Marc Ambinder has put together something of a guide to following the massive noise of internet data and misinformation coming out from Iran:
Don’t assume. Everyone assumes that Mousavi really won. But there is reason to think that the election was very close — and that Ahmadinejad might have actually prevailed (although the evidence appears solid that his totals were significantly inflated.) Don’t assume that Ayatollahs who appear at protests necessarily support the protesters. Don’t assume that the Khamenei speaks for the rest of the council of guardians. Don’t assume that Iran’s government had a plan to contain the protests — or has a plan for tomorrow, ten days from now, or next month.
Although he rightly talks of this data providing useful intelligence sources, he forgets to consider that it can all be crowded under the label of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence). The proliferation of this type of intelligence over the last few years is having profound implications as to how we go about gathering and analyising information. CNNFail has already demonstrated its ability to outpace an organisation once famed for getting the news before others.
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Hey, you might be interested in this – as many real iranian twitterers as we can find list:
http://therightstudent.com/?page_id=1901
Good stuff. Have you verified them?
They were on a credible website and verified by others. I believe Arnie has also.
Fair enough.