A Revolution in 140 Characters – #iranelecton on Twitter

I find it quite remarkable what is happening in my home country of Iran right now. The country has been in a state of unrest following the results of the 2009 Iranian Elections, where incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was ‘re-elected’ only hours after the polls had closed. The results claimed Ahmedinejad had beaten his main opponent, reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, by a staggering margin, despite various sources recognizing Mousavi as the clear cut favorite.

I wont get into the so-called “democracy” present in Iran, where regardless of who is elected ‘president’, most of the power lies with the unelected Supreme Leader. Instead I want to focus on the phenomena that is happening post-election and the critical role twitter has played in organizing the proceeding events. We first got a whiff of twitters unrivaled ability to deliver real-time news during the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai. Witnesses posted fresh reports from on the scene making the coverage of network news agencies seem stale and repetitive. Now in 2009, we’re seeing twitter playing an even larger role.

Over the last couple of days, twitter has become the central destination, on the web or otherwise, for minute to minute updates on events happening in Tehran. The Iranian government’s attempts of dealing with the unrest, blocking cell phone reception and providing absolutely zero media coverage, has further driven people to websites like twitter. Iran, with 70% of its population under the age of 30, has always been a very technical nation. Despite the international sanctions imposed on the country, the bright minds of Iran are a force to be reckoned with in many worldwide scientific competitions. Iran is also one of the top blogging nations in the world, so perhaps it’s no surprise that at it’s peak there were 7000+ tweet’s posted with the hashtag #iranelection every single hour.

I find it absolutely incredible how the people of Iran have found an unlikely channel to spread their message.