For the past week or so, many supporters of e-speech and civil liberties around the globe have been spoofing their Twitter accounts to make it harder for the Iranian government to police and censor tweeting from within their own country. As any reader of this blog knows, Twitter and YouTube have been vital to the organization, amplification and dissemination of Iranian protest movements in the wake of last week's contested elections.
(Incidentally, this strategy has its down side: it makes it more difficult for casual observers -- and the mainstream media -- to ascertain that a given source of information is actually an eyewitness, rather than an external spreader of disinformation. You need to decide for yourself whether this is a worthwhile tradeoff; I think it is.)
My friend [redacted] sent me this email outlining the latest, greatest ways in which you can do your part for free speech and protected dissent, if you so choose:
Are you worried about what is happening in Iran? Are you on Twitter? Read below for some things you can do to assist demonstrators in Iran. If you are not on Twitter, you can still help: skip to the bottom of this email for instructions on emailing these instructions to others.
What can you do on Twitter to help demonstrators in Iran?
Security forces are reportedly hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. If you are on Twitter, you can set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3:30 and this will add more noise to the system and make it harder to conduct these kinds of searches.
Three basic steps you can take to make this tactic even more effective:
1) If you are not a Persian/Farsi speaker (or writer), find some random Persian/Farsi text and paste it into your Tweets. The Advanced Search feature in Twitter contains a search by language feature and the Iranian security forces may start to refine their searches to only look for Persian/Farsi Tweets in Tehran.
2) Use the tags #Tehran and #IranElection in your Tweets. Again, Iranian security forces may attempt to refine their searches using these terms.
3) Tweet early, Tweet often: This tactic will work better the more you Tweet. Set a reminder in your calendar, tie a string around your finger, do something to remind yourself to Tweet as much as possible.
Some ideas for "advanced" steps:
1) Use GoogleMaps (or an Iranian gazetteer like this: http://www.fallingrain.com/world/IR/) to find locations all over Iran and randomly reset your location as often as possible.
2) Plot imaginary trip through Iran and change your location using this method.
3) Alternate between the two previous techniques--try and randomize your traffic as much as possible.
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