
State Dept. to Twitter: Keep site up in Iran - robg
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/16/state-asks-twitter-to-keep-site-up-in-iran/?feat=home_headlines
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biohacker42
It has been very interesting to watch the information flow in Iran.

Full disclosure: I was born and raised behind the iron curtain so I've thought
a lot about autocratic regimes and network theory.

It's very difficult if not impossible to stop a human wave revolution. Even if
the police have guns and the protesters don't, it is usually impossible to
stop, regimes just topple.

Violent regime change by small groups of people also happens, but I want to
concentrate on the classic _thrown off by the populace_ scenario.

To keep a population down, to have a police state and stay in power you need
some percentage X of that population to function as police.

To do it by brute force requires such a large X that it's hard to function as
a state, see North Korea.

But you can get away with a much smaller X if you can disrupt the formation of
a human wave. And the best way to do that is fear, intimidation and preventing
the flow of information.

That's why police states spy on their people and control the media. Parades
are for propaganda, except they can also turn to bad, see Romania and
Ceauşescu.

The spying is not about getting everyone who's dissatisfied with the regime.
It's about getting at least some of the super links, and intimidating the
rest.

Controlling the media is about preventing synchronization, you want to prevent
EVERYONE going out on the street at the same time.

So no braking news, or reports of demonstrations. If there are large
demonstrations anywhere, you definitely don't put that on TV, much less live
TV. Even industrial accidents are suppressed and then slowly leaked over time,
days.

You just don't want to give anyone a reason to panic. Controlling a populace
like that is very much like crowd control, it's even somewhat similar to how
you control an animal that could kill you if it got spooked, like a horse.

That control occasionally slips. Soccer is huge in the rest of the world and
soccer matches are live even in autocratic regimes. And usually that's not a
problem.

Except when a soccer riot at live soccer match starts a revolution.

Interestingly, I recall hearing that North Korea would not show the South
Korean team's games in the soccer world cup live.

And what Iran is doing is very smart. Evil but smart. Shutting down Facebook
and youtube is smart. Why they left Twitter open is anyone's guess.

Breaking up the crowds while they are still small, announcing fake rallies is
poisoning the information well.

Given how important information is to regime change, I am stunned the CIA has
not done more to make Facebook unblockable, or at least difficult to block. Or
airdropped encrypted satellite cell phones on the crowds.

I am surprised and depressed there aren't free information distribution tools
being made and given away by the NSA, CIA, etc to everybody living in
autocratic regimes.

It saddens me to think this is because they fear those tools could be used
against friendly dictators.

Watching the brutality of the police in Iran, how they beat people, students,
women, anyone, I keep thinking to myself:

Iran needs soccer hooligans. Iran needs semi-pro, British, well organized,
taking-hooliganism-as-a-serious-hobby, with many years experience hooligans.
And lots of them. Why are we not parachuting them into Tehran?

You can also watch the crowds react, flow around blockades or confront them
when numbers are on their side.

And the police go from bullies to running away as fast as the balance of
numbers changes.

Watching has been painful, but Iran is after all the nation that used the
human wave attack in the Iran-Iraq war, so I can't help but expect that to
happen to the current regime soon.

~~~
gaius
British hooligans, best in the world. With a bit of planning they could have
been pre-positioned too.

~~~
danw
"Hooligans" seem rare at football matches in Britain these days, thanks to
cultural changes, better stadium design and improved policing.

~~~
gaius
Yeah, they'll be looking for some action then...

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sfphotoarts
I just looked at the State Dept's website to see exactly what their mission
is. They still have a page from 2007 outlining the will of the then President
Bush. Maybe they should think about updating their own website sometime...

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raheemm
Sort of unrelated but why does Facebook not co-opt Twitter. It does not seem
to be all that hard. Problem with Twitter is that there is no way to verify
identity. I always have a suspicion that the tweets from guy in Iran is really
just some bozo in the state dept or the Iranian revolutionary guard.

~~~
jmillikin
I do not think any authentic protesters would be using Twitter if their
identities could be "verified".

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siavosh
bravo to the State Dept. and twitter but I wish they made the request more
discretely.

~~~
geuis
Why must this be secret? This is a nice sign of transparency between the
government and tech companies. Its much better read "State department working
with Twitter" than "NSA installing secret monitoring equipment in AT&T
building".

~~~
siavosh
well my concern is that it could be used as propaganda inside Iran trying to
link the protests to foreign powers. but for domestic transparancy, to your
point, is great.

~~~
jm4
I would presume that since the announcement came straight from the State
Department any potential consequences of such an announcement were considered.
I also think any propaganda value the announcement may have is negligible if
there is any value at all. If they're going to claim a link between the
protests and a foreign power I would think they'd have to come up with
something a little more substantial than the State Department asking Twitter
to postpone maintenance. Could you imagine some diplomat going to the U.N.
with such a thin story? I can't.

In fact, it would probably be even more effective to claim foreign involvement
without any evidence at all. If they make the case using the Twitter story
many people would quickly dismiss it as a weak theory. If they, instead, make
bold claims and then are unable to substantiate them due to national security
reasons it can't be disputed.

~~~
netsp
It wouldn't be of much value in a vacuum. But Iranian-US dynamic didn't start
this week. 'The US is manipulating Iranians,' is a storyline that Iranians
would be open to. It's a pre-existing fear.

~~~
bint
Yep, there's obviously a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know
about. The people really behind the Twitter protests is just one part of it.

<http://kheirkhah.ir/media/Image/Weblog%202/Keyhan-ehtics.jpg>

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brown9-2
Another link to same story:
[http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUS...](http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSWBT01137420090616)

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axod
Debunked: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8104318.stm>

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jmhodges
Looks like the new url is:

[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/17/state-
asks-t...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/17/state-asks-twitter-
to-keep-site-up-in-iran/)

The day seems to have changed. (Perhaps their CMS updates the url as a side
effect of saving an update that happens on a new day?)

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mmelin
Washington Times just broke through Safari 4's popup blocker and showed me a
_really_ obnoxious ad for an Economist subscription. We're talking 600x400
pixels of #FF0000, flashing.

~~~
Zev
I don't see this ad in Safari 4 on Mac.

------
bint
Yeah, it would not surprise me one bit if all this mayhem in Iran is
eventually found to have America's fingerprints all over it.

Remember the Orange Revolution and Yushchenko (the acid-on-face guy) in
Ukraine not so long ago?

Quote: 'an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived
exercise in western branding and mass marketing…'

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa>

The situation in Iran, esp. the reaction to the Twittering, strikes me as the
exact same thing, especially given the US history in the region covertly
bringing down the democratic government of Mossadeq. Israel and therefore
America want to destabilise Iran at any cost. They don't want democracy, they
want a 'friendly' democracy -- that's the key.

It's been going on covertly and not-so-covertly for a long time:

[http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2002/09/12/Netanyahu_US_should_a...](http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2002/09/12/Netanyahu_US_should_attack_Iran_with_TV/UPI-63711031863825/)

~~~
rjurney
Its not really fair to talk about US meddling in Ukraine during the Orange
Revolution without mentioning the overwhelming Russian meddling in Ukraine
that it sought to oppose.

~~~
bint
So because they do it, it's okay for us to do it too? We've moved completely
away from the "Trade with all nations and have emnity with none" of the
Founders to the Machiavelian games of Brezinski, Kissenger and their friends
at the CFR.

Why did the CIA plan and execute a coup against the democratically-elected
Hugo Chavez, and attempt to overthow the legitimate democracy in Venezuela?
How can it be justified from a non-Machiavelian (i.e. moral) worldview? Can
it? The crazy thing is, the US subverts democracy in the name of democracy.

~~~
rjurney
In case you didn't notice: the FSB took over Russia, and they are evil. They
don't have Ukraine's best interest in mind in anything they do. They want to
start a civil war, and annex the Russian part of Ukraine.

Can you make such a case for opposing overwhelming foreign intervention in
Venezuela? No. Therefore our meddling there was wrong.

Not the same as Russia/Ukraine. We were opposing a takeover in Ukraine.

