Twitter reschedules maintenance to avoid clobbering Iranian dissidents

From the Twitter blog:

A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight's planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran).

Down Time Rescheduled

Previously:

Update: Xeni sez, "Twitter didn't reschedule the downtime just because they were mensches, we now know they did so at the request of the State Department."

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Toast

“Well, it looks like Twitter may have had someone pushing for it not to go down last night, during peak Iranian hours: the U.S. State Department

According to a CNN blog post, the U.S. government is connecting with Twitter and other major social media companies to make sure that the flow of information from Iran remains uninterrupted.”

They want their guy in there.
GuidoDavid

“You know, maybe just this once, this isn’t about the US.”

One of the smartest things I have seen so far in this thread.

I am sick of some Americans being against their own govt, but believing it all powerful and interpreting everything in terms of America. It just more navel/gazing, just the mirror image of the jingoistic redneck with a plate that says “God Bless America”.

In one case America is pure, beautiful and almighty, everybody bows to Her. In the other, America is evil, gross and almighty, everybody bows to Her. It is the Standard according to which the world must be measured.

It makes me sick.
Timothy Hutton

As a side note, I’m sure this pleases the system administrators at Twitter, they get to make an upgrade to their production systems during the day, rather than in the middle of the night…
Anonymous

Is this when twitter finally “grows up” and gets taken seriously? It was not too long ago when blogs, even the internet entirely, were seen as fads / toys.

“It’s very hip to be on twitter now.”
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/15/its-something-called.html
Anonymous

GUIDODAVID: “Quite the opposite. Iranians are showing that they do not need an invasion to stir things by themselves.”

The Iranian protesters deserve a lot of credit for their sacrifices and courageousness. However, I would expect the theocratic rulers of Iran to respond to the current wave of civil disobedience with extreme violence if America did NOT have a huge military presence to their immediate East and West. Do you really think The USA would – or should – stand idly by if G-d forbid masses of Iranians were slaughtered by the Revolutionary Guard? If McCain were President he might have fewer options as a Republican because of Bush’s legacy. But this is Obama’s watch now! He could justify on humanitarian grounds the USA supporting the Iranian dissidents with military force. He is so hugely popular he could easily win domestic consensus on some kind of military support or intervention short of an out right invasion. And if he could take out Iran’s WMD program while he’s at it that would be a twofer and guarantee the right would give him political cover as well.

The point is America’s campaigns of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan have almost certainly encouraged the Iranian masses to revolt and a side benefit of the change in US administration is that it has severely limited Iran’s ruling clerics room to maneuver.
JonnyCat

This is a very altrusitic action taken by Twitter. While, I’m sure influencing an election is the farthest thing from their collective minds, having the consideration to re-schedule their system update to allow the Iranian people to communicate more effectively is a real positive action.

Well done Twitter!
Timothy Hutton

On the non-altruistic front, it gives them a nice second dip at the publicity surrounding the “election” in Iran.
Thebes

I just read a rather interesting article about many of these tweets. It seems that many pro Mousavi tweets might not be coming from Iran at all. I should note that the author here cites the Jerusalem Post as his source that the twitter spam is coming from Israel.

http://pklrt.wrdprss.cm/2009/06/16/prf-srl-ffrt-t-dstblz-rn-v-twttr/

In any case, something is not passing the smell test for me. We have US politicians like McCain, who recently sang “bomb bomb bomb Iran” now so very concerned for the Iranian people? We have a “color revolution” in Iran, when other color revolutions have been linked to US covert action? We have the US president admit that the CIA facilitated a previous Iranian coup just a day before this went down?

Of course, the President of Iran is not even the real power of that nation, the ultimate leader is the Ayatolla, who vets the potential candidates even more thoroughly than the US media and their corporate backers.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Thebes,
  
  Don’t link to any more anti-Semitic, conspiracy theory, nutjob blogs. Your reference has an article with pictures of a US dollar bill turned into a star of David as proof of a conspiracy.
Ned613

JONNYCAT: “This is a very altrusitic action taken by Twitter. While, I’m sure influencing an election is the farthest thing from their collective minds…”

Are you delusional? What occured in Iran on June 12 was a total sham election! That’s what all the fuss is about there. Duh! All of the candidates are approved by the Supreme Leader and his Council of Guardians. Even so the ruling clerics still felt the need to rig the voting.

I am willing to give the Twitter principals the benefit of the doubt but inasmuch as there is no proven business model to sustain that enterprise I think its safe to assume that much of their motivation is based on seizing the opportunity for a lot of good pubilicity.
The Life Of Bryan

Ahh, so good to hear that the Iranian people should have their revolution wrapped up in a timely manner. I was afraid this might drag on till the end of the week.
IWood

#7 posted by Toast:

At want point are people going to wake up to the fact that Mousavi is backed by the CIA who want to see Ahmadinejad gone?

Anything reputable to back that up?

You seem to be under the impression that the Iranian President pulls the levers of power in Iran. He doesn’t, and never has. The Supreme Leader of Iran is so titled for a reason.

The real action is happening at that level. There is the possibility that Ali Khamenei will be forced out. If he’s replaced by, say, his former favorite Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri (who advocates interesting things like the separation of mosque and state, and women’s rights), then the stage is set for a constitutional convention that could redefine the role of the revolutionary mullahs in Iranian governance.

That’s what’s at stake here. Not some tinfoil-hatted plot.
GuidoDavid

“However, I would expect the theocratic rulers of Iran to respond to the current wave of civil disobedience with extreme violence if America did NOT have a huge military presence to their immediate East and West. Do you really think The USA would – or should – stand idly by if G-d forbid masses of Iranians were slaughtered by the Revolutionary Guard?”

You cannot know if they would act different or not. What we know now is that we were lied to to get an useless war. As north Korea has proven (again, for the nth time), rulers can be irrational. And the US should not intervene, besides, they cannot afford it. Afghanistan, Iraq, maybe North Korea and also Iran?
Yeah, right. Either you call Dr. Manhattan or you get real. In my opinion, short of genocide, there should not be interventions. So, how many thousands of dead people are needed so Iran can have a peaceful revolution? That is not a vindication of “Bush doctrine”. That is a half baked excuse to support an interventions with lots of awful consequences, badly planned and lies as foundations.

“The point is America’s campaigns of nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan have almost certainly encouraged the Iranian masses to revolt and a side benefit of the change in US administration is that it has severely limited Iran’s ruling clerics room to maneuver.”

Prove it. or stop talking chickenhawk propaganda.
J France

“You cannot know if they would act different or not. What we know now is that we were lied to to get an useless war. As north Korea has proven (again, for the nth time), rulers can be irrational. And the US should not intervene, besides, they cannot afford it. Afghanistan, Iraq, maybe North Korea and also Iran?
Yeah, right. Either you call Dr. Manhattan or you get real. In my opinion, short of genocide, there should not be interventions.”

The US doesn’t care about genocide unless it co-incides with a more profitable interest they have – in which case it’s heart the genocide.

One of many cases in point: Darfur.

America, like alot of the west, really doesn’t have a moral leg to stand on anymore. But we can all pretend, and are doing so, as hard as possible.
IWood

And, hey, look at this: Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri just issued a statement.

Excerpt:

Now, based on my religious duties, I will remind you :

1- A legitimate state must respect all points of view. It may not oppress all critical views. I fear that this lead to the lost of peopleâ€™s faith in Islam.

2- Given the current circumstances, I expect the government to take all measures to restore peopleâ€™s confidence. Otherwise, as I have already said, a government not respecting peopleâ€™s vote has no religious or political legitimacy.
Takuan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/13/iran-demonstrations-viole_n_215189.html
Toast

At want point are people going to wake up to the fact that Mousavi is backed by the CIA who want to see Ahmadinejad gone?

Mousave is a Bush/Cheney stooge. The crackdown is immoral and reprehensible but it should have never gotten to this point in the first place.

In this case Twitter is acting like a useful idiot for the CIA and NSA propaganda machine.
Thebes

Antinous

Pardon me for not checking every damn link on a page that made a very sane sounding claim about the twitters coming “out of Iran”

Do YOU check every link on every page that YOU link to?

Your implication is that I am an anti-Semite. Will you actually come out and say that???
Ned613

CRASHPROOF: “You know, maybe just this once, this isn’t about the US.”

While I believe the above sentiment is sincere I think it misses the larger point. These events tell me that something is stirring in the soul of the Iranian people. That something is a deep yearning of a people for freedom expressed through real political representation. They see their neighbors to the west as a beacon of hope. Seven brutal years of nation building have granted them the trappings of a true democracy – a constitution, fair elections, and a free press.

Granted there still are security issues and sectarian unrest. But in February 2009 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina President Obama felt confident enough to announce that the US will withdraw combat forces from Iraq by August 2010 and all remaining troops by December 2011.

Perhaps what we are witness to the vindication of the Bush Doctrine. It’s still too early to tell. But if is a vindication then these events are surely about the US and her global leadership.
GuidoDavid

Ned613:
Quite the opposite. Iranians are showing that they do not need an invasion to stir things by themselves.
Takuan

the Bush Doctrine? “rape and pillage”?
Takuan

#30, you got that backwards. The absence of an overt American threat now means people in Iran are free to express their actual wishes. The colonial activity you cheerfully call “nation building” is what kept ordinary Iraqis/Iranis down since they could be accused of being “unpatriotic” during the Cheney Regency if they didn’t present a united front to a real external threat.
fencepost

The way I’m reading this it’s not really a Twitter maintenance window but a maintenance window from their network carrier NTT America.
Ned613

TOAST: “At want point are people going to wake up to the fact that Mousavi is backed by the CIA who want to see Ahmadinejad gone?…Mousave [sic] is a Bush/Cheney stooge.”

Mousavi was vetted by the Supreme Leader and the Council of Guardians. If you really believe Mousavi is a “Bush/Cheney stooge” that is tantamount to saying Bush and Cheney successfully inserted a mole into the iranian political system. Do you really want to give them that much credit?
Anonymous

Why is doing something for publicity such a bad thing?
Takuan

the CIA and NSA would like to see Iran a smoking, anarchic ruin (Like Iraq today)so the oil can be picked from the region without opposition. Who do you think is more likely to help that scenario? Ahmadinejad or Mousavi?
Anonymous

You’re wrong, Takuan. US intervention in the Middle East is intended to keep US oil prices high and Middle Eastern oil resources either destroyed or inaccessible. Cheap gas in the US is the opposite of what the powerbrokers want.

“Ye shall know them by their works and not their words, for their tongues shall drip sweet lies”
Felix Mitchell

@ #11 Anon: “Why is doing something for publicity such a bad thing?”

Because publicity is to improve your own profits, and so if this was ONLY a publicity stunt then Twitter would be trying to profit from the Iranian people’s misfourtune.

Hopefully that’s not their motive, and they decided to do the right thing for its own sake.

I’m kind of confused how this isn’t obvious.
Toast

Don’t be ridiculous. They don’t want to see Iran in anarchy. They want a well-functioning, US-friendly, capitalistic environment. A good base of operations for themselves and U.S. business interests.

Mousavi fits the bill perfectly.
Crashproof

You know, maybe just this once, this isn’t about the US.
Takuan

so BB got hit with a DDOS attack, good, you know you are doing something right when they come after you.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Actually, it’s not a DDOS attack. The front page is trying to load every post ever written.
Ned613

TUKAN: “the CIA and NSA would like to see Iran a smoking, anarchic ruin (Like Iraq today)so the oil can be picked from the region without opposition.”

Folks, you don’t have to engage on conspiritorial thinking to explain events. Obviously, The Iraian people are so desparate for Democracy that they would even accept a so-called reformer like Mousavi as President. (I say so-called because he still had to be vetted by the unelected Supreme Leader and Council of Guardians.) The reason Iranians are so desparate is that apart from living under this oppressive regime, with and incumbent nut-job President – who is both a Holocaust-denier and WMD aspirant – who wrecked the economy they also see the promise Democracy emerging to the west. Freedom starved Iranians simply want that for themselves too.
Takuan

heh! Iranis want what Iraq has now? Oh yeah, ..tell you what, visit Baghdad and tell me how it goes.
Timothy Hutton

CRASHPROOF – exactly.

TOAST – I think you over-estimate the influence the previous U.S. administration can have on world events. The candidates for this election are picked by the theocratic rulers of Iran, not the former U.S. administration.

TAKUAN – if the U.S. Government wanted to over-run Iran, all it would need would be for the leader to publicly start declaring their need for nuclear weapons (a.k.a. WMDs) – that was the recipe in Iraq, but of course, the world leaders insisted on over a dozen rounds of foreplay by the UN with their sanctions and weapons inspectors before stepping in to seal the deal. If the goal of the US/CIA is to take over Iraq, as you suggest, Ahmadinijad is actually the perfect leader to achieve that goal.
Xopher

Well, I say “YAY TWITTER!”

Better communication among the people cannot be bad for democracy, whatever you think of Mousavi and I’m-a-deep-knee-jerk. An information stream that cannot be blocked by the state would be good too, but that’s another thread.

I would dearly love to see the Islamic Republic overthrown by the Iranian people and replaced by…almost anything else except a Baathist dictator. I don’t think we’ll see that this year, unfortunately. But recent events give me hope that we’ll see either reform or revolution within the next few years.