Look, I know I have a dog in this fight — as much as I like Twitter, I really, really bristle at the idea of a communication medium being coronated as essential while it’s still a proprietary product of a single company (which hasn’t yet set pricing!). I know I’m biased. But still, c’mon: you can’t tell me that people aren’t a bit overeager to write this story.
I think there’s reason for skepticism about Ambinder’s claims. My understanding is that cell service has been disrupted in Tehran since Saturday evening, and that net access to Twitter from Iran is blocked, making it only possible to access the site through a shifting set of proxy servers — a task that requires both technical expertise and which is typically impractical to do on a mobile device. Ambinder’s vision of furtive Twitter revolutionaries users collaboratively helping one another dodge #machinegunnests seems like wishful thinking.
It does seem unquestionable that Twitter has enabled the coverage of the events in Iran to proceed with an immediacy that’s novel to the medium. Partly this is simply because Twitter is currently enjoying a lot of excitement and attention from journalists; partly it’s because the medium really does enable the centralized distribution of information on a time scale that was previously impractical.
But when all is said and done, the centralization means it’s still relatively brittle when faced with a government keen on blocking it. Again: how are Iranians supposed to have been using the service? Yes, clearly some are. But how many, really? While it’s been a fascinating way for all of us to learn what’s going on in Iran, I still doubt that enough people in Iran have access to the site for it to be significantly enabling or shaping events there. Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see.