attend a pre-election gathering at a stadium in Tehran June 9, 2009. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj)
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- A supporter of candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi holds up a painted hand during a campaign rally at Haydarniya Stadium on June 9, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. (Majid/Getty Images)
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- Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, presidential candidate for Iran, gather during a campaign rally at Haydarniya Stadium on June 9, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. (Majid/Getty Images
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- A supporter of presidential candidate, Mahdi Karroubi, chants slogans, with stickers on her face and head scarf reading “change for Iran” at a campaign gathering in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, June 9, 2009. Karroubi, a challenger to the hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a former parliament speaker and the only cleric in the June 12 election race. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
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- A supporter of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad displays her hand painted with the Iranian flag, also used as a sign for his party, at his final election campaign rally, on Azadi street in western Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, June 10, 2009. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
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- A supporter of Iran’s former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, a candidate in the presidential elections, holds a banner during a gathering near Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) monument on the last day of campaigning June 10, 2009. (REUTERS/Damir Sagolj)
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- A woman shows the ink on her finger after casting her ballot for the Iranian presidential election in Tehran June 12, 2009. (REUTERS/Caren Firouz)
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- Supporters of main challenger and reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi shout amidst a festive atmosphere at an election rally at the Heidarnia stadium in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, June 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Collection of tweets
from 12 June 2009 – 22 Khordad 1388 on the Persian calendar – the date of Iran’s parliamentary election, which erupted in massive protests swiftly followed by a brutal crackdown with the loss of many lives and the arrest, torture and detention of thousands.
Video: Mousavi speaks to Al Jazeera #election #iran http://bit.ly/uIFEc
— weddady (@weddady) June 12, 2009
As Iran Goes to Polls, Opposition Warns Of Vote Rigging | http://tinyurl.com/kj25kw
— TIME.com (@TIME) June 12, 2009
I’ve re-tweeted the following at the same time today as they were originally posted.
Wahl im Iran: “Es wird Ärger geben” http://tinyurl.com/lwo6xv
— SPIEGEL ONLINE (@SPIEGELONLINE) June 12, 2009
Guardian (London) coverage of Iran election is cool: http://tr.im/oi9M
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 12, 2009
Actual link for Guardian article in Rachel Maddow tweet: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/jun/12/iran-middleeast
Iran election could make history http://bit.ly/i9XKW
— Anderson Cooper (@andersoncooper) June 12, 2009
In a Ballot Box Line in Iran #iranelection #iran #electionhttp://bit.ly/QoBMs
— weddady (@weddady) June 12, 2009
Iran : “J’ai dû attendre deux heures pour voter” http://bit.ly/ZfWGQ
— Le Monde (@lemondefr) June 12, 2009
Participación masiva en Irán http://tinyurl.com/l9rark
— EL PAIS (@el_pais) June 12, 2009
Iran rivals claim poll victory: Both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, and Mi.. http://tinyurl.com/lajt2y
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 12, 2009
Polémicas elecciones en Irán: Presidente y su principal contendor se declaran ganadoreshttp://bit.ly/11yC1q
— Globovisión (@globovision) June 12, 2009
Iran state media claim Ahmadinejad in lead w/69%. Mousavi claims “irregularities.” Both claim win. BBC report: http://tinyurl.com/kqzsbb
— Jerry (@badjerry) June 12, 2009
Iran election ends in tense stand-off: Iran’s presidential election was heading to a tense stand-off as state ne.. http://tinyurl.com/n5mpat
— Financial Times (@FT) June 12, 2009
Iran police break up crowd of Mousavi supporters http://r.reuters.com/feh96c
— Reuters Real Time (@ReutersRealTime) June 12, 2009
Los principales candidatos en Irán se atribuyen la victoria http://tinyurl.com/l45ysn
— EL PAIS (@el_pais) June 12, 2009
Competing claims of victory in Iran election: http://bit.ly/2REH6 [RT @latimesworld in Tehran] | Full coverage: http://latimes.com/iran
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) June 12, 2009
BBC coverage of the protests over election results:
The rise of social media
International media correspondents were quickly expelled from Iran after protests erupted. Citizen media took over, and social media was transformed from an unpopular web wasteland where bored people could read about what – or who – other people were eating, to become the world’s biggest platform for real-time reporting of events. It’s also arguably the world’s biggest platform for propaganda, and a spam magnet sans pareil.
The geeks and nerdy college grads who created today’s most popular social media applications were only too happy to leverage the instant celebrity status bestowed by the media as a result of the massive increase in popularity that the Iran election generated: most if not all are millionaires now. The activists who fuelled that meteoric rise definitely get the raw end of the deal. Governments all over the world, from the US to the UK, from China to Kuwait, seem to view social media as both an innovative tool to spy on their citizens, and a means to oppress them. These security-obsessed states show a disturbing willingness to prosecute users with extreme sentences, often on spurious evidence but with serious charges such as “endangering national security”. This is testament to the importance of social media in society today.
Meanwhile, application developers make changes that disrupt and inconvenience users without warning, and incidents of arbitrary censorship of user content are fairly commonplace. None of the apps were built with the concept of user security and privacy as paramount, and re-engineering efforts don’t seem to be a priority compared to, say, changing terms of service to increase marketing and monetisation opportunities. As we’ve watched Google’s departure from its “don’t be evil” tag-line with a mixture of alarm and resignation, sites like Twitter have similarly changed course from “it’s your content, you own it” to “it’s your content and although you can’t access it, we’re selling it.” (and will readily censor or surrender it in response to government requests). As an added challenge, there is the growing trend of user credentials being “leaked” and the accompanying rise in incidents of user accounts being “hacked”.
Related content
For fascinating first-hand observations and insight into what it’s like in Iran these days, I recommend Laura Secor’s excellent article in the New Yorker.
