The Iranian Protests: A Leaderless Uprising Organized

“The election results are announced. I started counting the Facebook posts in terms of minutes… It started as whispers, then people become more critical, the posts build momentum and speed. Two hours later I get a Twitter message, We are in the streets protesting. The police are using tear gas!” described Dr. Ali Mostashari, a US-based Iranian academic studying complex social technology.

Thousands of images, video, and written testimonials streamed onto the internet as news emerged that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had claimed another term despite widespread voter support for opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi. International supporters were captivated; images fueled days of mainstream international media coverage long after the foreign journalists were forced to leave the country.

Captivated by Twitter posts and politicized by YouTube videos, internet communications helped energize and organize a new generation of Iranian expatriates. They used social media and websites to organize protests in every major international city. Bitta Mostofi, an Iranian-American lawyer who created her Facebook profile after the election, recounted, “If you wanted to participate in any capacity you had to surrender to the medium.”

Yet, within Iran, foreign journalist Iason Athanasiadis pointed out, “The majority of Iranians were not using the internet.” It’s clear that internet communications did not replace the power of outrage, word of mouth, fliers, or telephone land-lines in mobilizing Iranians to protest.

Indeed, Facebook event invitations weren’t necessary to draw millions to the streets after the disputed election. “Organizing in Iran is not something you can really do,” explains Mostashari, also a former student activist. Persian is the second most used language on internet blogs, thriving as spaces for Iranians to express themselves. Thus an outraged, decentralized, young, urban middle class had savvy internet users among them to broadcast the vital information of the protests among their friends and family.

Iranian ex-pat web slogan ,Where is My Vote?, became popular throughout Iran and stands as some evidence that internet communications influenced the protests. Still, given the restrictions on internet communications within Iran, what role did internet communications actually play in organizing Iranians in protest?

Twitter offered real-time accounts of the events unfolding on the street. Expatriated political commentator Mehdi Jalili aggregated and analyzed Twitter and Facebook posts and offered guidance to his network in Iran, such as the location of the police, protest sites, and strategic advice. Mostashari and others attempted to locate the Twitter posts on a Google map. “It didn’t get to the place where we could form a strategy because a lot of it didn’t make sense. But the fact that an attempt was made to provide real time guidance shows the emergence of a different era in terms of social networks,” said Mostashari. While Twitter created a sense of real time experience for those outside Iran, Facebook and blogs created a space for deliberating strategy by Iranian across borders.

With the censorship of the opposition in mainstream Iranian media, Moussavi’s website and Facebook page played an important role in communicating and serving as legitimate source information for the opposition movement.  Other sites offered bulletin boards to identify the dead or missing for families.

Violence against the protesters was transformed into rapidly dispersed images on websites and satellite television and manifested as symbols of resistance on the streets of Tehran.  Mostashari cited the example of Neda Agha-Soltan, an unknown protester who overnight became a symbol for the opposition everywhere, “Neda was killed and within 15 minutes a video was uploaded to internet. Someone created a still image, it spread throughout Facebook pages and the next day this photo was on the street.” I am Neda was shouted in the streets and was fueled by its dual meaning; ‘Neda’ means ‘voice’ in Farsi.

The internet became a site of accountability between Ahmadinejad supporters and the opposition. The Revolutionary Guard posted photos of protesters and the opposition posted photos of people who were shooting protesters. Both encouraged viewers to tag any familiar photos with names and contact information.  For the opposition this phenomenon was initially a way to shame the shooters and document their crimes. However, Mostashari explained, “It didn’t go too far because then people became cognizant of the fact that this could actually become dangerous. People could start identifying people incorrectly.”

Eventually, Facebook networks were disrupted because the government began arresting and interrogating people for their posts. Profiles names and photos were changed. “It became confusing because we didn’t know who anyone was anymore,” described Mostashari. As a result, many began to rely more on the safety of email communication. Yet the networks created through the post-election resistance continue.

No related posts.