Tehran and Twitter
Twitter had planned some maintenance during daytime hours in Tehran where citizens opposed to President-Elect Ahmadinejad are using Twitter to organise resistance and get the message about what’s happening on the streets.
Many Twitter users thought that it’d be good if Twitter could organise to delay the maintenance (to be carried out by their service provider) until about 1am Tehran time so that people in Tehran wouldn’t face an interruption in their ability to organise.
Some people think Twitter acted in good faith by delaying the maintenance, others thought Twitter has no business protecting the people of Tehran and that Twitter shouldn’t be relied upon as a means of communication in a crisis. I believe that in the absence of any other method (given the Iranian government’s repression of media and social networking sites like Facebook), you have to use what you can get your hands on and hope like hell that things will be okay.
I don’t have a problem at all with Twitter stepping in to help out the Iranians. I don’t think it’s inconsistent with the notion that service providers have an obligation to their users. I don’t think that is inconsistent with liberal capitalism, either. It wouldn’t bode well for Twitter’s image if they were seen as a callous bunch sitting by, watching events unfold, wringing their hands and talking about having to adhere to a strict maintenance schedule.
You may disagree, of course, and that’s why I’ve made this post and Twitpoll.
Thanks for the spot to talk Sam (is you providing a platform for opinion and me speaking in it little bit ironic?)
I honestly think Twitter DID act in good faith, but my problem is with the hoards of people who expected and demanded Twitter abandon its objectives and processes to act as a backfill communication method in an emergency – instead of, for example, applying international pressure on the Iranian Government to allow communication instead of applying censorship.
I voted for the first and strongest option – obligation to users – although it didn’t quite express my opinion. I’ve just written a blog post here about my opinion, but the short version is:
While Twitter had no legally enforceable obligation to protesters in Iran, they do have a moral one IMO. But more importantly, it is in their interests to take sides with people fighting for freedom. Not only is it in Twitter’s long-term strategic interests to be seen as a friend of those fighting for liberal bourgeois democracy in countries that haven’t even got that far, it’s also in Twitter’s immediate interests to be seen as the place where news breaks.
Geordie, I would imagine that a lot of those pushing for Twitter to delay the maintenance would’ve expected better (and more immediate) results than if they wrote to their elected representatives. Ahmadinejad is already pushing the “US as imperialist enemy” line and if Obama stepped in, which I imagine he’d be reluctant to do, and said “Hey, we think you’re doing the wrong thing” then Ahmadinejad would’ve been able to get mileage out of what he was doing and the situation could’ve got a lot worse.
By pushing to keep channels of communication open for these people, they’re better able to organise than if they were waiting on a diplomatic response from world leaders.
Yes, Twitter is not the most appropriate tool for toppling an Iranian dictator. I don’t think that it’s what it was about, though. I think people on Twitter realised that if the site was down, the Iranians wouldn’t be able to organise and thus wouldn’t be as able to get reports out as to what was happening. These reports would no doubt be important in swinging world opinion behind them and would lead to increased pressure on elected leaders to respond to the issue.
Do you see that there’s a difference between abandoning an update and delaying the update? I think it’s a bit misrepresentative to say that
The fact that the results of bullying Twitter were more immediate is not up for debate, you’re absolutley right in that they were, but although immediate how useful were they?
David Jackmanson has said, and I have no reason to doubt, that some people were using Twitter to stay ahead of government goons. That’s great although I can’t concede that it’s Twitter’s responsibility to provide this service. The vast, overwhelmingly vast majority of Tweets about the situation is simply people getting hyped up and adding nothing of any relevance to the knowledge pool.
Simply put, I see it like this;
Twitter is a private enterprise and has no obligation to anyone, anywhere to do anything other than operate within the framework of the law. To assert private enterprise has global moral obligations is as laughably stupid as to assert that moral public entities (e.g. global charities) have an obligation to earn a profit and pay taxes from it.
If ever there were an exception to the above, a company which is not monetized and makes no profits is the last in line for obligations. Further, if they are obligated to do something it ought not be by a marauding user community.
I’m disgusted that a situation exists, imposed by a dictatorial government, that there are very few avenues for communication. Somebody figured out Twitter is available – within hours nobody is paying a red scerrick of attention to that framework that created Twitter as an unwitting “Plan B”, and the user community went bananas when Twitter had the temerity to not make it their first priority. Where’s the outcry against the regime?
There’s no update, NTT is not putting another coat of red paint on the servers. According to Twitter it’s critical maintenance. As this story has gained traction, the language around what needs to be done has edged closer and closer from the asserted criticial requirement to perform maintenance work on the infrastructure, to something people can feel much more comfortable about having bullied an enterprise into delaying, an “update”. I expect by tomorrow to read that Twitter has put off installing additional default themes onto their website in order to avoid the slaughter of Iranians.
The whole point of this mass request – NOT “bullying” – to Twitter to delay the maintenance was to support the people in Iran who are protesting against the Government. That is, people who ARE crying out against the regime. Calling the user community “marauding” is just silly.
Marauding is about a mob of people being violent. How on earth can retweeting messages requesting that maintenance be delayed be called “marauding”? Where has any single person threatened Twitter staff or owners with any harm whatsoever if their request was not met?
If people were to adopt the assumptions in this comment, any sort of united public action would become impossible.
I think that is a completely idiotic statement to make; it is logically unsound. “If object A has property 1 and we expect that it has property 2″ does not logically lead to “If object B has property 2 we expect it to have property 1″. A is a sailboat, property 1 is that it has a mast and property 2 is that it floats in water. B is a speedboat, it has property 2 (floats) but doesn’t have property 1 (a mast).
Forgetting that for a moment, I’m not talking about a global responsibility; I’m talking about a responsibility to one’s user base.
@sam: I’m well aware that just because all dogs are mammals it doesn’t follow that all mammals are dogs. I wasn’t asserting that for any fact to stand the opposite must, it’s just convenient in this case that one absurd concept is as absurd as its opposite.
@David to put it that the hashtag mob was a “mass request” is like calling a typhoon mass rain. There was outrage, there was no careful consideration of the entirety of the situation, there was just a self-righteous demand that Twitter do what its users told it to * 10^23.
No, nobody was harmed or threatened, but the mass outpouring of indignation turned my stomach. There was not only a shameless assumption that the buck stopped with Twitter after it had been passed all the way to it by the Iranian government and the people who had arbitarily chosen one particular tool for communication, there was shocked incredulity that Twitter dare consider allowing its provider to maintain systems for 90 minutes when the community had universally decided that’s not what Twitter was going to do. That’s not ok.
It may be convenient but it’s certainly intellectually dishonest (sloppy, at the very least) to assume that because a statement is absurd that its opposite (or converse) is absurd.
And you don’t think that it’s not okay that a company is responsive to its users? And don’t try to make some analogy about how it was a lynch mob or a pack of highway robbers. It sounds like you’re upset that someone told a business what to do and especially that they told them what to do ona technical level. I wouldn’t go as far as to claim that you support the Iranian government but it certainly sounds like you’re unhappy that a company, upon bulk request by their users, decided to take what was essentially a political move.
This just gets sillier and siller.
Show me the outrage.
Show me the demand (as opposed to request) that Twitter do what its users want.
I have no idea how asking Twitter to remain open to help people currently under attack by the Iranian Government – a request that started FROM THOSE PEOPLE – is passing the buck. It’s asking for help. That’s like claiming that people who say the SES should be properly funded are passing the buck away from arsonists.
Show me the “shocked incredulity”.
If you’re actually worried about people in Iran, instead of just wanting to stand your ground, perhaps you could start working out a real solution instead of attacking others who are doing what they think they can.
@David I’ll flip you. Show me the instance of “Dear Twitter, due to the fact you’re the only communication service that a lot of people know how to use, and due to the fact you are accessible on the web and therefore accesible via web proxies as opposed to SOCKS when the government in Iran has imposed censorship, it turns out that you’re basically the only available option to people who are attempting to avoid getting killed in a violent attempt to quash a political rebellion. I know that’s not what you had on the cards for today, but it’s the way it’s turned out. You’ve mentioned critical maintenance of your services being done by your provider, now while we actually have no idea about when this matter will be resolved, and despite the fact that you’ve advised of a 90 minute maintenance window, we’d like you to consider petitioning your provider to move the maintenance to tomorrow. Of course if we need you to push it out further, we’ll let you know.”
What we DID see was 100s of 000s of tweets like;
saschaguinn RT @Sudat Tell @twitter to NOT take Twitter down tonight, World Events are TOO important! #iranelection (Please ReTweet) #nomaintenance
What do I see in that? It’s probably different to what you two see, but that’s part of everyone different. I see users of a service, who use it for free, unilaterally coming to the conclusion that regardless of what that service thinks, what is important to THEM is more important, and that the service has no right to do things its way.
I don’t think that’s ok, and I am surprised by, but respectful of, people who do.
So what has been opened up as a result? The ability to do this:
Thousands of pages of:
# gavinjdow Anyone who follows my feed take a look at @IranElection09 @IranRiggedElect and #iranElection . This revolution is being tweeted… less than 20 seconds ago from TwitterFox
# Photo_572_normal LEM413 wishes she got that list of Iranian English language twitterers before it went down… #iranelection less than 20 seconds ago from web
# I-media_profile_pic_normal vedantvarma RT @shutupxo: @vedantvarma #iranelection – NOT BLOCKED. This is confirmed from Iran. less than 20 seconds ago from TweetDeck
# Sea_otter_1_normal calliope_jane RT @jimsciuttoABC: we hear 1dead in shiraz, livefire used in other cities (RT[...] any info outside of Tehran) #iranelection less than 20 seconds ago from TwitterFon
# Default_profile_normal zanraf @GEsfandiari can you verify if #iranelection has been blocked and whether we should switch? if so to what hashtag? then we cn all RT. thx less than 20 seconds ago from web
# Luckglare_normal danteorpilla RT from Iran TAGS MAKE NO DIFFERENCE, I’M THERE, NO NEED TO CHANGE. #iran9 #Iranians #gr88 #Iranians #Tehran {STICK WITH #iranelection } less than 20 seconds ago from web
# Greentwitterpanda_normal gschan @unstung Green Panda = support for the #iranelection #freeiran #tehran movement…. less than 20 seconds ago from DestroyTwitter
# Cromasurus_cropped_normal CCFG See how and why to relocate to Iran at least virtually at : http://bit.ly/a8B7R #iranelection #tehran #iran9 less than 20 seconds ago from TweetDeck
# Pucca_normal delunna RT @arashamel: pls get this out to your followers. #iranelection (twitter) blocked in Iran. Switch to #Iranians, #Tehran, and #Iran9 less than 20 seconds ago from TweetDeck
# N504808152_708024_4967_normal stevendavis Help overload Iranian government propaganda websites: http://delicious.com/freeiran #iranians #iranelection #tehran #iran9 less than 20 seconds ago from Tweetie
# Irantwitter_normal Renois #iranelection – NOT BLOCKED. This is confirmed from Iran. rt plz less than 20 seconds ago from web
# Default_profile_normal Geniusbastard @alexis_cs I’m just passing it along. It stands to reason that if there are 2 sides, casualties will be taken by both. #iran9 #iranelection less than 20 seconds ago from web
# Brentwgraham_moussavi_normal BrentwGraham RT @JilliAnthemette : I’m wearing #Green for the #IranElection & a #FreeIran. Read this & Pass it on:)–> http://cli.gs/GSGP0t half a minute ago from Twittelator
# Twitter_normal meredithwrogers RT @IvanGiesbrecht: Incredible photos. RT @newley: The Big Picture blog has sum extraordinary #IranElection images: http://bit.ly/7OYFq half a minute ago from TweetDeck
# Face_normal Androcles RT #IranElection is not filtered; these are all rumors. Please only use #IranElection to keep the unity. (via @mahdi) half a minute ago from TweetDeck
# Default_profile_normal ouwetinva khamenei is the problem, secular democracy is the solution! #IranElection half a minute ago from web
# N581667572_281669_9194_normal andysheridan #IranElection Use this tag.It’s not being filtered.Big day today for us all.Keep up the pressure.Ahmadinejad in Russia.Cease the day.Be safe half a minute ago from web
People showing support. That’s all.
I find this: “I see users of a service, who use it for free, unilaterally coming to the conclusion” incredily funny. Yes, an assortment of people from all over the world and many different walks of life and political persuasions have unilaterally come to a decision. Yes, it’s like the people of Australia unilaterally elected the ALP because only Australian people voted. Or it’s like how the judges on American Idol unilaterally decide who goes through to the next round because they’re all judges on American Idol.
Get real.