Twitter Comes Of Age: In Tehran

The digital tool that started out silly (asking users "What are you doing?") grabbed the world by the horns as Iranians doubting the integrity of Friday's announced election victory used 140-character bursts on Twitter and posts to other social networks to get the word out inside and outside Iran.

As a limited recount began and supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets, an unusual thing happened: the internal troubles of Iran became the most-discussed subject on Twitter worldwide and a hot topic in the U.S.

Some Americans deluged CNN with complaints, claiming weekend coverage of the story was too sparse. Others, horrified at reports of seven dead in post-election violence, infused their Twitter pages with green, to show solidarity with Iranian protestors.

"Suddenly, everything that's happening over there feels very close," said Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, speaking at the 140 Characters Conference in New York, where Twitter was discussed as a tool for Government 2.0 – transparency and more immediate citizen interaction – as well as citizen engagement.

One of over 17,000 photos uploaded by users of the photo-sharing site Flickr, this one described as being from the streets on Tehran on June 15, 2009.

Dorsey wasn't alone in his view of his service as a plus for democracy: Twitter got a call from the State Department, asking that a scheduled maintenance shutdown be postponed as long as possible, to keep the service up and running for the benefit of Iranian users. Twitter obliged with a switch to a one hour shutdown at 5 p.m. ET – a time when Tehran, about nine hours ahead of New York – is mostly asleep.

A few hours after that, the Iranian government succeeded in blocking access to Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, but messages – some posted anonymously for fear of reprisals - continue to fly around the globe, including over 17,000 photos posted on Flickr.

President Obama has indicated concern about the election and the violence but says it is ultimately up to the Iranian people to decide how it elects its leaders and how to establish freer debate and democratic principles.

Skepticism of the electoral process is new to many in Iran. A Gallup poll of Iranians last year found 50 percent who expressed confidence in election results: about the same as among Americans asked about U.S. elections, and higher than many nations, while lower than Europe and Asia overall.

Even before Iran moved into the top tier of the news, public awareness was already significant when it came to questions about how the U.S. should conduct itself in relation to the country which, until modern times, was better known as Persia.

A CBS News/New York Times poll in late April asked Americans whether the U.S. should or should not establish diplomatic relations with Iran while Iran has a nuclear program. Fifty-three percent said we should; 37 percent said we should not. That's in line with a winter Gallup poll and an early April CNN/Opinion Research survey. In the latter, 59 percent said the U.S. should hold direct talks with Iran, and 40 percent who favored waiting until Iran makes significant changes in its policies towards other countries.

In that same survey, Iran was viewed as a long-term threat by 60 percent of Americans, while 22 percent felt an immediate threat and 17 percent saw no threat at all. Gallup, however, found higher negatives: 80 percent of Americans said they had a very unfavorable or mostly unfavorable opinion of Iran. Even so, 45 percent said the U.S. should not take military action even if diplomatic or economic efforts fail; 28 percent said we should take military action in those circumstances; and 18 percent said simply that we should take military action against Iran.

The preference for diplomacy is similarly present in Public Agenda's 2008 Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index, in which 47 percent of Americans surveyed said diplomacy is the best way to try to establish better relations with Iran. Twenty-eight percent preferred economic sanctions and 12 percent said we should threaten or take military action.