You Can't Explain a Revolution in 140 Characters

I'm just as guilty as every American described in this editorial by Frank Rich -- I have little knowledge of the background and context of what's going on in the Middle East, and I too have lazily made my revolution talking point about the use of social media to organize.  But:

“Let’s get a reality check here,” said Jim Clancy, a CNN International anchor, who broke through the bloviation on Jan. 29 by noting that the biggest demonstrations to date occurred on a day when the Internet was down. “There wasn’t any Twitter. There wasn’t any Facebook,” he said. No less exasperated was another knowledgeable on-the-scene journalist, Richard Engel, who set the record straight on MSNBC in a satellite hook-up with Rachel Maddow. “This didn’t have anything to do with Twitter and Facebook,” he said. “This had to do with people’s dignity, people’s pride. People are not able to feed their families.”


And further, on our collective lack of attention to or tolerance of Middle East issues, lately exemplified by what Rich identifies as the American corporate-level blackout of Al Jazeera English:


The consequence of a decade’s worth of indiscriminate demonization of Arabs in America — and of the low quotient of comprehensive adult news coverage that might have helped counter it — is the steady rise in Islamophobia.

Twittering the Revolution

Now, I'm a late adopter when it comes to certain things. Yes, hard to believe. I am particularly anti-Twitter, as everyone on Twitter seems to be promoting a brand whether it's themselves or their company, but I have to highlight the fact that everyone worldwide can be on the ground in Iran in real time - check my friend Elizabeth's FB status:

Elizabeth is blown away by revolution Twitter-style. Special tip: If you're injured, don't go to the hospital. Police are taking names and disappearing people directly from the ER. However, if you're on Twitter, you can link directly to a map of embassies that are accepting the injured.