(For my latest response to Will Heaven’s response to this article, please check this link: http://tinyurl.com/yljnan5)
Waking up every day and being a journalist is a very conflicting job. Sometimes, you read the work of other journalists who’ve written responsibly and with full knowledge of the subject matter and you feel proud of who you are. Other times, people write things that make you want to just sit there and mourn the fact that he or she belongs to the same profession as you. When I read such things, I understand why people have lost their respect for and trust in modern-day journalists.
One such piece was Will Heaven’s critique of the people on Twitter who have been active for the cause of Iran for almost 200 days now in a blog for the print and online edition of Britain’s Daily Telegraph under the headline, “Iran and Twitter: the fatal folly of the online revolutionaries”. Don’t get me wrong, he has freedom of speech on his side. But every now and then, I take the liberty to use the same right to point out fellow journalists for filling the internet with junk that is not only misrepresenting the truth, but also blatantly insults not only our intelligence, but also ourselves. I thought Will Heaven fits that bill quite neatly.
I’m simply going to use my old method of replying to his paragraphs one by one in order. I have not changed any of his words and for the sake of simplicity, I will address him directly.
“As young men and women took to the streets of Tehran on Sunday to confront the Revolutionary Guard, another very different protest sprang to life all over the world. This one didn’t face tear-gas or gunfire. And its participants didn’t risk prison, torture or death. It took place on 2009′s most trendy website: Twitter.com.”
Well, how is the risk of having your family imprisoned, tortured or killed? Did you know that dozens of social media activists have families in Iran and dozens more have received emails from the Iranian government telling them to stop or else their families would face serious harm? Did you know that Fereshteh Ghazi, another activist who writes about prisoners, also has her family in Iran as well? Did you know that one of the most active of the Twitterati, Mehdi Saharkhiz’ father Isa Saharkhiz is in prison and being tried in connection with the protests?
I think everyone would agree that even if people aren’t personally facing imprisonment, torture and death, their families facing the same peril is scary enough to force one to give them a huge round of applause for having the courage to stick to what they’re doing. The fact that you didn’t know this or chose to ignore it is something that I’m not going comment on. Next time, make sure you include these facts before you try to belittle them.
“For Twitter enthusiasts, this has been a bumper year. With a new online tool at their chubby fingertips, they’ve helped to change the world. Or at least, that’s what they think: the so-called Iranian Twitter Revolution recently won a Webby award for being “one of the top 10 internet moments of the decade”.”
Chubby fingertips? Nice use of the common stereotype that portrays all geeks as being overweight. This here is just a direct insult. I’m not sure how you manage to call yourself a journalist and use such degrading language to get your fictitious points across. As for the Iranian Twitter Revolution, that’s just a creation of the mainstream media who are ignorant of what is going on inside and outside Iran.
The protests in Iran are turning into a revolution, however, social networking websites had very little to do with it. The reason why they are getting kudos is because they helped people bypass the failure of the mainstream media to cover the events in Iran and get informed about what was really happening on the streets of Tehran as well as shore up outside support for the cause.
Get this straight; it was your failure to provide timely and accurate news regarding the events in Iran that forced the citizens of the world to step up and help educate people about the courage and perseverance of the Iranian people and the brutality and inhumanity of the Iranian government. You can whine all you want, but you have failed. And the fact that you failed does not give you the right to attempt and devalue the work of others.
“Let me tell you why I find that deeply troubling. There has been no revolution in Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has held on to power after a rigged election. Meanwhile, protests continue to be violently suppressed by government forces and unregulated militias, with human rights groups saying that at least 400 demonstrators have been killed since June. Dozens of those arrested remain unaccounted for, and many of those set free tell of rape and vicious beatings in Iran’s most notorious prisons.
So don’t tell me that Twitter and other online networks have improved the situation in Iran. It’s deluded to think that “hashtags”, “Tweets” and “Twibbons” have threatened the regime for a second. If all the internet could muster in a decade was smug armchair activists and pontificating techies, we may as well all log off in the New Year.”
Again, Twitter has not improved the situation in Iran; it has improved the flow of news about that situation to the outside world. And, it has helped mobilize activists outside Iran into protesting across the world to pressure the international community into taking action against the Iranian government. The only one claiming that is you and your compatriots in mainstream media.
If you’d followed the news or understood what you’ve read, you would have known about the July 25th protests where thousands of people gathered in more than 100 cities across the globe in support of the Iranian people’s struggle for human rights. There have been dozens of protests in dozens of other cities since. I attended one just a week ago. These protests have served to both inform the public and to pressure governments to deal with Iran’s repression of its citizens more harshly then they might have otherwise would have.
This would not have been possible if social networking websites had not connected people and informed them about what was going on inside Iran; because frankly, all I see the mainstream media being interested in is Iran’s nuclear energy program. So again, your ignorance does not change the facts on the ground. Your rants against geeks only highlight your own prejudice. It does not downplay their massive role in achieving the goals I just mentioned.
“Here’s the other thing “social media experts” will forget to tell you: dictatorships across the world now use their own tools to hunt down online protesters. In Iran, for instance, the government controls the internet with a nationalised communications company. Using a state-of-the-art method called “Deep Packet Inspection”, data packages sent between protesters are now automatically broken down, checked for keywords, and reconstructed within milliseconds. Every Tweet and Facebook message, in other words, is firmly on the regime’s radar.
As a result, the crackdown in Iran has been easier than ever before. Once the Revolutionary Guard intercept a suspect message, they are able to pinpoint the location of a guilty protester using their computer’s IP address. Then it’s just a question of knocking on doors – and confiscating laptops and PCs for hard evidence.
Sadly, when this happens, those outside Iran cannot always absolve themselves of responsibility. If you’re an internet user in Britain who communicates with an Iranian protester online, or encourages them to send anti-regime messages over the internet, you could be putting their life in danger.”
Here’s a bit of education in anti-filtering software. There’s a software called Tor – similar to Freegate – that allows people to connect to the internet without fear of Deep Packet Inspection tools. You can figure out that someone is using Tor with DPI, but you can never find out what they’re sending. Our ‘chubby-fingered’ friends were intelligent and passionate enough to get that into Iranian hands as early as June. And that’s not it. Net activists have already created several new anti-DPI softwares that have already reached Iranians and are being skillfully used by a select few to get information out. With these, the government can’t even figure out if someone is using anti-filtering software or is connected straight up.
If that were not true, you wouldn’t get all these videos, pictures and other information about Iran so readily available within minutes of protests from Iran. Just because you don’t know about these things, does not mean they don’t exist or they don’t work.
And contrary to what you claim, no one actually has to encourage Iranians to communicate information about Iran to the outside world. They do it themselves. They feel a need to help the world understand what is going on in their country and not just have to read fear-mongering articles on the mainstream media about how Iran is going to bomb Israel and there’d be World War III and such. What the techies have done is help them access the software that allows them to do it without fear of getting arrested.
“There’s nothing wrong with spreading awareness outside Iran, but it’s horribly naive to think that supporting illegal activity in a foreign country has no ethical dimension. It’s equally foolish, of course, to kid yourself that you’re on the front line.
For the Iranian authorities, the detective work often doesn’t have to be remotely hi-tech. As Evgeny Morozov recently noted, it is now possible to calculate a person’s sexual orientation by analysing who their Facebook friends are. Sure, it’s a quirky news story in Britain, but terrifying for gay people living in countries such as Iran, where homosexuality is outlawed.”
Illegal activity? What illegal activity? Iranians are granted the right to take to streets and peacefully protest by the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Just because the government is overstepping Iranian law does not mean you have to go out of your way to accommodate their will in order to hammer home your fallacious arguments. As for your assertion that helping them spread the word about the situation is wrong, then you should know that freedom of expression is a universal human right. No country’s laws can infringe upon that – and I mean none.
I’m not sure you know that Facebook and Twitter are officially banned in Iran right now. People in Iran who are using the two applications have created accounts specifically to disseminate news and information – not for dating. Even if the government finds those accounts, it won’t be able to trace them back to their owners because of the softwares I mentioned above.
“Perhaps Barack Obama was one of the first world leaders to realise that social media have their limits. In March, on the feast of Nowruz (the Farsi New Year), he posted an online video in which he addressed the Iranian people and their leaders directly.
It signaled the launch of “YouTube diplomacy”, one commentator gushed. But, like the Twitter Revolution, it has achieved very little – Iran remains determined to become a nuclear power, and America is still described by the regime as “the Great Satan”.”
As explained before, the Twitter Revolution is strictly about reporting and activist event planning. As for the YouTube diplomacy jab, that was another creation of the same fickle media that knows little about what’s going on during protests out on the streets in daylight with video evidence at hand, but is more than ready to scare the hell out of everyone by proclaiming that Iran will get the ability to make a nuke soon even though all of Iran’s nuclear energy installations are deep underground with scarcely anyone allowed to inspect what happens there.
Please, write up a piece chronicling the failures of the same industry you are associated with before coming up with ludicrous and unfounded accusations against others.
“So what can we do? Well, perhaps that’s a question for 2010, because the internet, combined with “offline” networks, probably can encourage openness in dictatorships. But before we work out how, let’s first drop the self-congratulation.”
That final assertion is just laughable. What can you do? You can actually report after researching the subject you are about to write on. You can find sources inside Iran to get some real news out. And you can stop hurling insults at will. Finally, we don’t need to self-congratulate ourselves. The media does it for us quite neatly. I will point you to just one article about the Twitter Revolution published a few days ago in one of Sweden’s largest tabloid newspapers, Expressen:
“Today Mousavis Facebook page [a page run by activists from outside Iran] is a more secure source of news than Al-Jazeera and the BBC, while micro-blogs and websites like the dailyniteowl.com and rahesabz.net [both websites that use direct information from tweets and Facebook] offer sympathizers as well as media consumers, fast, reliable news [about Iran] that traditional newsrooms cannot provide.”
That is just one out of hundreds of articles that have been published about the worldwide effort to help get the reality on Iran’s streets to people around the globe through social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and through microblogs. I understand your frustration at having to keep up with citizen reporting. But that does not give you the right to so flagrantly distort facts and insult a mass of people that have devoted their own time without any monetary compensation to helping their brothers and sisters in Iran.
Next time, if you’re going to write on this subject, please, inform yourself about the many terms you used and try to show the real picture. Your failure at complying with journalistic standards is not going to go unanswered anymore.
A very satisfying read! Sometimes thoroughness is really required to point out just how wrong someone is, because they have created a parfait of lies that needs to be dissected layer by layer to truly appreciate how malicious it is.
What I hated most about Heaven’s article was his implication that if you run across someone on the internet asking for help getting the truth out about a repressive dictatorship, the proper response is to tell them to get over it, go home, and shut up, because the dictator is in power and could hurt you if you make any trouble. Don’t rock the boat, foreigners, just accept your lot in life or you’ve nobody to blame but yourselves if you get slaughtered.
As if his own British people are not incredibly proud of their ancestors who finally stood up to the King and demanded a charter of basic rights, even though that actually WAS “illegal” and what the Greens are doing is completely legal under Iranian law! It is the Basiji who break the law and abduct people under no due process. Just sloppy thinking and no research all around!
Here are some frustrating pieces to this:
1. Like most non-Iranians on Twitter, I woke up one morning to find that the Iranians were asking us to login to twitter, change our addresses to Iran, and Re-Tweet information. I also don’t remember asking them to resist their own government.
2. In the early days, Twitter was a way of getting info around Iran. Protesters were even tweeting locations of tanks, which an American put on a Google Map. (http://maps.google.de/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=de&msa=0&msid=102603798489894899203.00046c547353d04424cc5&ll=35.720943,51.410437&spn=0.027839,0.045705&z=15)
3. I agree w/ your point that since then, nobody claims that Twitter gets info to Iran, but rather is a tool for getting info out. HOWEVER, I would also mention that Twitter has become a place to analyze and discuss developments, and some of that thinking does seem to make it back into Iran.
4. Think about the dialogue on Twitter about your previous blog. Your argument, and many took your side, was that this is NOT a revolution and people on blogs/twitter/media networks should be careful about how they choose to describe it. I disagreed with you, but many of Twitter agreed that the situation in Iran is far more humble than it is being made out to be.
Thanks for the great analysis.
Josh,
I saw this article a few days ago and I must say that I was quite mad. I am quite glad and pleased about the way you called him out. Way to go!
Maybe next you can cover this piece of garbage:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/opinion/06leverett.html
@friend_of_iran
Friend of Iran,
Actually brainstorming that right now.
(In reference to http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/opinion/06leverett.html)
There is not a lot of difference between reading this and a similar article from one on Press TV, except that the above article is much worse! I can’t believe such a thing would get published on the NY Times site.
@friend_of_iran
Thank you for your response to my article (which was also in the paper edition of the Daily Telegraph). I found it via Twitter this morning. Copyright issues aside, your interpretation of my piece is frankly bizarre. So here’s my response to you:
The point of my article is that people in the West who use Twitter, social networks and other new media are often risking the lives of Iranians who are tracked online by an increasingly brutal regime. It’s great that anti-DPI softwares are being used in Iran but, as you point out, this is only by “a select few”. What about the rest? How many of those arrested, imprisoned or tortured were tracked down online? I would argue that the risks, especially given (and I’ll quote the excellent Evgeny Morozov again) “the ability [by the Iranian regime] to provoke, identify and arrest the protesters [using online technologies]” are simply not worth it.
If you think my article “didn’t know” about the dangers to Iranians caused by online protest, or “chose to ignore it” them, you have TOTALLY missed the point.
However, “Another very different protest sprang to life all over the world” makes it clear that, for the most part, I’m talking a global online protest, not one specifically located in Iran. I do not know if Daily Nite Owl is based in Iran, but I suspect the USA is more likely.
“Chubby fingertips?” Well, get over it. I’m sick of so many Twitter users outside of Iran who have convinced themselves that they are on the front line. In fact, who have even convinced themselves that the battle has been won. They aren’t – and it hasn’t. The “Twitter revolution” has left 400 dead – and many more imprisoned, raped and tortured.
Your whole response seems to presume that I am against the dissemination of information online. I’m not. But we have to recognise the limits of online protest – has there been an improvement in the political situation in Iran? No, the crackdown has made things worse. And the internet has been used to hit back.
You’re response is also littered with contradictions. Here’s an example:
“Illegal activity? What illegal activity? Iranians are granted the right to take to streets and peacefully protest by the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Then:
“I’m not sure you know that Facebook and Twitter are officially banned in Iran right now.”
Which was precisely my point…. the use of Twitter is illegal in Iran (or at least is treated as such).
You are angry that I have accused you self-congratulation, yet – as with the quote from Expressen – you will clearly only listen to journalists who inflate your sense of self-importance. Daily Nite Owl: your work is excellent, but please recognise that it plays a very limited role.
Finally here’s some recommended reading from one of the top experts on this subject:
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/01/why-the-internet-is-failing-irans-activists/
Point1: Actually, not many have been arrested that used Twitter or Facebook. The 400 that you estimate as the death toll – which I’m not sure what your sources are for – almost all died on the streets. And as I mentioned, no one in the West is asking Iranians to use Twitter or Facebook. If they are using it already, we actually try to help them stay safe. So your point is quite moot.
Point2: Like I said, there is no Global Online Protest. There is a global online effort to spread news. Again, your answer does not seem to satisfy my assertion.
Point3: Thank you for blatantly ignoring the examples I gave about people’s families. And please show me an example of anyone saying that the revolution has been won.
Point4: Freedom of Expression is guaranteed by the constitution of Iran. Furthermore, it is a human right. So I didn’t make any contradiction. The government is overstepping the constitution to suppress the people by banning the use of Facebook and Twitter. And again, thank you for ignoring the ‘Freedom of expression is a human right’ bit.
Point5: That was not really an attempt at self-congratulation – the Expressen article. I have had enough exposure. The point was to let you know that although you might think – and you actually have – that my work and other people’s work is doing very little – others have already it recognized the importance of our efforts.
As for copyright, yes, I did overstep that. But I provided a link to your article and I did not distribute it for monetary gain. Without republishing it, I could no answer your points. Thus, under fair use, I think I’m covered. If it does not and you don’t want me to keep this here, let me know.
And I also corrected the bit about it being in the Telegraph’s print edition.
Josh, I’m not worried about the Copyright issue. My editors would be – but I think this debate is an important one so…
Response to Point 1: “The 400 that you estimate as the death toll… almost all died on the streets.” Right, and Twitter was used a tool to organise those protests on the street. It is also very likely that the regime tracked those protests and their movements using information they found online, on websites such as Twitter. Great to hear you are trying to help Iranian Twitter users stay safe, but I’m concerned about the “not many” that have been arrested who used Twitter or Facebook.
Reponse to Point 2: “Spreading awareness”, as I made clear in my piece, is fine. But when you are encouraging Iranians to participate in the spreading of anti-regime news online, you could be endangering them. And when you bear in mind that anonymous Iranian agents might be using the networks to collate and manipulate information, it is fair to ask if the risks are worth it.
Response to Point 3: You are right to point out the risks taken by those with family in Iran. I accept this point, but do not think it applies to most Western users of the #iranelection hashtag, who choose to communicate with those inside Iran.
Response to Point 4: That is unbearably pedantic. The lawmakers in Iran – Ahmadinejad and his Islamist regime – have banned Twitter. That might be unconstitutional, but in my book it makes it illegal in Iran. Wrongly, of course, but that is how the regime is acting.
Response to Point 5: “Others have already it recognized the importance of our efforts.” Good for you, but where are the results? 400 killed, many more imprisoned, tortured and raped. Universities ransacked, opposition leaders held, Iranian journalism censored, freedom curtailed. You act – and write – as if the Twitter revolution has saved thousands of lives, and brought democracy closer to Iran. It hasn’t: the results are miniscule. That’s why I have no time for self-congratulation. I want to be realistic.
Response to response to point 1: You can’t claim Twitter is not important and then claim that it has directly resulted in the death of 400 people. That contradicts the principle of non-contradiction.
Reponse to response to Point 2: Once again, Iranians started using Twitter and then asked the world to help them. This is their revolution, they know the potential consequences, and they’re the ones who started this thing. Not Twitter.
Response to response to Point 3: Twitter users understand fully the price paid by people like persiankiwi or others who have perished or been imprisoned by their actions online.
Response to response to Point 4: no comment on pedantics
Response to response to Point 5: How long did it take to win the American revolution? It was fought for 8 years, but for years before that the intellectuals, activists, and dissidents argued, debated, and were arrested/killed to make it happen. America had military support from France for the second half of that. I think the Iranians are doing pretty damned good.
My overall response is that Will Heaven wrote an insulting, overs simplified comment on some legitimate journalism that has raised concerns about Twitter in Iran. However, his point was lost by ignoring large bodies of facts and arguments, and by attacking the subjects of the story.
That isn’t journalism, it’s hack-job sensationalism from a “story of the week” hack-job writer. Mr. Heaven, go back to writing about Avatar, or take your power more seriously next time you post. I noticed your tone is far more civil on this page than your own. For shame…
Will,
“Response to Point 1: “The 400 that you estimate as the death toll… almost all died on the streets.” Right, and Twitter was used a tool to organise those protests on the street. It is also very likely that the regime tracked those protests and their movements using information they found online, on websites such as Twitter. Great to hear you are trying to help Iranian Twitter users stay safe, but I’m concerned about the “not many” that have been arrested who used Twitter or Facebook.”
Actually, Twitter was not used to organize the protests much at all. They were always used as a source of spreading news. Information about the protests is readily available. Besides, when hundreds of thousand turn up, you don’t need a map to find them. Finally, I am concerned about the arrested Twitterati and Facebook users too – but they were arrested before we stepped in to help with Tor and other software.
“Reponse to Point 2: “Spreading awareness”, as I made clear in my piece, is fine. But when you are encouraging Iranians to participate in the spreading of anti-regime news online, you could be endangering them. And when you bear in mind that anonymous Iranian agents might be using the networks to collate and manipulate information, it is fair to ask if the risks are worth it.”
We aren’t encouraging anyone. They do it anyway. That’s the whole point. No one is asking Iranians to come to Twitter or Facebook and do what they are doing. They do it because they want to and we frantically try to help conceal their identities. As for the agent, there are only a handful people that have proven to be reliable and we’re sticking to them at this point. Anyone new is hastily disregarded.
“Response to Point 3: You are right to point out the risks taken by those with family in Iran. I accept this point, but do not think it applies to most Western users of the #iranelection hashtag, who choose to communicate with those inside Iran.”
No one actually communicates with people in Iran. They post their stuff and they leave. We take their stuff and we spread it around. That’s it how it works. You should come visit Twitter on a protest day. February 11 happens to be the next date. You’ll see how it works.
“Response to Point 4: That is unbearably pedantic. The lawmakers in Iran – Ahmadinejad and his Islamist regime – have banned Twitter. That might be unconstitutional, but in my book it makes it illegal in Iran. Wrongly, of course, but that is how the regime is acting.”
Sure. In your book, but not in mine and not in Iranian protesters’. I think we can agree to disagree on this one.
“Response to Point 5: “Others have already it recognized the importance of our efforts.” Good for you, but where are the results? 400 killed, many more imprisoned, tortured and raped. Universities ransacked, opposition leaders held, Iranian journalism censored, freedom curtailed. You act – and write – as if the Twitter revolution has saved thousands of lives, and brought democracy closer to Iran. It hasn’t: the results are miniscule. That’s why I have no time for self-congratulation. I want to be realistic.”
Again, Will, our efforts are not concentrated on making the revolution a success. That is the job of Iranian protesters. Our job is to simply let the world know what is going inside Iran. You cannot measure our results by looking at Iranian protesters’ success. You can measure it by looking at how we’ve managed to spread the news about the protesters. I think there is enough evidence that that has been a success.
Okay, you seem to be really annoyed about the self-congratulation. Of course, I hate it too. As much as you do and maybe more. But that’s just some people in the fringe. I did explain why I posted the Expressen article to you already.
P.S. Apologies, I am REALLY exhausted today, so pardon me for any grammatical errors in the comments.
hi there!
I feel like making a few comments on some of the made statements.
1st: I too read the original article some days ago and felt quite upset by it. So kudos for Nightowl to take a closer look at it.
2nd: Kudos also to Will Heaven – I do respect the fact that you actually come here to discuss Josh’s critic of your article.
Me: I’m one of those “outsiders” who follow #iranelection since the early days after the election – when the Author Neil Gaiman mentioned it in one of his tweets. Outsider means: Neither am I Iranian, nor do I have any personal connections to people inside Iran. I know a few Iranian people here in Germany and talked about the whole issue with some of them, just to get a feeling of what people think who actually have family members living in Tehran (for example).
From what I read on twitter over the past few months I don’t see any protests inside Iran being planned there. Perhaps this was the case “in the beginning”, before I started following events? Yes, actually now I think about it I remember tweets like “avoid xyz-street, there’s basij there” – stuff like that.
I know for sure that, in the community, from early on there were warnings about twitter being an open forum and of course allowing everything there to be read by regime operatives as well, calling for caution when deciding what to tweet from inside Iran. The general tone is: Be careful what you tweet, ’cause “they” might check it for hints about who is tweeting.
What is twittered today on the topic can be summed up pretty quick from what I can see:
- urls to youtube clips and articles by the international press
- dates and places for international protests that show support for the Iranian people
- links to articles that people think could be useful to Iranian protesters, like what to do if encountering tear-gas, self defence tips etc. (yes, one can argue about how useful this might be when most Iranians can’t access places like Twitter, but I think many people are aware of this and do it anyways – people with connections into Iran might forward some of the material through other channels)
- tweets showing sympathy and support for the cause (about those actually reaching Iranians see above)
- (and of course) a lot of armchair discussion about how people feel things should be handled in *their* opinion, “what I would do if you left me in a locked room with Ahmadenijabbawabba”, stuff like that. Yes, there’s many people on twitter who seem to know it all better than Iranians and who would like them to do what they tweet. There’s ppl calling for assassination of regime members etc.
While the last group can seem pretty big I feel pretty comfortable dismissing it as the usual noise you get in any online discussion about anything once enough people get involved.
From where I stand it seems quite obvious that today most informations from inside Iran aren’t twittered from Iranians, but reach the persons who tweet them on other, more secure channels. It’s about spreading the information, raising international awareness and showing support on #iranelection, not about telling Iranians what to do, and *definitely* not about “winning their revolution for them”.
We “outsiders” are mostly aware of being not as important for what happens inside Iran as you (Will) seem to think we think we are.
There, I think I made my point and hope it comes across – mind that English isn’t my mother tongue. ^^
Oh, about the general tone of your article, Will: I follow some German press blogs and it seems that lately a bunch of professional journalists feel generally threatened by the fact that the Internet changes a lot of stuff (it has only begun to do so, btw – it would be interesting to see what sociological changes it will have caused in, say, a hundred years), including where people get their news from. You know – less people buy papers, the advertisement industry adapts, income goes down, and then there’s, all of a sudden, all those meddling “amateurs” (bloggers and such) who do what you get paid for for free instead. I can’t help but feel that you might be one of those… Whenever the topic “alternative news channels” (as opposed to papers, TV or radio) comes up the tone gets a little … bitter?
Just a thought – by looking down on the “new players” like that all that you will achieve in the end is estrange more people.
Will, this is a very interesting debate and I appreciate your willingness to participtate in it. I do, however, most strongly disagree with your comment that “The ‘Twitter revolution’ has left 400 dead – and many more imprisoned, raped and tortured.” The Iranians who have been killed were not killed because of Twitter – they were killed because they can no longer tolerate their brutal, murderous, insane government and have risen up in protest against it. With or without Twitter, the result would have been the same. With or without Twitter, the Iranian people will continue to protest and will continue to suffer arrests, injury and unfortunately probably more deaths. The only impact that sites such as Twitter has had is that the world is now watching and is more aware of the brutalities occuring in Iran.
I don’t believe for a moment that Twitter’s purpose is to win a revolution. I do, however, believe that these brave Iranians have the power within themselves to determine the fate of their country and their government – and that they shouldn’t die in the streets of Iran while fighting for change without the world knowing about it. Due to the fact that most of mainstream media initially showed little interest in what was happening in Iran, and/or frequently reported the government’s distorted version of events, we on Twitter have tried to fill that void at the request of Iranians within Iran. They have asked that we share their story with the world, and that is what we do to the best of our ability.
As for illegal activity, many things that the current Iranian regime has declared illegal are rights that Iranians have granted to them by their Constitution. Each new day brings another absurd declaration by the government of a new illegality, and each new declaration angers the people more and more.
Yes, Iranians are risking their lives in their fight for freedom, and if they are trying to do so with whatever means they have at their disposal–including Twitter– then we should be willing to help them.
So do not blame 400 deaths on Twitter. Put the blame where it belongs…on the Iranian government.
Josh et al. Thanks for all your responses, and for attempting to keep the debate reasonably civil. I will be posting a Telegraph blog about this tomorrow.
Perhaps Will Heaven, who sheds crocodile tears for his alleged 400 victims of the twitter revolution, should spend one single day in one of those “legal” Iranian prisons to experience what “lllegal activity” means by himself.
I have been following this debate closely. I too was unhappy with Will’s article.
I just wanted to add one point about the regime and its nature, with regards to its use of force and violent suppression. In the past 30 years, the regime had been quite successful at suppressing any form of dissent, and making sure that evidence of the dissent and any subsequent crackdown was swept under the rug as quickly and efficiently as possible. This regime has thrived on its ability to keep information from getting out. It may seem as if they don’t care if the world sees their brutality, as we have so plainly witnessed since the events following the June 12, 2009 rigged election, but in fact they care a lot.
They know full well that the more the information gets out, the more they lose the support of even their own base.
And that’s really what the “Twitter Revolution” is about. It has bared the brutality, lies and hypocrisy of this regime plainly and in broad daylight for the world to see. I would argue that hundreds if not thousands more would have died had the dynamic network that formed on Twitter to distribute and disseminate information and videos not come about after the election. Wherever the regime knows that cameras are not present, the regime has always felt it could get away with more.
One other major success of the use of Twitter by Iranians inside the country and their supporters on the outside, is that the world has learned so much about Iranians and the Iranian identity. The world has clearly seen the difference between the people of Iran and their so-called government. This has made it harder to justify an external attack on Iran because the “collateral damage” of deaths of Iranian citizens if such an attack were to occur is no longer easily justified.
Well, IranNewsNow must have read my mind and posted before I could. You speak of the 400 dead but how many more would have been killed if the Regime had been able to block all news from getting out about what was happening? No major news sources have been allowed to report from Iran. The only news they are getting is from sites like twitter and youtube. This is a blood thirsty regime. I have no doubt without the awareness that the whole world is watching they would not have hesitated for a moment beating and killing as many as the could to shut the people up.
I have been following #iranelection since right after the “selection” after seeing a discussion about it on another website. Had I not, probably all I would know was that funny little man had won again and is making noises about destroying all of us infidels. I would never have read anything about the courage of the people of Iran or their fight for freedom. I, myself have over 500 people following me on twitter. Hopefully they are passing on what they read in my timeline to however many are following them. I have been as careful as I can about who I follow so the most accurate reports get out. I am also sure that the people I follow have many more followers than I. This way the news spreads all over the world.
I think this sums up this debate quite well. Take a look at this – http://enduringamerica.com/2010/01/07/iran-twitter-101-rereading-a-tale-of-two-twitterers/ – who would you trust for a fairer picture here? Will Heaven, a nobody who only finished his undergrad degree last year and thinks he knows it all, or Scott Lucas, a professor and globally respected expert in world affairs? It’s a rhetorical question; this Will Heaven guy (while I do respect him sticking to his guns and defending his position) is nothing but an ill-informed, inexperienced hack. Stick to writing about Susan Boyle and Michael Jackson.
I was in Stratford-upon-Avon on 12 June. I was following the election in Iran on Sky News. When I woke up on 13 June, I turned on the news and heard Ahmadinejad had won the election with 63% of the vote.
Flying back to the States that day, I mentioned to one of our pilots (I’m a flight attendant) that I wasn’t surprised at all with the election result. I said this as someone who actually has quite an interest in geopolitics.
When I arrived home around 6PM EST, I logged into Twitter. I saw #iranelection trending, clicked, and what happened changed my life forever.
That first weekend in the wake of the June election not only opened my eyes to this whole other Iran, an Iran I could relate to as a freedom-loving American, but it also illuminated the failings of the mainstream media in the West, who kept insisting that weekend that the Internet was down in Iran and that there was no Facebook or Twitter access there.
Because of Iranians on Twitter and Facebook showing me this “other Iran,” my heart and mind has been changed. A year ago, if someone would have said, “we are going to bomb Iran,” I would have shrugged my shoulders. Now, the mere mention of Iran being bombed clutches my heart, and I silently plead, “don’t bomb my friends!”
Because of Twitter, I participated in the protest against Ahmadinejad at the UN in Sept. Because of Twitter, I participated in the Green Scroll across Brooklyn Bridge. Because of Facebook and Twitter and YouTube, I was able to put pics and vids online do Iranians could see our support of their efforts. Because of Facebook, I attended a fundraiser in London for Amnesty to benefit their efforts in Iran. Because of Twitter and Facebook, I came up with the idea for a fundraiser to help Iranian journalists/bloggers who have fled Itan and are seeking assistance from Reporters Without Borders.
To belittle or demean the power of social media to facillitate change is simply ignorant. #iranelection has certainly changed me.
Apologies for any typos in my comments, hard to post this on iPhone,
Thank you Josh. Wonderful!!. You answered Will’s article point by point. He selectively answered your critique.
As for you Mr Heaven. “Thanks for all your responses, and for attempting to keep the debate reasonably civil” – Shame you didn’t take your own advice in your original article.
The same applies to your Editor – Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) who promoted your ill-researched attack piece “Fantastic: Will Heaven in the Telegraph on the smuggery of Twitter “activists” doing more harm than good in Iran”. Well, I think the pair of you are slimy BUT I don’t make the same generalizations about other people who work for the Daily Telegraph.
I am the only one puzzled out the number 400 killed? As far as I know, the number is not so high. Any source?
As for the topic, I won’t repeat what everybody else has said but clearly Will Heaven has totally misunderstood what the #iranelection hashtag is about and what it contributes with. These sort of misunderstandings are mainly due to lousy media coverage.
I have families and friends in Iran, for which only a few have (secure) access to sites like facebook and twitter (they use it very rarely). They claim that the regime is very aware of these social sites, and this is one of the reasons why they haven’t been even more brutal (think the Chinese model). Most people I know in Iran (except the few mentioned) don’t have any idea about what is written on twitter. They go out risking their lives because of an oppressive regime, not twitter.
In 1977-1979 people went out on the streets and got killed, without twitter nor facebook.
(Cross-posted from the Enduring America discussion board — http://enduringamerica.com/2010/01/07/iran-twitter-101-getting-the-facts-right-a-response-to-will-heaven/)
Mr Heaven,
With respect, it’s not a matter of you debating Josh Shahryar. It’s a question of you answering to many thousands of people — good people, brave people, not the caricature you put forth in your article of armchair cyber-fighters who neither know or care about the fate of those in Iran.
And I’m not talking about you answering to these people in a debate for point-scoring. I mean answering to those activists in Iran who risked lives and livelihoods to use Twitter to get the message out when almost all media, including the paper which allowed you to caricature those activists, were blinded to the post-12 June developments. I’m talking about answering to @Change_for_Iran, @persiankiwi, @iranbaan, @manic77, @madyar, and many others who deserve nothing but your praise and respect that they have acted. Acted not for a few column inches of faux-chest-puffing that “they know better” but because they wanted life to be better.
I’m talking about you answering to those people outside Iran who, for no financial reward or personal glory, have used Twitter to keep that message alive and indeed to get it back into Iran. Getting it back into Iran not by endangering activists — this ill-informed, straw-man of an argument you use to cover a lack of engagement with or understanding of the Iran conflict — but by working with them. Colleagues on this website and on others who have been at the forefront of keeping Iran alive have spent many hours talking about minimising the risk of our activities. Before you write another word to slander them, I suggest you pause and chat with @austinheap about the effort taken not to endanger but to protect, not to distort but to inform, not to walk away but to stay involved.
And with that, I will say no more to you. Had I thought that, at any point since 12 June, you had made that decision that those people inside and outside Iran made — that before declaring, I will learn; that before preaching, I will listen; that before condemning, I will understand; that before standing on high, I will sit at the feet of those who stand before me as selfless, thoughtful, dedicated, passionate not for their welfare but for that of others — I would continue this discussion.
But I believe the only decision you made was that you would claim your 15 seconds of supremacy by deriding those whom you do not know and will never know. Any further response to that vain, destructive decision takes away from the attention that should be given to those — including those who will continue to use Twitter in this cause — who matter.
Scott Lucas
Most of the responses here have been on the money. Perry1949 and Connie USA: you both touched on a point that that I can’t stress enough. It really motivates those of us who have known about this regime, and known what the Iranian people have suffered through for 30 years, and been cognizant of the fact that the portrayal of Iranians to the world had been largely incorrect for the majority of the past 3 decades, to know that you have learned so much about Iran since the election, from none other than Twitter. The phenomenon you described is very important. It is because of the failings of mainstream media to begin with that people in Iran and outside even needed to use Twitter and other online media and social networking tools to get the word out, and educate the rest of the world.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts. My heart is touched to know we Iranians have friends like yourselves, all over the world now, who *get* it, and who won’t tolerate the old B.S. and propoganda of the past — the product of years of mainstream media ignorance, lack of real interest in anything other than images of fiendish supporters of the regime, and lack of an effort to really understand Iran beyond the stereotype that formed after the ’79 hostage-taking.
It is thanks to the efforts of people on the ground in Iran, people like yourselves and people like Josh Shahryar and Scott Lucas of Enduring America and many, many others that the truth about Iran is getting out, shattering the simplistic paradigms and viewpoints we have been spoonfed for so long.
Let’s keep it up!
Mr Lucas has touched on the essence of this debate. Will Heaven is just some cyber-hack sitting behind his keyboard, vomiting out garbage for a fleeting feeling of internet superiority. Keep your patronising, condescending, uninformed trash to yourself in future, you snivelling little creep. I had a look at your blog and I was distinctly unimpressed by it. You strike me as the kind of douchebag who has come fresh out of undergraduate studies with an honours degree and a generic blog and somehow you think that makes you significant. It doesn’t, you worthless parasite. Fuck off.
The sheer ignorance of this grandstanding, obnoxious and self-satisfied polemic is eyewatering. You are simply an ambitious young man trying to make your name off the back of people who’s ambitions are so base that they are incomprehensible to your pampered conception of reality. Your childish foray into what promises to be a burgeoning area of research- the role of social media in Iran- is an insult to journalism. Within this scholarship/commentary, there will be some genuinely thought provoking (possibly even provocative) critiques of the limits of social media to affect change in Iran. Clearly, you have shown yourself incapable of contributing to them. I truly hope that when you grow up, you look back on this piece as nothing more than a learning experience.
I am truly amazed- I have devoted years of my academic and professional career to reading opinions on Iran, many of them deeply misguided. I can think of few, if any, that have irked me more than this.
Perhaps more worrying, I have never ever seen Prof Lucas, a man who’s judgement is respected in the highest academic and public areanas, so angered. That in itself should make you reflect deeply on what you have written. But I assume your arrogance will prevent any self-reflection.
Will Heaven, your journalism is weak and naïve. You have claimed things by your logic and your ego and not by experience and information. Your sense of being a journalist does not belong to something as serious and world-moving as the Iranian protests.
You should say nothing more about Twitter and all that is affiliated with the Iranian Protests, until you have seen it from all its various perspectives. Do your reasearch by experiencing it yourself.
Will Heaven supports dictatorships by insulting the internet community as a whole who goes against dictators.
I will remember this guy because he writes like a lapdog of corporate media – I am sure they want to focus on the nuclear issue again, because protesting Iranians IN makes them afraid. China is afraid as well, because if the Iranians themselves topple their dictatorship the same could very well happen in China.
Shame on the democracies of the world to allow the Iranian regime crackdown on protesters and torture them in prison. And shame on Will Heaven for siding with the regime.
Hi,
I’m a doctoral researcher at UVic doing work on deep packet inspection, and its surveillance and privacy implications. I just wanted to make a note that the comment that Iran is using DPI is very much contested and that, to date, there hasn’t been clear empirical evidence that this technology has been deployed by Iran. More likely, other traffic analysis and shaping equipment is being used. The Wall Street Journal article, which started the whole snowball of ‘Iran is using DPI’ is highly dubious- point in case, there is no way to ‘detect’ DPI, save for having an engineer come out and show you the equipment. I’ve written about the problems of the WSJ article, as has David Isenberg (both links below).
Links:
Me: http://www.christopher-parsons.com/blog/politics/iran-traffic-analysis-and-deep-packet-inspection/
David: http://www.isen.com/blog/2009/06/more-questions-about-wsj-claims-of-iran.html
If you’re interested, I also have a working paper that tries to unpack the technical element of DPI in clearly accesible language titled ‘Deep Packet Inspection in Perspective: Tracing its lineage and surveillance potentials’ (http://www.surveillanceproject.org/files/WP_Deep_Packet_Inspection_Parsons_Jan_2008.pdf)
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Will,
Only 1 question matters: What do Iranians (risking & giving their lives 4 freedom) want o.s. world 2 do?
Do they want us to hear their cries of pain, Courage & FREEDOM? Or ignore them?
It is clear they appreciate the moral support, Solidarity & getting the word out to the world.
Quoting @persiankiwi: “thank you ppls 4 supporting Sea of Green – pls remember always our martyrs – Allah Akbar”
@jhod
Will, From your new blog article: “More recent stories suggest these efforts have escalated. Take, for instance, Evgeny Morozov’s Iranian-American woman, who was asked by officers at Tehran’s International Airport to log into Facebook when she arrived there in JULY.”
July? Seriously? The *beginning* of the current crisis last summer is “more recent” for you?
Sorry, but I can’t take that too serious. From what else I see in your new article it’s all just a repeat of what you already said, so no cigar.
Oh – and another thing: While it’s not your fault who comments on your site, MAN do you have some retards in your comment section….
Will Heaven’s piss-poor arguments have been destroyed and he has been exposed as an attention-seeking, moronic little brat. It’s time to move on now – this douchebag will never amount to anything and should be forgotten, there’s more serious work to be done yet.
I joined and followed twitter, submitted a few comments. When people started asking for information on the disappeared, and commenters disappeared, I stopped clogging the channels. Iran has a higher educated population than the U.S. These cities, like those in Afghanistan and Iraq, were more cosmopolitan than we’ll ever be. They walk in the streets, without weapons, and get killed, maimed, arrested. They are like us. Live like us. Die in the streets for the right to vote. The word isn’t getting out on the net, because people don’t get it. You have to go mainstream, march outside of Iran. All this crap about sanctions. Fighting over nukes. They’re out. We’ll have to take our chances. Accept the tech advances that Iran has a right to, and kick some ass over the ethics of the massive human rights issues that our Atlantic governments are ignoring.
my thoughts on @willheaven~It is better to remain silent and be THOUGHT a FOOL, than to open your mouth and remove ALL doubt
if you can’t support Iranians then don’t insult them.
Dear Will
I read your two articles about Twitter revolution. I have read many articles, good and bad, about Iran and I don’t usually respond. This time I could not resist specially after your second article. Of course you have freedom of speech but writing about topics you have no information or understanding about just discredits you.
You stated “As one well-known new media figure bluntly told his followers this morning: “Your tweeting can kill someone.” It really is that simple, especially when you are encouraging Iranians to communicate with you online. But even that argument doesn’t convince most twitterers to think before they tweet. There seems to be an inherent belief that Twitter is about change, optimism, and the future – so its users continue deny that their action could be harming the Green Movement.”
What makes you think Tweeter will ‘harm’ the people in Iran? For 30 years they killed and tortured. Are you aware in 1980s the regime murdered 35 000 some as young as 13? Have you heard about the ‘hanging judge’? Are you aware that hundreds of online activists and journalists have been arrested, jailed and killed before the election and Twitter? So the brutality and killings has not changed. The only thing that has changed is that people like YOU hear about it and see it thanks to the new technology. But it does not mean that it wasn’t there before.
One reason the government has not started mass killings in the streets yet, like they did in 1980s, is because the world is watching. Not that they care about what the world thinks about them but they know this can affect their legitimacy, support and businesses outside and inside Iran and yes they feel the pressure. Even in Iran some regime supporters who never believed in these atrocities can see it with their own eyes or can’t be in denial anymore thanks to the new technology. Surely as a journalist you can’t refute the power of information? And Iranians in Iran are so aware of that.
By saying that ‘we encourage’ people to post things on You Tube or come out to the streets you are insulting the intelligence of millions in Iran.
Do you think millions are so stupid that get influenced by a few tweets and western media and risk their lives?
Are you saying they are goats?
Do you what drives them to take these drastic actions?
Don’t you think they don’t know what the consequences are?
Well let me tell you that they do. Everyday these people make their choices.. So please don’t insult Iranians by saying they are ‘encouraged’ but respect the choices they make.
Will it be another ‘Berlin’ war?
One thing Western observers should have learned from 30 years of second-guessing Iran and Iranians is that second-guessing Iran and Iranians is often a mistake. We have had 3 revolutions in the past 120 years so what makes this one different?
“This makes me “mean spirited”, my flakiest critics tell me.”
Does not make you “mean spirited” but just demonstrates your lack of knowledge about Iran’s current events, history and why we are where we are. Shows your lack of knowledge about the level of human rights activities before the election and even Twitter. Shows your lack of knowledge about the Green Movement. Shows your lack of knowledge about what drives people into the streets and why they even risks their lives so that the world hears them.
So please if you can’t support Iranians then don’t insult them.
Excellent points, by Josh, Scott, IranNewsNow, Connie, and so many other commentators. Several people have brought it up already, but it’s worth highlighting how disrespectful Will’s attitude is to the judgment of the activists in Iran and abroad. Why does he think that he — with what appears to be no background in Iranian politics, no first-hand experience on the ground, no communication with any of the activists or experts to understand the reality of the situation — is more qualified to evaluate the risk/rewards or strategic implications than they are?
A few more positive thoughts, from my perspective as a social network researcher and activist in the US:
I saw a quote from Mousavi that said “The first step that I suggest as a solution is that we Iranians, no matter where we live in the world, strengthen the social ties among ourselves…. This is where the power of our social network resides.” The Sea of Green their supporters have been extraordinarily good at using online communication to unleash the power of this social network. There was a great example of this (now conveniently forgotten by all the critics) in the protests right after the election, when discussions of #cnnfail on Twitter pushed CNN to increase their coverage. The Mousavi Facebook page’s role is another good example: anybody on Facebook can follow along easily enough — and just as easily let their friends and acquaintances know about important news.
These effects are likely to increase over time, because the social network has expanded, the connections between the people in it have deepened, and there are more shared experiences. A lot people who hadn’t given a lot of thought to democracy and freedom in Iran are now involved and doing what they can to help. People who have been following #iranelection regularly know who is and isn’t credible — and we have a shared history and vocabulary. And while it’s too early to know, it’s quite possible that #cn4iran is going to be very significant going forward. So cynics like Will Heaven and Evgeny Morozov may well be in for a surprise.
Yay for chubby fingers!
jon
I personally think Mr. Heaven was probably the kid beating up the geeks considering his apparent distaste and stereotyping them with their “chubby” fingers. Not to mention that, the inherent lack of research or understanding in his article shows this contempt for “geeks”.
And that is my opinion.
Yup, because when I’m after credible analysis of Iranian politics and their relation to current technological trends I’ll trust the 22 year old English graduate with no experience of anything whatsoever except writing bullshit. Die meaningless Will, your worthless hack.
[...] neither understood then, nor understand now, the true significance of the so-called and misnamed”Twitter Revolution,” or the grander significance of the Green Movement, or the real story in [...]
[...] neither understood then, nor understand now, the true significance of the so-called and misnamed “Twitter Revolution,” or the grander significance of the Green Movement, or the real story in [...]
[...] In January, Josh Shahryar wrote an excellent piece on the Twitter Revolution, well worth the read: Twitter Revolution 101: Get Your Facts Right. [...]
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This is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace. The interface is colorful, has more flair, and some cool features like ‘Mixview’ that let you quickly see related albums, songs, or other users related to what you’re listening to. Clicking on one of those will center on that item, and another set of “neighbors” will come into view, allowing you to navigate around exploring by similar artists, songs, or users. Speaking of users, the Zune “Social” is also great fun, letting you find others with shared tastes and becoming friends with them. You then can listen to a playlist created based on an amalgamation of what all your friends are listening to, which is also enjoyable. Those concerned with privacy will be relieved to know you can prevent the public from seeing your personal listening habits if you so choose.
I’ll gear this review to 2 types of people: current Zune owners who are considering an upgrade, and people trying to decide between a Zune and an iPod. (There are other players worth considering out there, like the Sony Walkman X, but I hope this gives you enough info to make an informed decision of the Zune vs players other than the iPod line as well.)