The revolution will be Tweeted
I wanted to start this essay with this sentence: "Like everyone else I have been fascinated with recent events in Tehran and the role of social software in them."
Only I can't.
You see, despite the fact the mass media are finally reporting about the Iran election protests and the role of Twitter (among other Internet tools) in them, pretty much only people actually playing in that space are paying attention -- and not all of them. And, of that subset, fewer still are really thinking about what this means to the future of social unrest and grass-roots political action.
Even of those Twittering with the hashtag #iranelection or those who have turned their Twitter icons green
in sympathy; most have no real connection to events there, other than a wish to support what appears to be mass uprising against the mullahs. A 'freedom' movement. We (and I count myself among this crowd) actually do not understand the real situation on the ground there, communicated to us in a storm of 140 character bursts and links to images; all a complicated mess of fact, rumor, and deliberate misinformation. Worse, we misinterpret the protester's motivations. Their actions. Even their goals.
We don't really understand. We tend to see everything through our own eyes. Forgetting, or never knowing, that the meaning of the word 'freedom' is somewhat different for us than for the protesters in Tehran. There is a cultural gulf here and few of us are crossing it. Most of us are almost guaranteed to be disappointed in the end! Even if they are successful, the protestors are not seeking to replace the mullahs with Western-style democracy. They want, and will get, an Iranian system.
And yet it remains compelling. It feels as though we are watching, even taking part in, the first software-mediated revolution. So we raise our own voices in a worldwide howl for attention. And that attention has been returned in the form of arrests and killings of those daring to use these social tools to protest and organize protest. All while the rest of the world remains mute.
(Sidebar: If every tweet with the #iranelection hashtag not posted by an Iranian was replaced with a dollar, the amount of money raised to assist the protests or rebuild the broken lives arising from them would more than suffice. Yet attention is a currency of its own, with value not easily measured in ducats. Still, attention doesn't pay hospital bills or help bribe jailers for the release of a young man who's only crime consists of words in Persian tapped on the keys of a cell phone.)
For me the most interesting thing here is the thing itself. As in the last U.S. election. As in Guatemala recently. As in every case where a spontaneous social upheaval finds itself being organized and broadcast to the outside world via social software tools. This is significant. This is new! This is proof we live in a future weirder than even William Gibson (Twittering as GreatDismal) could predict!
It makes me wonder about the future of software in politics and social discourse. What if the tools were just a little richer? Just a little more commonplace? Would the chaos of #iranelection be replaced by a system of vetted commentary over anonymous channels? Would we get an instant protest-wiki, edited into usefulness with the cultural background and history required to understand what is really happening? Would we have systems for raising money and getting it to those in need with a minimum of graft and waste?
And, more importantly, would our own governments find these tools to be instruments of freedom or dangerous channels for terrorists?
But that's not the punchline. No, this little joke has a real zinger: When (not if) such tools become available to us, they will not be intended for social upheaval. Instead they will exist for the same reasons that Twitter and Facebook and LiveJournal exist. They will exist so we can talk. So we can share who we are with the world.
And that is the kicker. Because who we are includes what we believe. And, in the end, that is the best hope offered by these tools. Maybe we will overcome our differences because we actually talk to each other. From this, I dare to hope that one day the idea of someone like myself supporting people in Iran who believe things about Jews, homosexuals, and women I could never agree to would seem a little less bizarre.
Only I can't.
You see, despite the fact the mass media are finally reporting about the Iran election protests and the role of Twitter (among other Internet tools) in them, pretty much only people actually playing in that space are paying attention -- and not all of them. And, of that subset, fewer still are really thinking about what this means to the future of social unrest and grass-roots political action.
Even of those Twittering with the hashtag #iranelection or those who have turned their Twitter icons green
in sympathy; most have no real connection to events there, other than a wish to support what appears to be mass uprising against the mullahs. A 'freedom' movement. We (and I count myself among this crowd) actually do not understand the real situation on the ground there, communicated to us in a storm of 140 character bursts and links to images; all a complicated mess of fact, rumor, and deliberate misinformation. Worse, we misinterpret the protester's motivations. Their actions. Even their goals.
We don't really understand. We tend to see everything through our own eyes. Forgetting, or never knowing, that the meaning of the word 'freedom' is somewhat different for us than for the protesters in Tehran. There is a cultural gulf here and few of us are crossing it. Most of us are almost guaranteed to be disappointed in the end! Even if they are successful, the protestors are not seeking to replace the mullahs with Western-style democracy. They want, and will get, an Iranian system.
And yet it remains compelling. It feels as though we are watching, even taking part in, the first software-mediated revolution. So we raise our own voices in a worldwide howl for attention. And that attention has been returned in the form of arrests and killings of those daring to use these social tools to protest and organize protest. All while the rest of the world remains mute.
(Sidebar: If every tweet with the #iranelection hashtag not posted by an Iranian was replaced with a dollar, the amount of money raised to assist the protests or rebuild the broken lives arising from them would more than suffice. Yet attention is a currency of its own, with value not easily measured in ducats. Still, attention doesn't pay hospital bills or help bribe jailers for the release of a young man who's only crime consists of words in Persian tapped on the keys of a cell phone.)
For me the most interesting thing here is the thing itself. As in the last U.S. election. As in Guatemala recently. As in every case where a spontaneous social upheaval finds itself being organized and broadcast to the outside world via social software tools. This is significant. This is new! This is proof we live in a future weirder than even William Gibson (Twittering as GreatDismal) could predict!
It makes me wonder about the future of software in politics and social discourse. What if the tools were just a little richer? Just a little more commonplace? Would the chaos of #iranelection be replaced by a system of vetted commentary over anonymous channels? Would we get an instant protest-wiki, edited into usefulness with the cultural background and history required to understand what is really happening? Would we have systems for raising money and getting it to those in need with a minimum of graft and waste?
And, more importantly, would our own governments find these tools to be instruments of freedom or dangerous channels for terrorists?
But that's not the punchline. No, this little joke has a real zinger: When (not if) such tools become available to us, they will not be intended for social upheaval. Instead they will exist for the same reasons that Twitter and Facebook and LiveJournal exist. They will exist so we can talk. So we can share who we are with the world.
And that is the kicker. Because who we are includes what we believe. And, in the end, that is the best hope offered by these tools. Maybe we will overcome our differences because we actually talk to each other. From this, I dare to hope that one day the idea of someone like myself supporting people in Iran who believe things about Jews, homosexuals, and women I could never agree to would seem a little less bizarre.