Three Ways to Support the Pro-Democracy Protesters in Iran

By Jeff Severns Guntzel
Published on June 16, 2009
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1. Provide Cover: If you are Twittering about events in Iran from outside Iran, you have the luxury of not worrying about that knock on the door. Not so for Iranians. There is a movement afoot to provide cover for Iranian cyber-dissent by changing your Twitter profile to match the time zone and location of the Iranians brave enough to tweet the updates and calls to action. To do this, simply open the settings page and select “GMT+03:30 Tehran” and change your location to Tehran, Iran.

2. Change Your Facebook PictureWe did! It’s a small thing, but a show of support on Facebook is something Iranians can see, so long as the government doesn’t shut down the internet completely.

3. Spread the Stories: Iran is a deeply misunderstood place. Stereotypes abound and are typified by the front page of today’s New York Post, which featured a photo from the protests and the headline: TURBAN WARFARE. Powerful narratives are emerging from inside Iran. Put them in your Twitter feed, on your Facebook page, on your blog, or send them out via email. The best place to find these narratives is over at Andrew Sullivan’s Atlantic blog The Daily Dish or through a Twitter search for tweets about Iran.

Image by Hamed Saber, licensed under Creative Commons.

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