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Iran Elections: Quit Turning Your Twitter Avatars Green and Do Something
If you've been on the Internet in the last week and a half, you've know: Green is the hot new color. Twitter avatars, Facebook profile pictures, Web site logos...Iran's Sea of Green has taken over the Internet. It's a well-intentioned fad, but a fad nonetheless, and it's time for it to end.
The amount of noise generated on the Internet has reached a deafening peak, and, quite frankly, it's about time everyone shut up or did something useful. If you're wondering what useful is not, take a look at your Twitter feed. As painful as it may be to admit, no lives are being saved, and no change is being made by adding a green overlay to your online presence, as made popular by the HelpIranElection.com movement. The site boasts that you can "add a green overlay with 1-click!" and that "over 160,000 people have joined! You can too!"
One click is too easy. One click is not one life saved, one dollar donated, not one ounce of difference made. One click is nothing at all.
Like the LiveStrong wristbands, the Iran post-election protest has become a fashionable cause, a Miss America-style way of showing that you really, really care, when for the most part, people know nothing about the underlying causes and history of Iran's unrest, who the candidates were, why it's so bad that some dude whose name they can only pronounce by dint of the mnemonic device "I'mADinnerJacket" won the election, or why the numbers the Iranian government is putting out are totally implausible bullshit.
At least when people bought those stupid wristbands, a buck went to fighting cancer.
Those outside Iran have had a visceral reaction to the images and reports coming out of Iran. Our feelings can best be summed up in the words of a commenter on Jezebel's post of the video of Neda, a young Iranian woman whose horrifyingly graphic death, bleeding out in the streets of Tehran has become a symbol of the movement: "Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck."
As President Barack Obama said in his press conference Tuesday, it's a heartbreaking situation.
So instead of empty gestures and hashtags, why don't we actually engage in some activism and help, instead of whispering about this like some kind of neighborhood scandal that will never catch up to us because it's an ocean away?
There's always the option of an online donation to a relief agency like Red Crescent, for something immediate and helpful. The world runs on money and blood (as the events in Iran over the last week and a half have so morosely reminded us), and America is too far away to donate the blood that the wounded in Iran so desperately need.
You can also make donations to those covering the ongoing protests and violence, like Tehran Bureau, which is run by an Iranian-emigre out of a house in Newton, Massachusetts and is in need of financial support to keep the site live and bandwidth plentiful. Reliable information is harder and harder to come by, already 24 journalists have been arrested in Iran, and the majority of the rest have been forced out of the country by expired visas and government intimidation.
Don't have cash? There are ways you can help for free without ever leaving your computer. You can create a proxy or Twitter relay to help keep those ever-important Iranian Twitterers connected and informing the world about the situation in Iran. Or change your location and time zone to match Iran, in hopes of tripping up government censors looking for active sources.
If you're more diplomatically-inclined, and looking toward the long term, write a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council and urge them to take action on international election standards and protection for citizens.
Above all, the thing you must do before any difference can be made is to inform yourself. The term "knowledge is power" wouldn't be repeated so much if it wasn't true. So spend some time reading the news, know what the hell you're talking about, and go out and tell someone else about it, and how they can help.
Just, for the love of God, don't think that turning your Twitter avatar green is going to help anything.
Originally posted at Air America Media.Follow Kase Wickman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kaseyawesome
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Turning an icon green is not the solution, definitely, but nor are the other ways you suggest in your post. They're all part of it.
Showing support is not the same as *giving* support, but it's not vain and useless. It's incredibly important for people in situations like this to feel their actions validated by others, and to know that, at least, people are aware of it.
Turning the icon green is a way of showing that you empathize and care, which can also act as a "green light" for some leaders to act on this, and that he will have support for taking a role on the international scene.
Being an international conflict, a lot of people are at a loss at how to help more. You give some good pointers on how to help more, but the tone is extremely condescending and by asking people to ask to turn back their avatars to normal, you are practically asking "please, make this a (ending) fad".
I would have understood a rant if you'd said you were seeing a decline in support shown, making people less aware, forget, and causing a decline in support given.
How about changing your avatar green *AND* doing something?
I've heard from actual Iranians that they're moved and given hope by the green they're seeing. They need to know that the world is watching and that the world cares. Their government is trying to prevent them from knowing. Knowing people are watching and that people care is not nothing when your situation seems hopeless.
I've got green on my twitter avatar *and* I'm running a Tor Bridge the IP of which has been disseminated to Iranians and is helping them send and receive pictures, video, messages etc to and from the rest of the world.
Can you explain exactly has your pointless rant against green avatars helped anyone? Might that time and energy have been spent doing something more productive to help someone, instead of just helping yourself feel superior to people with green twitter avatars?
...i don't agree!!
..because ,some people don't realy see what is behind the "green avetar" people...i have a lot iranian (from teheran)people ,on my twitt..and i will tell you!!..they are afraid, they don't trust not much people ...and they are realy happy,...and more than that ...to see that people outside of iran stand by!!..the feel lost ,without us!!..why ,nobody will understand that!!--americans ,feeling proud and good ..when they saw ..we ,other..people of another countries ...stand by your side..when 9/11, happend!!????
what ,happend america..is this all your answer for people they have a big conflict!!..is this all what you give ,to say "no" !!..is only only america the country ,who deserve attention!!!???
..crap, i'm still stay green ,and i will still help the iranians,and i still stay to them!!
you can go ,we don't need you!!
thanks,..
m.
Hey, you can even go to http://www.thenonprofits.com/ and click to donate food, water, save trees, give minutes of medical care, and support many other wonderful causes.
I liked this blog, Kase...people should wake up about this. Fad activism is pointless and self-serving. I read the comment about it being an ocean away and kinda smiled since I'm in Iraq right now and it's right next door for me. I've been following the situation closely and would like to help. I think you have done what most people haven't and actually given out some ideas that I personally had not really thought about as viable options. Thank you for that. I'd like to help the people of Iran and everyone in the West should as well...they're fighting injustice and domination,and strive for their voice to be heard. What Western nation could possibly not want to support something that noble? Anyway, thanks Kase, for the ideas and the no-nonsense talk that a lot of people need to hear. Also, doctarr, I guess that when things get tough, you need to stop trying to do what you can for the world even if all that that takes is a letter, or a discussion, or possibly a blood or three dollar donation. I guess our generation really isn't as great as the one that came out of the Great Depression. And to those who are all butt-hurt about 'condescension' in this post...get over yourselves, it's an opinion blog, if you don't like it, don't read it...or maybe toughen up a little...the points made are valid, regardless if it made you uncomfortable.
I totally agree.
Tom Friedman raised a good point earlier this week (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/opinion/21friedman.html): "A regime like Iran’s can only be brought down or changed if enough Iranians vote as they did in 1979 — in the street." What's frustrating for concerned Americans—and by that I mean anyone from Joe Twitter with his green avatar to hyper-informed New York Times columnists—is how little we can do to effect change outside the streets of Iran.
As the Chicago Tribune recently reported (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk-huppke-iranjun23,0,6393108.story), going green on Twitter has been an effective, and even powerful, way for people to affiliate with Iranian protestors—and all the more so because Twitter is one of the few media through which Iranians can register global support.
The problem with this post is not that it's condescending (it is), or that it makes silly assumptions (it does), but that it's mean-spirited, wrongheaded, and, in the grand scheme of things, self-defeating.
I agree.
I'm one of the people who has been on the twitter #iranelection since the Iranian election saga began. I have helped rt information to and fro, often posting updates with links on what our side of the world is saying about things happening in iran because they have no other access to it, and passing on information to other tweeters who pass it on to the Iranians directly.
I have several friends who have done nothing more than turn their icon green or make icons to pass around to others. This is only as far as they will go to get involved because they have other things going on in their lives. But they are spreading the message and spreading their concern for the Iranians by doing this.
Do something, even as minimalist as turning an icon green or changing your time zone, is still doing SOMETHING to help these people who living and dying for their rights. We honor them by doing our best to help and by spreading their message through the world.
FYI: Ms. Wickman, if you don't know how to set up a proxy don't mess with it. Anonymous and other hacktivists are picking up their end of things and they are telling newbies to stay out of it.
Bravo. Merci.
All of your suggestions are good ones, except who knows whether the red crescent is even in Iran at this point and if it is, whether supporting it is in fact supporting the government. Changing the location to Tehran was done, I wager, by a very large number of greeners - it was part of the request that originated, after all, with the protesters in Iran who told the world about what was happening before the MSM even noticed much. Setting up a proxy is more complicated and you have to take care not to mess up your computer if it is essential to your work. All of this is plainly stated by Twitterers etc.
I take exception with the dismissive and condescending tone of your post. It seems reflexive, like the Haaretz article that said that the internet "flotsam" wasnot going to change Iran's govt. It ain't flotsom and the response to turning the avatar green was not. I suppose that since you are young, you think you know everything (how do you like being condescended to), but you do not.
I think I'll turn my Twitter avatar green now. Thanks, lib!
I agree with Kase Wickman. I understand her points. I also understand how easy it has become to be a keyboard activist. I also believe that there are those that do not totally understand Iran's history nor understand the politics or US foreign policy over the years.
And while the issues are so much more , I would so greatly accept ideas such as those listed by the author and more. Make it easier to locate actions in the US, a centralized web site. Addresses for donations such as the the one listed above, etc....So rather than just looking from a safe distant, maybe we need to organize on this side of the ocean . I realize that there have been many great actions here in the States,especially in local areas and cities. However, I've not seen a national cohesive movement that shows our solidarity with the people of Iran. I wish I had more computer skills. Or know how to donate a web site, space, bandwidth, etc....It's frustrating to just watch.
You're blanketing assuming that people who turned their avatars on twitter green did nothing else. You are also assuming that Americans doing what they can to help out know nothing about the history of the region, Iran, or this country. Nicely done, with just the right tone of condescension and insult. From the tone and tenor of your post, I guess it is safe to assume that you did everything you mentioned, and are an expert on the Middle East.
For your information, dear, I have done all of the things you mentioned already--but I didn't turn my avatar green.
And despite the appeal at the bottom of your post, I don't think I will follow you on twitter. I don't enjoy being condescended to by an intern.
Sorry, 98% of Americans don't understand. If you would like to discuss Iran, I will be more than willing to inform you.
Speaking of condescension.
"You're blanketing assuming that people who turned their avatars on twitter green did nothing else."
Thank you. And you what else? Kase Wickman never indicated in her post what she did - if anything.
i agree !
Twitter can shove it by accepting an order to stand down their scheduled maintenance for the State Dept. to keep Twiiter running last week.
Twitter ranks up there with the telecoms that got immunity for disclosing our private information to the Federal government without our knowledge or warrent.
The question is how much power does the Federal government have over Twitter since they have compromised their position?
Wow, you again!
On a Bradley piece you were for North Korea and the Serbs doing their ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Now you are here defending the crackdown on protesters in Iran.
Niiiiice.
No, I think you need to learn English and not Iranian to understand my posts.
I defend the rule of law where with North Korea, they are not part of the NPT Treaty which means they can pursue a nuclear weapons program as they wish just like Israel has! hy is Israel being treated differently than North Korea when they both are not a part of the NPT Treaty?
How many times do I have to ask for evidence of "ethnic cleansing" in an unbiased court of law? The term "ethnic cleansing" is a demonization term used by NATO countries to justify their illegal actions (against the UN Charter and NATO Treaty for starters) so the sheep like yourself would follow them to the death!
So refugees do not exist anymore? Besides the fact that most of the Albanain REFUGEES fled AFTER NATO started its illegal and immoral bombing stands on its own that NATO was the result of this, not the Serbs. Please read into the facts and not whatever NATO or the U.S. said happened with this conflict. After all NATO and the U.S. were a party to the conflict so their views should be questioned at all levels.
Just because NATO said it happened isn't the truth! Remember party to the conflict. By the way no mention of NATO supporting known Islamic terrorists the KLA, why?
So where were you when U.S. police forces cracked down on anti-Bush and anti-war protesters?
Where were you when the Brits cracked heads at a recent G20 protest or the anti-NATO protests in Europe?
Can we put on a show in my back yard?
There's only so much people can do. There's only so much they're willing to do.
And it may surprise you to know, we are in economic turmoil on these shores. We're hurting here.
Asking a country to suddenly stand up and participate in a process that should come from within the Iranian people is silly.
Silly.
You understand silly? Pollyanna silly.
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