Netpolitique

"Social media is not at all a prime mover of what is happening on the ground," says Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Tom Friedman types the words, "Bang-bang beats tweet-tweet."

Overall, I am skeptical about the claims that Twitter has been instrumental in organizing the protests. I grant that it may have been very influential in publicizing them. But I'd like to see tangible evidence that 10 random Iranians found each other via Twitter and – communicating in Farsi –actually planned a rally. I think we are still short of this – most of the reports I've seen about the use of Twitter have focused mostly on the role it played in publicizing the violence or the already planned protests and rallies.