Twittering the revolution (10 April 2009)

This post (via 3QD) from Josh Tucker reminds that my reaction to new media like Twitter is often pretty parochial. I tend to imagine only Americans using it, and then only the sort of urban Americans who are invested in being part of the tech cognoscenti, the sort of people who need to crowdsource their afterparty plans. Tucker points out that Twitter works effectively as a low-cost walkie-talkie server for oppressed people/guerrilla groups organizing social protests.

The events unfolding in Moldova, however, suggest that internet-based social networking tools that were not even present during the original colored revolutions, such as Facebook and especially Twitter, may also be able to play a very valuable role in allowing even loosely organized opposition networks to coordinate protest activity. To the extent that a constant stream of Twitter posts increases any individual’s confidence that there will be more protestors in the street at a particular place at a particular point in time, it should also serve to lower the perceived costs of participation to potential protestors.