Twitter gives the finger to the mainstream media

I'll note the following: the swine flu pandemic was blown dangerously out of proportion in the United States due to twitter hysteria. People heard this and that from everyone. In some cases, even the mainstream news picked up on it, but I'm never surprised to see the mainstream channels/papers/etc. blow things entirely out of proportion.

I'll also note this: I don't have a twitter account. I have one for my band.

I was crawling online earlier to see what happened with the election in Iran, since I missed the tail-end of it and had simply forgotten it was going on.

As it turns out, all sorts of things have happened. Major news sites are reporting on some of it. The thing I'm pointing out here has nothing to do with that, though--you can go read the news or just browse the internet for anything confirmed.

This weekend may prove to be the weekend that technology in developed countries has trumped attempts to blackout the media. Iranians are posting on twitter with what's happening. My skepticism-meter beeps a bit on this sort of thing, mostly due to my lack of belief in anything present on the internet--yet if these things are backed up (or at least not immediately refuted) by other news sources (both major and minor), then what are we coming to?

Is it really possible that Twitter could be the reason that the rest of the world knows about something that is being suppressed? Did Twitter just make itself irreplaceable?

Here's what I think: now that technology is in the hands of so many citizens of so many countries, those that can will do what they can to support those that fight for freedom. I don't mean the bullshit "freedom fight" between Democrats and Republicans in America--I mean legitimate power struggles between the people of a nation and those that would seek to oppress them and their freedoms. I'm seeing news spread from the computers of those in Iran to those that can repeat it. People are trying to verify it, doing their best to spot things that would mark a video or statement as complete fabrication or hoax. Some of the more proactive internet "freedom fighters" are staging DOS attacks on select Iranian websites (and I'm not surprised at their success thus far).

That little voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me, "Hey, you know--tomorrow or next week, you might realize that this was just another 'swine flu' problem." If so, I'll be glad to eat my words and ignore twitter. Until then, I'll keep bouncing back and forth between news media that has been shut down in Iran, and sources that are purported to be IN Iran.