Learning the Twitter Rules of Engagement

hash tags: #iran­elec­tion #gr88 #tehran

Reading List:

A jour­nal­istic co­nun­drum: When does Twitter count as a re­li­able source?

U.S. Gov­ern­ment Asks Twitter to Stay Up for #Iran­Elec­tion Crisis

Twitter Resched­ules Main­te­nance Around #Iran­Elec­tion Con­tro­versy

State Dept. to Twitter: Iran too im­por­tant, site fix can wait

“Inane and Half-Baked” Twitter Is the For­rest Gump of In­ter­na­tional Relations

Iran Elec­tion for Be­gin­ners

If Twitter is being used for the first time to pro­vide a tool for rev­o­lu­tion­aries, it, as a tool, has un­named dan­gers. Those dan­gers have to be learned in the process of Twitter being used. As the dan­gers sur­face so do the re­ac­tive rules.

But the first rule re­gards by-standers:

Mes­sages, re­quests, cries for help fly across the Twitter page in mas­sive num­bers. Con­fused by-standers  in the process of wit­nessing through reading the his­tory pro­cessing in front of their eyes find re­maining a by­stander dif­fi­cult. People don’t want to be by-standers. They want to help,  want to par­tic­i­pate, be part of what is hap­pening. The media form is too raw, the voices too direct.

So the First Rule of Twitter En­gage­ment has to be: if you have no idea what’s going on, stay out of it. As en­ticing as it is to want to help, you can put others in harm’s way which is  some­thing many  are learning now and over the last four or five days.

Next I offer, here, a list of rules as they were ex­pressed by dif­ferent voices who I have not iden­ti­fied. As they exist they are the new Rules of En­gage­ment in using Twitter for any rev­o­lu­tionary op­er­a­tion. I’ve taken these di­rectly from the Twitter posts.

Again to all who wish to help, PLEASE DO NOT BROADCAST PROXY SERVERS! Set them up but only DM to people in Iran #Iran­Elec­tion

Jun 15, 2009 11:58 PM GMT ·

Don’t over­load #iran­elec­tion with things not about iran as it is be­coming hard to follow and share news in­side Iran

Jun 15, 2009 11:54 PM GMT

Iranian gov­ern­ment is watching Twitter; when RTing Ira­nians, re­place user­name with “Iran” (“RT from Iran”). #Iran­Elec­tion Please RT

Jun 15, 2009 11:57 PM GMT

WARNING! Do NOT go to short­ened links or RT un­less you know the Twitter ID who orig­i­nates #Iran­Elec­tion #gr88 #Tehran RT PLZ

Jun 16, 2009 11:40 PM GMT

BE AWARE! @FreeMediaNews is a liar and spreading gov­ern­mental pro­pa­ganda! #Iran­Elec­tion

Jun 16, 2009 11:58 PM GMT ·

Links of Twitter ac­counts that are pos­sible spies or trolls: http://twitspam.org/?p=1403 Check out. #iran­elec­tion #gr88

12 min­utes ago from web

These lessons of re­vealed names and ad­dresses are ob­vious in ret­ro­spect but the use of the tool was so new that the re­al­iza­tion that both cen­sors and those who wished for a changed Iran could use the in­ter­face. Not only was Twitter being used as a means of get­ting in­for­ma­tion out — but as a way to track down the revolutionaries.

One of the more re­mark­able posters for me and one who caught my at­ten­tion early on was @persiankiwi. @persiankiwi’s proxies were being broad­cast in an at­tempt to keep lines open or to in­di­cate which lines were shut down. Folks who wanted to help were pro­viding avail­able proxies in replies. But the gov­ern­ment or the cen­sors were blocking the IP’s as quickly as they were made available.

Here is one ex­tended se­ries of Tweets from @persiankiwi as this person (or per­sons) seemed to learn con­se­quences of tweets as quickly as re­quests were being made. You should read from the last post up: