Viva la Cyber Revolucion

Iranian elections were a few day ago. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s current President and international bad guy, was expected to run in a very tight race. Instead, he won with more than 63% of the vote. Even before the election, he had removed election inspectors while launching cyber war against his opponents, many of whom went underground. As a result of these, and other highly suspicious events, massive protests have broken out in Iran.

The government responded incredibly harshly, firing into peaceful crowds, destroying university dorm rooms, arresting innocent civilians, and generally deploying Gestapo tactics. They also shut down all major media outlets and have cut cell phone and internet access in most places, effectively hiding their actions from the international community.

Twitter is extremely hard to shut down, however, so it has remained the only way to communicate within Iran or with the outside. The Iranian government has been trying to hunt down those who are able to Tweet, and they are using fake Twitter accounts to spread disinformation.

How can we help?

1. If you have a Twitter Account, change your location to Tehran and your timestamp to GMT +3:30 so that when Iranian operatives search for Iranian protestors they get static.

2. Reads lots of Tweets. If you discover a Tweet that has relevant information then you…

3. Validate it if possible. Find out if the Twitter profile is new or not. If it’s new, or if there is evidence that this Twitterer is giving out information, then Tweet that with the user name so that others can know that information and that profile are bogus.

4. If the information sounds good, then repost it without the account name of the Twitter.

5. MAKE SURE ALL TWEETS USE THE TAG “#Iranelection” at some point in the Tweet. That way they can be filtered appropriately and the info will get through.

6. Follow these rules.

This is a fun, legal, and helpful way to get involved. If somebody told me yesterday that today I’d be a political operative for the Iranian Revolution, I would have said that they were crazy. Instead, I discovered that saving lives and fighting dictators is easy.

OK, gotta go. Gotta Tweet. Twitter on!