Experiencing Tehran Riots in Real Time Through Twitter

Technology is incredible...

I'm not only watching the story in Iran unfold via CNN/BBC online, but also via live, personal updates on Twitter.com. Tagged #IranElection, over 10,000 updates from protesters and sympathizers both in and outside of Iran have flooded Twitter in just the last hour.

For those unfamiliar with Twitter, it is a short, 160 character 'blurb' that can be sent from cell phones to this website, where others can view your message. Normally used as 'social networking' and 'status updates' (i.e, 'just got off work, who wants to get together?' or 'just had a great time with my sister!'), Twitter has become a tool for communicating and raising awareness of the on-the-ground conditions in Tehran, in real time.

I got teary-eyed and goose-pimpled as I read these 'tweets', like small morsels of the history (painful, bloody, and frightening as it is) that is taking place on a grand scale right now in Iran. Here are just a few samples, all posted in the last 20 minutes (usernames omitted to protect 'tweeters')...

Homemade caltrops: http://tinyurl.com/l257hm Easy to make and Perfect to throw in front of Basij cycles and foot troops. #iranelection

RT PLEASE! List of Embassies taking injured! http://tinyurl.com/lxenxx #IranElection #GR88 Tehran #Iran

Help them avoid arrest, change your Twitter location & time to Tehran. Confuses Iranian Government!

Basij marking doors to attack later NOW CONFIRMED. Use oil/petrol to remove #iranelection #Tehran

Basij can't round up wounded at Embassies, not allowed to enter. Geneva Convention applies. #Neda #Tehran #iranelection

Where is Michael Moore when real threats to freedom need to be documented?

If an innocent girl gets shot halfway across the world, does she make a sound? Yes, and the whole world hears her. #iranelection #Neda

Where is the butcher Khamenei? What kind of Leader shoots and gases his own people while calling himself a Man of God? #Iranelection

#IranElection for the love of your country do not show up to work today. A nationwide strike will surely collapse this regime

Neda: Iran, Tehran: wounded girl dying in front of camera http://bit.ly/2fZee8 help us.help #iranelection [Warning: graphic/heartbreaking

]

Mr. Obama! Please condemn these atrocities! We want freedom!

Wherever we may be, today we are citizens of #Iran; standing shoulder to shoulder with the people in #Tehran.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." -MLK, qtd. by Obama today. We stand witness. #iranelection