It is interesting to see how the Internet was used all along the elections and the protests that followed in Iran. How it started as a useful tool for the candidates and how it quickly became a nuisance for the government.

The media highlighted the recent use of Twitter by protesters, but it is important to remember that bloggers, both reformists and supporters of Ahmadinejad, have been posting all along. But without a doubt Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the Internet in general played a major role in communicating with the world and engaging the global community. People in Iran and outside were eager to report the story. And maybe because the traditional media was cast aside, it gave the story even more power since it was reported by “real” people.

Here is my interview with Hamid Tehrani, a journalist, blogger and researcher, who has been following the online activity of all the major players of this unfolding story.

During the campaign:
Tehrani said that all four candidates (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mirhoussein Mousavi, Mahdi Karoubi, and Mohsen Rezaie) used the Internet during the election campaign. Reformists used Facebook much more than Ahmadinejad. Twitter was barely used during the elections, probably only Gholamhussein Karbaschi, the top adviser to Mehdi Karoubi, a reformist candidate, used it.

Tehrani explained that Ahmadinejad also used the Internet during his campaign, but that he relied on supporters or people who got hired by his campaign to blog since he rarely updates his own blog. His campaigners used YouTube and published several films on his trips to Iranian cities or his speeches.
 
After the election:
Protesters, but also supporters of Ahmadinejad, started using Twitter primarily to inform people. Videos and pictures of the protests were uploaded all over the Internet even though the government shut down major websites like Facebook.

Tehrani agreed that Twitter was not really a central tool as the media would like to portray it in organizing the protest and fueling the masses, especially that only a handful in Iran use it.  “Twitter plays a role to inform but not organizing demonstration.”

About ten bloggers were arrested recently, and most of them were reformists and supporting Karroubi or Mousavi. “At present Iran has become the biggest prison for journalists and maybe bloggers. Everybody is scared,” Tehrani said.
 
After major protests:
The Internet is still an important part of the events. Now for example, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is using its website to crackdown on protesters and protesters are also using websites to identify members of the security forces.

Tehrani wrote in his latest post on Global Voices: “Iranian protesters appearing in widely disseminated online photos from the ongoing post-election demonstrations in Iran, are now being targeted on a website of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps… Meanwhile, some supporters of the protest movement have themselves published several photos of Iranian security forces and in particular suspected undercover agents asking citizens to help identify them.”