For those of you who have never used Twitter – and I’m fairly new to it myself – I urge you to join (it’s free) and to search/watch the #IranElection hashtag. It’s easier than it sounds.

The amount of information coming through is staggering, particularly as the Iranian government seems unable to shut down access to Twitter while they have apparently shut down access to most text messaging as well as certain web sites like Facebook.

Also, if you “retweet", please do NOT retweet apparent messages from Iran. If they are really from Iranian citizens, those people are risking their lives and you might give them away with “retweets.” And they might actually be Iranian government security forces trying to find electronic freedom fighters or spread misinformation.

Please read THIS important note as well:
Cyberwar guide for Iran elections

I highly recommend that once you sign up, you use the free TweetDeck application, which you can get at:
http://tweetdeck.com/beta/

Also, you can set up a “proxy” so that Iranians can access the web through IP addresses which are not blocked by their government. It is not exactly a no-risk proposition to do so, but I encourage it nevertheless for people who understand what they’re doing. Instructions are here:
http://blog.austinheap.com/2009/06/15/how-to-setup-a-proxy-for-iran-citizens-for-windows/