Twitter is not Iran’s largest social network, more popular than WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram, but like many other countries, it is used to share breaking news and real-time updates on events. It prevents Iran from becoming an information black hole. “This is a pivotal place for people to express themselves, connect with friends and family, mobilize around demonstrations and ask governments for an explanation,” Grothe said. is being used in practice,” he says.
Videos and images shared by protesters have been used to shed light on the actions of Iranian police and authorities. It identifies young people and children who have There are no official records of those who died during the protests, and HRANA estimates that only 3,400 of her detained by authorities have been identified. Over 18,000 people were arrested.
High-profile accounts inside and outside Iran belong to those on the ground, members of the Iranian diaspora, and researchers, sharing hundreds of videos of what is happening in Iran. For example, his Twitter account in Persian for the opposition activist group 1500tasvir has grown from his 55,000 followers in September to around 400,000 followers today. (In the past two months, the company’s Instagram account has also seen him jump from 450,000 followers to 1.7 million.)
Said Bagheri, a lecturer in international law at the University of Reading, said: “There is no independent platform inside Iran, so you cannot find regular or correct news on Iranian TV. People using it say it’s “very effective in sharing first-hand news about human rights abuses and atrocities against peaceful protests by the Islamic Republic.” On November 24, the United Nations launched an investigation into “fatal violence against protesters”, citing images of people subjected to violence. An Iranian official said the authorities had taken “necessary measures”.
But Twitter isn’t just used by Iranian protesters and activists. State actors in Iran have a history of using Twitter to manipulate politics. June 2019, twitter has been deleted About 5,000 accounts are associated with or “directly sponsored” by the Iranian government. Tweeted nearly two million times, the accounts promoted the views of the Iranian government and used fake profiles to “target conversations about Iranian and global political and social issues.”
An Iranian digital propaganda researcher, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said he has been monitoring the most popular Persian-language tweets for months. Before the protests began, they said, accounts believed to support the Iranian government were pushing messages justifying its policies. Once the protests began, accounts began sharing misinformation and disinformation about the event, they say. “I have never seen such a large-scale, large-scale effort to flood the Iranian Twitterverse with false information. But the regime has not succeeded in this regard.”
System failure
Twitter has long been a place where protests have been organized. But Musk’s takeover of the platform and the chaos that followed (including the collapse of Twitter’s human rights team) could have real-world implications for the protests. This may include the ability to keep people safe.
Alimardani of the Oxford Internet Institute and Article 19 said much of Musk’s time so far has focused on US issues, despite the fact that the majority of Twitter users come from outside the US. I’m here. “Iranians don’t care that Elon Musk is waging war against America’s awakened culture,” says Alimardani. “Iranians just want to get their message out to the world as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
