Iran and Social Content. Tread carefully.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 02:45PM 
I usually don't talk about politics or philosophy on this blog, but as the Iranian situation is now intersecting with technology, I wanted to share some thoughts...
As Iranian leadership continues to shut down communication with the outside world by banning foreign journalists and blocking certain web channels, we here in the U.S. are applauding the power that social media is giving to Iranian protesters in terms of sharing their voice with the rest of the world. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc are being filled with peepholes into people's lives and struggles and it's obvious that the majority of Americans and our media support these actions.
Let me be clear, I support the freedom of speech and I support what the protesters are doing. But I do wan't to offer a reality check:
The power that social media now wields in Iran to help act on the behalf of what is "right and good" as we percieve it, can just as easily be used for the opposite.
"Evil doers" are going to figure something out. They're going to figure out that they can't block this wave of information anymore. So the only option they are going to have is to fight fire with fire and stage their own information to pull the will of the crowd towards what they want to happen. Let's pretend for a second that the Iranian opposition leader Mousavi was in fact "evil." That once his green wearing supporters somehow managed to get him into power, that he would commit worse crimes against his people and the world than Ahmadinejad. AGAIN NOT SAYING THIS IS THE CASE, JUST CREATING A HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION. If such a thing were to take place it would be a very scary reality wouldn't it? It would mean there was an entity thatl was able to stir up the power of the masses, to flood twitter, to turn our avatars green, and to make us collectively bring something horrible into the world.
My point? We need to step back and be more critical than ever. Social media has the power to sway the hearts and minds of people around the world. This time it's for a cause you believe in, but next time it may not be.
Crowds, Facebook, Iran, Social Media, Twitter, youtube in psychology
Reader Comments (5)
Len:
I think you're right, but I think you could say that about any media. Just recently the MSM has gotten a lot of pushback for their involvement in the build up of going to war with Iraq. History is filled with people using media to spread propaganda, for good or bad. Now it can simply happen a lot faster.
The idealist in me, however, would like to think that the democratization of the media being dispersed "purifies" it in a sense. Meaning that there would have to be a lot of bad people with bad intentions spreading their propaganda in order for the "truth" to not surface adequately. Thoughts?
Caleb Thanks for your comment and yes I agree with you. Social Media does do a better job of purifying propaganda. I think back to the stories I've been told by my parents regarding the Soviet propaganda machine and can only imagine how much more effective it would have been if they had the technology we have now, back then. This indeed is nothing new, but rather the same thing we've seen in the past done at an accelerated rate. My hope is that the speed of communication would help destroy any form of tampering so that the final viewer has an objective piece of data to look at when making their decision.
I think the speed of the communication with Twitter especially could be both a good and bad thing. Meaning negative propaganda could spread very quickly, but hopefully once the truth surfaces the speed will also work to self-correct.
Kind of reminds me of the recent swine flu panic. Seemed like Twitter contributed to the panic, but then eventually also contributed to the calming of the masses.
Absolutely right. There are some interesting stories about terrorism and social media here and here.
Communication is always negative on some fronts. Just try and take the positives from it. Do we want to push someone horrific into power? Heck no. Do we really have the power to do that with Twitter? Not at this point. Just keep this stuff in mind and fact check.