A little over a year ago there was a bunch of hub-bub about how Twitter “reported” the SoCal earthquake about 9 minutes before the AP story went out.
That was a lousy frame for understanding what Twitter is and what it does.
When people years from now look back for the a-ha moment where they got citizen microreporting, they will likely remember the Iranian election protests. With bandwidth throttled, and the state tightly controlling traditional media access, those involved with the protests are reporting what they see through Twitter. I’ve followed a bunch of the protestors and here is what has come out in the last four minutes:
StopAhmadi Mousavi: “they were not brought for potatoes” = Ahmadinejad bribed ppl in pre-election w/ potatoes in villages
1 minute ago from Seesmic DesktopBahram81 UN secretory general asked IR gov. to respect people’s will #iranelection
1 minute ago from webmadyar Dispersed fights in Tehran; sound of shooting heard #IranElection
1 minute ago from webStopAhmadi Mousavi: “these masses were not brought by bus or by threat. they were not brought for potatoes.they came themselves”
1 minute ago from Seesmic DesktopBahram81 people chanting “don’t fear, we are all together” #iranelection
2 minutes ago from webBahram81 BBC Persian doubling its daily broadcast time #iranelection
3 minutes ago from webparhamdoustdar People being surrounded in Shiraz and Rasht. Fights have broken out in Shiraz. #IranElection
3 minutes ago from mobile webBahram81 A hypothesis,in case regime wants to backtrack this farce, Ahmadinejad could b sentenced similarly if he’s “trown under d bus” #iranelection
4 minutes ago from webiranbaan ??????? ??? ??????? ????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ???
4 minutes ago from web
I don’t know the veracity of these claims (and make no claim to knowing the truth of the Iranian election). But I do know that this is the frame that is useful for understanding Twitter microreporting: that it subverts traditional authority, routes around censorship, and allows people to organize and to inform each other in a non-hierarchical emergent way.
It’s not that traditional media can’t do that as fast, but that traditional media isn’t about doing that at all.
Hapgood 
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