It may not achieve much — but Twitter is an act of faith

In the wake of Iran's disputed election results, as the regime tries to suppress independent reporting and block opposition media outlets, the revolution will not be televised. But will it be carried on Twitter?

With their short messages and varied transmission routes, the tweets from the streets are, we're told, little bursts of freedom, flitting right through the mullahs' barricades.

A service used to plan meeting up for pizza is now, it seems, helping to co-ordinate regime change.

The US State Department says Twitter appears to be playing an "important role at a crucial time" and asked the site to delay its planned maintenance.

Reputable newspapers, their own correspondents expelled or shut up in their hotels, quote posts from Twitter in their stories.

Yet even if the backdrop is bloodier and more urgent than usual, the cynic in me gets a slightly familiar feeling.

Could this be another case of not-very-techno-savvy middle-aged journalists and opinion-formers getting carried away by the latest Web 2.0 craze?

Three years ago, older readers will remember, it was blogging that was going to transform the world. Two years ago it was Facebook.

Three decades ago, Iranians somehow managed to get themselves on to the streets in large numbers and have a revolution before Twitter, before indeed the internet was even invented.

The harsh religious repression that followed meant that Iran developed dissent through technology and "social networking" long before the latter term was ever known in the West.

Years before the web, Iranians in their millions made satellite dishes out of dustbin lids and other random bits of metal so they could watch Western and diaspora TV channels.

They circulated and swapped VHS cassettes, later DVDs. Later, they networked by text and phone.

Perhaps actually more in Iran than most other places, Twitter is a development, not a ­transformation.

The information about the Iranian election on Twitter at the moment is, as one critic put it, "more noise than signal".

It is very hard to know whether what you read is true or whether it is even coming from Iran (you can adjust your settings so that you can appear to be tweeting from anywhere you want).

On his blog Richard Sambrook, director of global news for the BBC, has compiled a long list of the unsubstantiated Iran rumours circulating on Twitter — that there are tanks on the streets, that the electoral commission has declared the election void, and so on.

Sambrook, of course, has to some extent an interest (and so do I: I should declare that I host a discussion programme on an Iranian ­government-funded English-language TV channel, though I count myself an opponent of President Ahmedinejad and have criticised him on my show).

But then the vast majority of tweeters out of Iran have an interest, as well.

For the moment they are mainly opposition supporters.

But what happened to an earlier so-called Twitter revolution in another repressive state, Moldova, is instructive.

After protests, initially web-driven, erupted, the authorities, or people sympathetic to them, used Twitter as a disinformation channel to scare people away from demonstrating again.

That kind of manipulation is happening more mildly in democracies, too.

Below the radar, powerful commercial interests and PR companies are creating fake "online communities", tweets, blogs and commenters on blogs, to covertly push the corporate line.

Wal-Mart was caught at it in America recently, and several bloggers here also have undeclared links to interest groups or individuals that they plug.

It may not matter all that much: although some blogs are rather important, the vast majority are not.

In London, various blogs obsessively attack the Mayor.

After a year of their work, according to the polls, he was 10 points more popular than before they started.

Though it is widely believed that it is "impossible to control" the internet, it is in fact highly possible for a determinedly repressive regime to exercise a great deal of control, even total control.

In extremis, you just shut down the internet service ­providers.  

Why, then, is at least some Twittering and blogging still being allowed in Iran?

Perhaps it is because the regime is divided, or disorganised under the pressure of events.

Perhaps it is because this isn't really (yet) a "revolution" but a power struggle between two rival groupings, both of whom believe broadly in the same political framework.

The Twittering may, in short, be a symptom of the unrest, not a cause.

But perhaps it is also that Twitter and the rest do not matter as much as the Twitterers, and Western observers, would like to think.

If you are a senior member of the Iranian regime, your priority will be the thousands of actual physical demonstrators on the streets, not what's happening online.

The idea that these physical gatherings are being organised on Twitter is dispelled by actually looking at the posts: almost none are logistical.  

Yet something is happening here that is of real importance and benefit to Iranians and foreigners alike.

We outsiders might not be getting too many reliable, specific facts from Iran on Twitter.

We may not be getting any context at all. But putting it all together, we are getting a pretty good idea of the general mood.

And as for the Iranian protesters, I think it would be a mistake to look at the Twittering too coldly and too reductively.

If enough people believe in something, in this case the possibility of change, it becomes more real. Twitter is spreading that belief.

For Iranians, the very act of broadcasting their defiance is of value in itself.

It is an act of faith, of confidence-building, and of hope.