Monday, June 15, 2009

Can A Blog Win a Pulitzer Prize?

Like many of you, I suspect, I've been glued to every possible source of coverage of the current unrest in Iran (perhaps more so....sick days haven't been the same since the invention of the internets). I've looked at bunch of sites, but no single site has impressed me more than Andrew Sullivan's. Like many people, I think that Twitter is, with the possible exception of Facebook's new you-take-a-quiz-I-tell-everyone-what-friggin'-80s-pop-icon-you-are, just about the worst invention in the history of human speech.

But in the past few days, Twitter feeds have provided amazing insights into what's happening on the ground in Iran. The central government has shut down many of the major news outlets, websites, and cell phone networks, but through VPN connections and other tricks I don't understand, tiny Tweets have made their way across the world and are being used to coordinate everything from protests to denial of service attacks.

Sullivan has been compiling many of these Twitter feeds on his blog with the result that we here in the US can feel the full strength of the fear, the anger, and, yes, the hope in Iran in a way I've simply never experienced with any form of media before. Go read it.

1 comment:

Ralph Haygood said...

"Like many people, I think that Twitter is...just about the worst invention in the history of human speech." Alas, my friend, there are more of them - Twitter enthusiasts - than there are of us (although I'm reluctantly on Twitter myself).

The fact that tweets are still leaking out of Iran suggests to me that the people responsible for cybertyranny there aren't much good at their jobs, thank goodness.