Twitter, the simplest computer application in the world, the “pet rock” of the digital age, maligned by traditional journalists, has helped enable another Iranian revolution, 140 characters at a time.
Here’s NYU Professor Clay Shirky:
I’m always a little reticent to draw lessons from things still unfolding, but it seems pretty clear that … this is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Chicago demonstrations of 1968 where they chanted "the whole world is watching." Really, that wasn’t true then. But this time it’s true … and people throughout the world are not only listening but responding. They’re engaging with individual participants, they’re passing on their messages to their friends, and they’re even providing detailed instructions to enable web proxies allowing Internet access that the authorities can’t immediately censor. That kind of participation is really extraordinary.
The rest of the interview is available on TED.
Shirky’s insightful book about the internet revolution:
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