Comments on: The Iranian Election Through Colored Glasses

By: fred

fred — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:18:47 +0000

Great article. What I’m unable to discern, and maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places and this is obvious, is what information actually came out of Iran via Twitter. I asked on Twitter and didn’t get any meaningful response. What was this info? Was it in English or Persian or something else? Were people tweeting from home computers or from internet enable phones, or can you tweet by text in Iran?

There is so much info about how wonderful Twitter was in getting information about the Iran situation out but I can’t figure out what it was. It’s been great way for those of us outside Iran to keep Iran in our infostreams — I’m just unclear of the actual Twitter impact in, and coming out of, Iran.

By: Hang

Hang — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:27:58 +0000

I’m afraid most of those with a green icon cannot give you clear and convincing explanations. To simplify it a little bit, they do this because the mainstream media tell people to do so. They have done this to Iran, China and Venezuela, etc. I am not surprised. Politics is complicated.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:30:05 +0000

I generally agree with the article. The green icon is really a symbol and with people coming on board to the ‘movement’ so quickly, it’s not really a sure thing that they understood what the symbol stood for in the first place. Twitter doesn’t really allow for the ability to ‘catch up’ with a conversation but rather lets people join in midstream and try and figure out what’s going on. As with any symbol, it’s meaning has probably changed since it was originally instituted (as the first commenter mentions).

What’s interesting to me is how quickly this has happened. There has been an explosive growth of people interested in the story, but from what I can tell, it’s already tailing off. There were protesters before everyone knew via Twitter, and conversely, just because it’s not as big on Twitter, doesn’t mean there aren’t any more protesters.

But I think in the US, if this falls off the radar, it will just go out of mind and be something we look back on in six months.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:17:58 +0000

A controversial view, but one that I happen to agree with (see earlier tweets part1, part2). It isn't the first and most definitely won't be the last time that Twitter (Facebook, etc.) users jump behind a cause without stopping to understand or even question what it is they are supporting. Have we become so swamped with information that we are no longer able to stop and think? It seems as if people are more interested in following the herd and jumping on the next bandwagon rather than forming and expressing their own opinions. Great blog post.

By: uy

uy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:06:19 +0000

Personally, the green icon thing for me is not to stand for Mousavi (though yes, I know it’s Mousavi’s color) or any other party, but more a sign of support to the people there who just want to have their voices heard and rightfully accounted for.

I’ve followed other political issues ie, Tibet and China, Israel and Palestine, and more and more I find that the politics going there is complicated and certainly best left for the protagonists to deal with. However, that doesn’t prevent me to show some compassion with the victims of those conflicts.