Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Revolution Will Be Twittered

The other day I came across a short blog post about Twitter delaying a scheduled maintenance upgrade that would have brought down Twitter for a few hours. The reason cited for the delay was the use of Twitter in the ongoing events in Iran.

Things aren't always as they initially appear...the Obama Administration had a hand in this.

From Reuters...
The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election.

The upgrade originally had been planned for Monday night in the United States, which would have cut daytime service in Iran on Tuesday.

The State Department declined to give immediate details of the contact with Twitter, which has been used particularly by young urban Iranians who are disputing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election last Friday.

"We highlighted to them that this was an important form of communication," said a State Department official of the conversation the department had with Twitter officials.

Nice job.

1 comment:

Nkechi said...

I am both impressed and scared by this. The fact that social networking sites have become so powerful is a scary thing. But without out them, the Iranian youth would not have had a voice. For that I salute Twitter.

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