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June 10, 2010

No 'Twitter revolution' in Iran

As Foreign Policy notes, starting with the fact of the hashtag "#iranrevolution" being in English, not Farsi, Twitter had almost no impact inside Iran during last year's post-election tumult.
A number of opposition activists have told me they used text messages, email, and blog posts to publicize protest actions. However, good old-fashioned word of mouth was by far the most influential medium used to shape the postelection opposition activity. There is still a lively discussion happening on Facebook about how the activists spread information, but Twitter was definitely not a major communications tool for activists on the ground in Iran.
Beyond that, the idea that there was a "Twitter revolution" sounds more like Western blogger/online guru vanity than anything else.

Hashtag this as #socialmediafail. (And not the first.)

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