Aliza Sherman: She Knows Social and Mobile: Viva La Twitter Revolution from our armchairs

Over the last week, I've felt like an armchair revolutionary. I'm not sure how else to explain it. I can't claim any credit for doing anything revolutionary, however. Still I - along with fellow Twitterers - have been engaged in a communications coup that in part helped lead to a groundswell of international support and awareness of the Iran election protests.

For me, it all started with a retweet. I noticed that one of the people I'm following retweeted something about #iranelections by another Twitterer @persiankiwi. He (and I use "he" only out of convenience as I don't know who this person is) had 200 followers, no bio but location was set at Tehran.

I didn't know what to do, but knew I had to do something. I wasn't sure if retweeting someone whose identity I couldn't verify was a good idea. I sent out a tweet to see if anyone else knew if @persiankiwi was legit. No response. Still, I felt that I had to do something. I decided to do a little investigation of my own with my limited resources (and even more limited experience investigating someone).

All I really could consider were:

1. Content of Tweets - I read back on past tweets to see what they were tweeting about. It seemed to be someone who was actually in Tehran and gradually beginning to engage in what was happening around him.

2. Nature of Tweets -There was nothing overtly inflammatory about his tweets. He didn't seem to be instigating anything but instead participating because he seemed to have some computer/Internet knowledge that was facilitating his access to Twitter.

3. Followers - He only had 200 followers at the time but they seemed to be diverse, international and then some in Tehran as well.

4. Following - He was following predominantly Twitterers identifies as being in Iran, however, he also had a mix of some recognizable names on Twitter.

5. Gut - At this point, all I could do was follow my gut. I had no idea who this person was but his information seemed steady, correlated with what we could find out via the news (which at this point was minimal) and informative.

I followed him. Then began to retweet him.

At that point, I didn't know if my 4500 or so followers would be of any real benefit to him, but I knew the exponential power of Twitter meant that it wasn't necessarily just my actions alone but the subsequent actions of some of my key followers that could make things happen. And if others out there in the Twittersphere felt the same way as I did and did the same thing as I was doing, something could REALLY happen.

Within less than 48 hours, @persiankiwi was up to 20,000 followers. And the media had taken notice of what we were doing on Twitter (and Facebook) including the swell of media bashing as we desperately sought out current and "reliable news" from our "trusted" news sources. I was floored at how much digging I had to do to find anything but not surprised.

Ann Curry from NBC talked about this at the 140 Characters Conference in New York City last week. She talked about the struggle journalists have to get the "real" story out there. I have felt for a long time now that our U.S. news programs are more about entertainment and ratings than a reporting of global events. That's why I've turned more often to the BBC for world news than any American network.

But on Twitter, despite the risks and potential for deceipt - and misinformation - there is still the chance to tether a line between us and them, between Americans/the world and Iranians in the midst of a simmering revolution. We were there. Yes, we were sitting in our armchairs at Internet's length from the fray, but we were a part of what was happening and not just inactive observers.

Then what? Many people changed their locations to Tehran in hopes of thwarting the efforts of the opposition to track down the Iranian Twitterers. But Rita J. King of Dancing Ink who spoke at #140conf talked about both an ethical issue with replacing our locations and also a confusion we'd be causing for the Iranians searching for others in their proximity - we'd be making it harder for them. So I used that information to decide not to switch my location.

Next we were given instructions for changing our Twitter avatars to green. I did this immediately because I had to do something and this seemed to be the Twitter equivalent of waving a flag in solidarity and support on a potentially global scale.

But now what? As I read the news now coming in regarding #iran elections, I'm disheartened to see the ruling powers working to crush the Iranian people, to silence their voices, to snuff out their efforts. I don't know if I could have mustered the courage to do what they have done - and are doing - putting themselves in harms way for a cause they believe in. That is an amazing quality of courage.

@persiankiwi is now at over 30,000. He has a photo of a child behind bars in green as his avatar. His bio reads:

If any do fail to judge by that which Allah has sent down, they are tyrants - Allah Akbar yare Mohammad (s)

He has placed a link to Mir Hossein Mousavi's Facebook page.

And we still do not know who he/she is, but he/she is our touchstone to another people in a faraway land who are doing what many of us do not have the courage or wherewithal to do but we can do something. Something.

What else can we do? We are safe and comfortable in our armchairs, boasting our green avatars, retweeting, paying attention, but how long will this last? How many people will be injured? Disappear? Die? And how do we know that we are retweeting the right things?

What are we doing, and how can we do it well from this distance?

I don't have any answers. I just jump onto Twitter and retweet what I can in between going about my life and my daily work. Is that enough? Is it still making a difference?

What are you doing, and do you know what else we can do?

Aliza Sherman: She Knows Social and Mobile

June 21, 2009

Viva La Twitter Revolution from our armchairs

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