Monday, June 29, 2009

Reading Twitter in Tehran

Dr. Melissa Hathaway’s title is Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace, National Security and Homeland Security Councils, The National Security Council. That makes her the Acting Cyber Czar in the Obama Administration. Her resume seems geeky and competent. We have not met.


Melissa, may I speak frankly?

I’m not really sure what your role in the administration is – or what it will become. We’ve never had a Cyber Czar before. This whole czar thing is new. I just wanted to bend your ear a bit about the people side of cyber. Too often we think that cyberspace is all about codes and infrastructure. And in a way that’s right. Technology has no ideology. A hammer, a plough, a satellite, a smartphone – it makes no difference. They are just tools. But we employ those tools in the service of humanity and of ideology. I’m hoping you’ll give that side of the equation serious consideration.

Much has been made of the role of Twitter in the recent Iranian elections. I’m sure you kept a close eye on it. Some have cast those events as harbingers of a more amenable Iran, of an Iran more inclined to moderation and dialogue. Still, it seemed to me that the use of Twitter by the urban, reform-minded youth of Iran became so co-mingled with the political agenda of the opposition that Twitter itself came to be seen as a window on a “real Iran” denied by the state-controlled media. The implication was that “new media” were somehow inherently democratic, immune to the distortions that beset mainstream media. That perception is at best incomplete, if not completely erroneous.

Here in the West, our own immersive communication environment lends a feeling of normalcy to a pervasive digital world that is still much the exception. Because we can access the electronic world so easily, it is easy to believe that our reality is the dominant reality. It was equally tempting to read the twittered reality flowing from Tehran as the will of the Iranian people. And it reflected, no doubt, the will of some of the Iranian people. And, perhaps most importantly, it was the reality we preferred. But think for a moment. A few weeks ago, supporters of Adam Lambert were accusing AT&T of swinging the American Idol vote to Kris Allen by providing phones for free text-messaging to Allen’s fans. The trivial may inform us here.

The message in this Idol accusation is that a minority view funneled through a restricted communication channel can masquerade as the majority. I have no doubt that Twitter-journalism reflected the strongly held views of one segment of the Iranian public. We probably did get a unique glimpse at the dreams and aspiration of the young professionals and intellectuals of Tehran. But there is also the real possibility that we saw a minority view artificially magnified by a restricted communication channel. That possibility prompts a consideration of the relationship between contemporary communication technology and ideology.

If you see the world through democratic eyes, the Internet appears the ideal political forum. Majority views can be ascertained while minority perspectives retain a seat at the table. If you see the world from an authoritarian perspective, the Internet is a powerful communication tool that can assure that the dominant perspective remains dominant as long as those pesky “flaws” get “patched.” Simultaneous with the Twitter Revolution in Iran, China launched Green Dam Youth Escort. This initiative includes a demand that every PC sold in China after July 1st have the Green Dam software installed, software that would allow the government to block user access to any “questionable” website.

The point is that we see technology through the eyes of our ideology. Here in America, the Internet is seen as a tool for democracy. The political powers that be in China see it as a tool to maintain the state. We would like to see the Iranian Twitter Revolution as the birth pangs of a western-style democracy. It may be that we just caught a brief, deceptive gleam from the lonely tower of a theocracy.

Give it a thought, Melissa, OK? Thanks.

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