The Revolution Will Be Twitterized

Despite a ban on foreign media, and attempts to completely shut down internet and cell phone services (text messages included), the posts are coming in at nearly 35-50 tweets per minute with the tag #iranelection, and nearly every tenth of those tweets screams through the interwebz that the Iranian Army has been deployed and is en route to confront pro-Moussavi protesters in Tehran.

From the NY Times:

The crackdown on communications began on election day, when text-messaging services were shut down in what opposition supporters said was an attempt to block one of their most important organizing tools. Over the weekend, cellphone transmissions and access to Facebook and some other Web sites were also blocked.

Iranians continued to report on Monday that they could not send text messages.

...

Many Twitter users have been sharing ways to evade government snooping, such as programming their Web browsers to contact a proxy — or an Internet server that relays their connection through another country.

Austin Heap, a 25-year-old information technology consultant in San Francisco, is running his own private proxies to help Iranians, and is advertising them on Twitter. He said on Monday that his servers were providing the Internet connections for about 750 Iranians at any one moment.

Even as I type this I'm trying to keep up with the hundreds and hundreds of new posts coming in by the minute now. It's hard to tell what's bullshit and what's not. Particularly dramatic highlights include:

"WARNING: If you can, take down satellite dish. Besij raiding houses with satellite."

"URGENT SHARE confirmed: don't let them take injured ppl to the hospital by ambulance. they'll be taken to Sepah hospital!"

"NEWS: those killed in Tehran Uni been buried by gov. w/out families knowledge"

"Canadian journalist in Iran detained, beaten, & taken to Int. Ministry for questioning http://bit.ly/JaAYR "

"call from [redacted] saying plainclothes going door2door now looking for satellite dsh "

BoingBoing has also posted a 'CyberWar Guide for Iran Elections' giving instructions on how to use proxies to bypass the State media blackouts, and tips for Twitter users in the 1st World to aide to those currently in Tehran.

And now, to take the edge off an otherwise intense and anxiety laden blog; Iranian ladies making revolution look sexy:


UPDATE: By my estimate, I'm seeing nearly 20-30 #iranelection tweets per second now.