Anyone been following the Iran Protests on Twitter?

[tpunx99GSX]

Today i finally joined Twitter to take a look at some of the conversations in the #Iranelection channel. Its really insane what is going on there. One of the channels i have found a lot of good info is http://twitter.com/PersianKiwi
Here are some tweets that I found from persiankiwi very interesting...

all hospitals is surrounded by militia to check why ppl going in - if gun or baton injury - they arrest and beat u #Iranelection

all foreign embassys surrounded by militia to stop ppl going in - #Iranelection

The parks in north of city are closed at night and militia attacking any ppl in park or walking in streets - #Iranelection

we have report of large street battles in east & west of Tehran now - #Iranelection

there is militia controlling movement from downtown to north of Tehran to stop ppl joining Sea of Green - #Iranelection

Wednesday 4pm Baharestan Sq, Tehran - Sea of Green - #Iranelection RT RT RT - Mir Hossein Mousavi

In 5-6 hours expect the news media to be trying to get information about the "Sea of Green" as there has been a lot of tweeting about Wednesday at 4 pm the protesters will be gathering in tehran.
This is really the only reason i would join twitter, really i could care less what some random person is doing at that very moment. But when its all we have to find out what is going on in a country that is in chaos, its very cool to see how technology is revolutionizing the method of creating a revolution.
So any of you guys been watching the tweets roll on about the protests?

[NOT THE BLUE LAMPSHADE]

Fuck Iran and it's oppressive government of religious law. The people are in dire need of a revolution or regime change.

The government has been telling the hospitals to not report gunshot wounds as cause of death, what bullshit.

I haven't been watching this on Twitter, because Twitter is so gay, but whatever. Everyone knows how oppressive the Iranian government is to it's people, but what I've seen in the past week and a half is just plain insane, its like North Korea over there now.

[awd-drifter]

that area has been in turmoil for centuries and that's their curse. It sucks that people have to go through something like that but that's what happens when you have multiple religions in one area. *sighs*...so what does U.S. have to do with this? I haven't really read what's happening over there but it sucks what's happening over there.

[Constant_Project21]

The u.s. isn't doing anything to my knowledge. We should stay out of this in my opinion, let things happen. I mean yea it sucks what is happening, but if we were to step in, that's just another issue to our long list of problems.

[Shane@DBPerformance]

Originally Posted by NOT THE BLUE LAMPSHADE

its like North Korea over there now.

I wouldn't say it's like North Korea. North Korea is crazy and really cut off from the rest of the world. Iran isn't an assbackwards, uneducated, super hardcore fundamentalist, poor country like a lot of middle east countries. It's an educated middle class country. Even though they were lumped into the axis of evil, their main enemies were the same as ours, Iraq and the Taliban. They are like China though, you can do some things, but mess with the government and out come the soldiers with guns. Who knows if change will come soon or if it will be like Tiananmen Square and it will take 15+ years before things start changing.

[NOT THE BLUE LAMPSHADE]

I mean it's mainly like North Korea with the oppressive, propaganda spreading government. They shut down cell phone communication, accused journalists of being fucking spies of all things, cut off internet connections. Even though none of this stopped anything from getting out to the world, it just shows you how crazy that country is with the whole Ayatollah thing over there. It's just ridiculous.

I do believe something is up with the election results over there, why would there have been such super intense protests and demonstrations?! And some of the numbers don't seem to add up or make sense either.

[CVD]

I'm not sure the election is rigged so much as people are afraid to vote against the regime in power.
I really doubt anything will come of this, it sounds like a lot of the protesting has already been put down.

[tpunx99GSX]

The election counsel actually came out and said that in more than 50 cities more votes were cast then actual voters. they are saying it could have been more than 125 cities. but the ayatollah called the election ok. what an idiot.
if the people of iran are going to this length to protest this election, they really need to say f-it and just go after the ayatollah.
it is nice to see that in Iran they can actually set up and execute a mass protest against their govt. here in the USA if there is to be a protest about some govt atrocities it ends up being a few people any they look like wackos because they dont have power of the masses. instead we go about our lives saying things like "well i had to work" "it was over a 3 hour drive" "i agree with what they are saying but im freakin lazy" thats one main positive about the people from europe, the people dont fear the govt, the govt fears the people.

[Matt D.]

Another thing about the election is the voting results of town where the rival came from showed that nearly all the votes were for Ahmadinejad and many people found that hard to believe.

[twack]

twitter seriously. does anyone in Iran even have twitter

[NOT THE BLUE LAMPSHADE]

Originally Posted by CVD

I'm not sure the election is rigged so much as people are afraid to vote against the regime in power.
I really doubt anything will come of this, it sounds like a lot of the protesting has already been put down.

How can the people be so afraid to vote against Ahmadinejad, but not afraid to stage one of the largest protests in the past 15 or 20 years? Yea the protesting has been put down, because the security forces are fucking shooting people.
I hope Mousavi's plan of mass market flooding and strikes pulls off and something happens. 4 more years of Ahmadinejad means 4 more years of his non-sensical lying and tense relations with everyone else.

[NOT THE BLUE LAMPSHADE]

Originally Posted by twack

twitter seriously. does anyone in Iran even have twitter

I think everyone and their grand parents have Twitter in Iran now...

[tpunx99GSX]

Originally Posted by twack

twitter seriously. does anyone in Iran even have twitter

Its one of the only methods people can use that isnt being blocked by the government.
There are so many ways to use twitter out there that the gov is having a really hard time blocking it. When Nokia Seimens built that custom network they made all traffic go through a sniffer before going out to the world. The gov hadnt used the technology to actually block or alter the traffic prior to the election, but after is when the gov decided to use this technology to edit posts, block sites nationwide and create disinformation to not let the world see how bad it was getting in there. Nokia/Seimens really isnt to blame, they just fulfilled the order from the iran government to build a network.
But twitter has allowed the people to be able to get their voices out there. Its the only method of communication. but twitter is not flawless, there are still gov people on twitter trying to spread bad information. One such way is that if you see anyone looking to make a large DDOS (Distributed Denial Of Service) attack, its likely people from the Gov trying to slow internet speed to a crawl so that people cannot get information out as fast.
But as long as the protesters realise what is good info and what is bad, then they can actually stage protests in mass form and let the outside world know whats happening.
Unfortunately, from the sounds of it, the Sea of Green was basically a Sea of Red as the government was basically shooting a large number of people, the Basiij Militia was hacking people with axes and beating people. It was very hard to read some of the posts on Persiankiwi's Twitter. Whom i fear is either dead or captured as the last update was 8:30 on June 24th. Just after tweeting about how the Sea of Green is going and that people are dying in masses.
-Tom