337 Views   0 Comments   CURRENT

Twitter as Policy Tool?

Twitter as Policy Tool?

It’s a fascinating “ and humbling “ thought. Fascinating because so many of us all-too-parochial Americans of a certain age who have previously found Twitter to be alien turf (I don't really get it. Who has the time? Why do those people think we care what they're tweeting about? I mean, I get up and brush my teeth every morning, too. But I don't feel I have to tell the world.) can now, because of its central -- if not critical -- role in post-election Iran understand it as, at once, new media and essential communication tool. Those of us who couldn't get beyond the sign-in and password stage, must simply marvel at the tech-savvy of the Iranian dissidents, not only in using Twitter as it was meant to be used, but at accessing Twitter even as the state tries to shut it down. That's the humbling part. We could sort of pooh-pooh it as vacuous when in fact we really didn't know how to use it, while hundreds of thousands of Iranians, responding to a universal human need to be heard, made their way through censors, around service cut-offs, to multiple alternative sites and proxy software and IPs, just to get the word out. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/opinion/18kristof.html?_r=1 for Nicholas Kristof's more complete description.)

I found it very interesting, as well, that the Obama White House grasped the significance of Twitter to the politics of Iran and intervened to ask the company not to interrupt services for maintenance work as the drama unfolded there. I feel compelled to play catch up, to get on Twitter and figure it out — not because I have anything to say right now, but because I have so much to learn.

Please comment — if only to say how you use Twitter.