Jamming, Protest, & Tweeting

 

There may have been a time when political science, international relations, and information technology seemed like three demanding but largely unrelated subjects, but history has a way of confounding our expectations. The current civil unrest in Iran following last Friday’s disputed presidential election results is certainly a case in point. The BBC reports that its BBC Persia satellite television broadcasts are being jammed, and technology experts have traced the source of that jamming as coming from within the nation of Iraq. BBC director of world service Peter Horrocks has blogged that such jamming is both wrong and a violation of international treaties on satellite communications. The BBC has provided Iranian viewers with a site to which they can upload news, photographs, or videos, but adds the cautionary note that posters do nothing illegal or commit any act that could result in personal danger.

Iranians are blogging to Facebook as well. Social communications company Twitter has delayed a scheduled maintenance interruption of service, and Tweetstats.com reports a record number of Tweets coming from Iran and being accessed by other Twitter users. In fact, some Twitter users and tech experts have set up proxy sites to help Iranians who want to circumvent governmental efforts to block exchanges of information. As this is article is being prepared, U.S. reporters in Iran have been barred from the streets of Teheran, and news is reaching the networks or newsroom via Tweets sent from cell phones. In such a swift-moving situation, it’s difficult to name consistently helpful sources, but the BBC Editors’ Blog, and Reporters Without Borders are good places to start.

---