Digital Equlibrium for Librarians

There's no doubt about it: Twitter is here to stay as a social networking powerhouse. Despite what has happened, voices cannot be silenced. Although the head of Iran's judiciary has called for a crackdown on television channels and websites "deemed to be have been critical of government," it will be extremely interesting to see just how much information will be clamped down. As much as the government is interfering with satellite channels, and blocking websites covering the demonstrations, online social networking tools are allegedly emerging as the unlikely heroes, with bloggers quick to upload pictures and video clips of the demonstrations.

In essence this is really a showdown between twentieth century political mechanisms versus twenty-first century technology: the result could mean epic global implications. Thomas Friedman has called this this digital gathering place a "virtual mosque," a place that protesters "gather, mobilize, plan, inform and energize their supporters, outside the grip of the state." (The New York Times even reported that Moussavi’s fan group on Facebook alone has grown to more than 50,000 members.) But Friedman ultimately believes in a hawkish ending to this affair. As he argues: Guns trump cellphones.

Bang-bang beats tweet-tweet. The Sunni Awakening in Iraq succeeded because the moderates there were armed. I doubt Ahmadinejad will go peacefully.

This will be an issue that will be important for all to follow, not just politicians.