At least this is the story as we have been able to figure it out.

Today in Iran Twitter is proving its value as an instant communication and broadcast medium for dissidents in Tehran. Mainstream media sources have nearly ignored recent significant events in Iran, (CNN, BBC Persia, and the NY Times have reportedly covered it to some degree but MSN, Fox, the Washington Post and others are said to have had only perfunctory coverage). A handful of dissidents and students in Tehran are managing fill the gap, however, posting information to Twitter from the ground as events unfold. Some are keeping up 20–30 tweets/hour or better, and their posts are being re-tweeted around the world in realtime. A live search of the #IranElections hashtag on Twitter returns 30 to 80 posts a minute from people on the ground in Iran and discussing the events around the world.

Photos and video are coming from the ground as well. BBC Persia has some live footage of the march, going on its fifth hour in Tehran. One user has been posting links to most of the TwitPic photos going up from the march itself, while ________ (a dissident on the ground) and _________ (a student at Tehran University) posted links earlier to two Farsi-language blogs with photos of the results of the university siege at http://25khordad.wordpress.com/ and http://entesabat88.persianblog.ir/. A video walk-through of a wrecked dorm at Tehran University can be found on Youtube here. Photos of police chasing people and a protester protecting a fallen riot cop are surfacing, as well as a photo showing that Mousavi is indeed in the crowd today, contrary to some reports. A video of a chanting crowd streaming down a major avenue in Tehran will give you goosebumps. Twitpipe and Twitcaps give you live streams of  twitter posts and images, respectively, relating to the Iranian Elections. Twitter and the Internet are changing the way the world works.

Some in the blogosphere stateside are doing a good job translating and syndicating the stream coming out of Iran. Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish is live-blogging the Iranian events. He has an excellent rundown of the weekend’s news here, and a particularly haunting post of photos and tweets from the inside here. FiveThirtyEight has an interesting discussion of why exactly the reported election results are statistically hard to believe. And I and thousands of other Twitter users are retweeting and distributing the highlights of the information stream to our followers.

Please pray for Christians and dissidents in Iran–this is a very dangerous situation. Some have already died, and this could turn into a massacre at a moment’s notice. It is a great opportunity though, as well, for a critical change in government to occur in Iran, one of the most closed countries on earth to democracy and the gospel. The newest reports on Twitter are saying that violence is ramping back up after twilight, and the streets are no longer safe. The internet and mobile networks are a tenuous link in a closed country, and we know that the government is actively trying to shut down these information leaks. Pray for freedom for this country, and for the continued health of those trying to let the world know what is happening!

John Calvin Young

Late breaking: Youtube channel of videos from Tehran today at http://www.youtube.com/user/iran09twitter

UPDATE: I can no longer distribute usernames of trusted sources on Twitter, as the government is using cyberwarfare tactics to track down and threaten, arrest, or do worse to those trying to get information out of the country. Don’t retweet raw information from the hashtag stream–there are known fake users posting disinformation for publicity or to muddy the waters. Stay with trusted sources–watch mine and other twitter streams known to use trusted sources, and read any IR twitterers carefully, checking back over their update history for consistency and opposition to the government. The most polemic are not necessarily the most accurate. I regret that the situation has reached that point, but security now demands a different level of behavior. Some things you can do: IR twitterers are asking that users outside the country switch their location and time zone to Tehran (+3:30 GMT) to swell the numbers of “Tehran” twitterers and make the government’s search harder. Also, if you do find a trustworthy source, don’t RT indiscriminately with the username–use “RT from Iran”. These users are more concerned about their lives than about proper credit. An excellent article on the cyberwarfare going on and what you can do is posted at http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/16/cyberwar-guide-for-i.html.  To paraphrase another user discussing security, remember it’s not a game or an internet meme to Iranian twitterers…it doesn’t close when they shut down TweetDeck or sign out of their browser. Many are hunkered down in safe houses or ruined buildings around Tehran, hoping to live out the night. Read, RT, reply, discuss to your heart’s content, but don’t be the one that exposes these brave members of the opposition to the government!