Twitter on the Barricades: 6 lessons learned

New York Times published this today:
- http://tinyurl.com/nxcsp2

Extracts, facsimile *courtesy to NYT
June 21, 2009
Twitter on the Barricades: Six Lessons Learned

By NOAM COHEN
Political revolutions are often closely linked to communication tools. (...)

But does the label Twitter Revolution, which has been slapped on the two most recent events, oversell the technology? Skeptics note that only a small number of people used Twitter to organize protests in Iran and that other means — individual text messaging, old-fashioned word of mouth and Farsi-language Web sites — were more influential. But Twitter did prove to be a crucial tool in the cat-and-mouse game between the opposition and the government over enlisting world opinion. As the Iranian government restricts journalists’ access to events, the protesters have used Twitter’s agile communication system to direct the public and journalists alike to video, photographs and written material related to the protests. (...). So maybe there was no Twitter Revolution. But over the last week, we learned a few lessons about the strengths and weaknesses of a technology that is less than three years old and is experiencing explosive growth.

1. Twitter Is a Tool and Thus Difficult to Censor

2. Tweets Are Generally Banal, but Watch Out

3. Buyer Beware

4. Watch Your Back

5. Twitter Is Self-Correcting but a Misleading Gauge

6. Twitter Can Be a Potent Tool for Media Criticism

THe article concludes: "Just as Twitter can rally protesters against governments, its broadcast ability can rally them quickly and efficiently against news outlets. One such spontaneous protest was given the tag #CNNfail, using Internet slang to call out CNN last weekend for failing to have comprehensive coverage of the Iranian protests. This was quickly converted to an e-mail writing campaign. CNN was forced to defend its coverage in print and online."

Source: Cohen, 2009 The New York Times, 21.6.2009 see above link.