Social Media Playing Key Role in Iranian Protests

Technology’s power to circumvent government censorship is being fully witnessed as Iranian protesters use social networks – Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and others – to broadcast to the world, the events unfolding following the nation’s recent elections.  Government attempts to block network access to the Internet have been thwarted as protesters began jamming government Web sites and disseminating information through social networks.  Twitter is the most active channel as opposition activists share photos of bloody protests and notify one another about scheduled protests in Tehran. 

“When I’m not connected to Twitter, it means I’m disconnected from the world because the state TV doesn’t report many things,” said one Iranian Twitter user. 

This worldwide adoption of social media comes just as a study by the Conference Board Consumer Research Center reported that almost half of U.S. Internet users use social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. This is nearly double the number of social network users reported in last year’s study.   

The 2009 study reported a number of trends including that people aged 55 and over are quickly increasing their use of social networks – up from six percent last year to 19 percent this year.  Women are more likely to use social media than men (48 percent as compared to 38 percent respectively).  Twitter users say their top reasons for logging on are to connect with friends (42 percent), update their status (29 percent), look for news (26 percent) and for work-related reasons (22 percent). 

For more on these stories:

Read the MSN story:  “Social networks support Iran election protests”:

Read more about the Conference Board study in the Denver Business Journal