Iran Protests: Tech Tools at Work

As political tensions increase in Iran, online communities are ramping up their opposition efforts. The Iranian government continues to restrict access to the Web, but many opposition supporters are still able to share news and information online.

In response to the publicity around opposition protests, Iran has reportedly begun the process of restricting the movements of foreign journalists. But when any Iranian citizen carrying a cell phone or camera can become an instant journalist, how important is Iran's crackdown on foreign media?

Here's a breakdown of current online tools in use in Iran.

Twitter

Despite the fact that the government is trying to stop Iranians from using Twitter by blocking the site and halting access to SMS services within the country, tech savvy protesters continue to find ways to deliver their messages of 140 characters or less.

Twitter has become so important to Iranian protesters, or at least perceived as such, the micro-blogging network rescheduled a maintenance hour planned for Monday night pacific time. The shutdown would have made Twitter inaccessible during the day in Iran, cutting off an important tool used by opposition supporters to disseminate information. Working with its hosting partner, NTT America, Twitter was able to reschedule that maintenance to Tuesday from 2-3PM Pacific, which is 1:30 AM Wednesday morning in Iran.

In a blog post, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone acknowledged "the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran." It's hard to know how effective and widespread Twitter is as an organizing tool, but the micro-blogging network has clearly become a way for protesters to share information with each other and the world.

Twitter's power isn't restricted to the streets of Tehran either. Check out our previous coverage of how outrage on Twitter has caused some American cable news networks to increase their coverage of the trouble in Iran.

Facebook

Wary that opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi Mousavi was using Facebook to organize his campaign, the Iranian government cut off and then restored access to Facebook in late May.

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