Iran and the Real Net Effect: A First-Hand Response to the Pessimists (Siavashi)

Dave Siavashi, who started Iran News Now during the crisis after the 2009 Presidential election, writes for EA:

It's interesting how, in recent days, Evgeny Morozov has declared how much he know about the impact of social media on democratic movements in cases such as Tunisia.

It's interesting not because Morozov displays knowledge or insight of what has actually occurred. To the contrary, this is the perverse interest of an "expert" making sweeping statements that have no correspondence with the experience of people actually using the technology of social media.

Tunisia (and Beyond) Video Discussion: Social Media and Reform in the Arab World
Tunisia and the Real Net Effect: How Facebookers Changed Politics and Newsrooms (Ruiz-Goiriena)
Tunisia and the Real Net Effect: 1st-Hand Account of Why Social Media Matters (Kosina and "S")
Tunisia and the Real Net Effect: Getting It Right on Protest and Social Media (Shahryar)

When the #IranElection uprising started, I was one of the people on Twitter and Facebook who was both watching and participating in the events as they were unfolding.

In April of 2009 I started a website with the intent of sharing and curating stories on Iran. I decided to join Twitter, not having a clue how much power and potential the medium had for communication, collaboration, and coordination. I joined to try to get a few people to come check out my website.

Little did I know that on 12 June the election in Iran would be stolen and that the Iranian people would rise up in protest.

As soon as I discovered that the government charade was on, I wanted information on what was going on in Iran. I searched Google News --- nothing. Visited many of the major mainstream media news sites --- nothing. Turned on the TV and flipped to CNN --- nothing.

I was flabbergasted. What the hell was going on? How could there be so little information on what was happening.

I went on Twitter and searched for Iran.... 

That changed the trajectory of my life.

I was transfixed for four days straight, barely resting or eating. I was involved in rallying attention on#IranElection, getting the media to do their job (recall #CNNFail), preventing Twitter for going down for maintenance (#TwitterFail), and helping people within Iran communicate with people outside the country.

I didn't realize that for a while, during the height of the protests my account on Twitter, @IranNewsNow was the most retweeted account in the entire Twitterverse. I was transfixed by the process of using the technology to enable the most profound change that traditional media has had to experience (and is still experiencing), while at the same time helping the people of Iran get their voices heard and their reality revealed to the world. 

Prior to Twitter, I barely had any visits to my site, and my voice was silenced in a vacuum. But after a few days of using the technology, as people were fighting and dying in the streets of Iran's cities and videos were being posted to YouTube and Facebook and shared via tweets, suddenly tens of thousands (how many thousands?) of people tuned into the news I was disseminating.

That is profound. It is powerful. And only a pauper in creative thought cannot see the potential for change that this gives to individuals and groups of people.

Morozov has found a nice litte niche for himself as a contrarian when it comes to the enabling capacity of the Internet and social media for social and political change. He is currently on a tour of the UK and US promoting a book that gathers all of the information he has on the negative aspects of social media --- the attempt by governments and regimes to control and suppress it --- and all of the unsupported prejudices he has about its positive aspects.

And while Morozov uses the medium of Twitter to get out his essential  information --- "During our interview today David Frost discovered that in Russian 'Morozov' means 'son of frost'. He denies the rumor!" --- others are using the technology from different motives.

They are doing so, often in defiance of the control and repression that occupies Morozov, to change the world.