Sean Reiser

Recently to “support Iran” people have been tinting their social media icons green. I know form of “protest” has a history. Originally it was done on LJ and Twitter to protest the service. This made sense, awareness was raised within user of the service and the owners saw that there was a protest going on. It was the social media version of protesting in the streets.

This has been repeated with several online protests, centered mostly around freedom of speech and access issues. Again this made sense, not everyone knew about these issues so awareness was raised. In theory these people wrote officials in government and registered their opinions.

Fast forward to today… election irregularities and people are rioting in the streets in Iran. People are tinting their twitter icons to “help the people in Iran”. I asked earlier on twitter: How exactly does a green overlay help Iran? Will Armadinajad say, “Now I see these green icons I’ll hand over power”? Are there people unaware of the situation in Iran? I really don’t see how changing the color of your icon, in this situation helps anyone. But I might be missing something so please, someone explain to me how it “helps”.