U.S. Officials are saying that social networking sites like Facebook and especially Twitter have been critical sources of information on the situation in Iran, especially now since foriegn media has been banned from reporting inside the country.
A senior official at the U.S. State Department has said:
“There are lots of people here watching. There are some interesting messages going up.”
U.S. officials are not saying whether they are communicating with Iranians directly, but one senior official says that the United States is gathering information through Twitter about people of interest being picked up for questioning by authorities.
After the backlash on Twitter about CNN not covering the Iran situation, the news network is now saying they are also extensively monitoring social networks as an integral part of their reporting.
The U.S. State Department is also working with the big social networking and messaging sites – requesting that they keep their sites healthy and fully functional now more than ever. For example, senior officials said the State Department asked Twitter to reschedule it’s periodic maintenance at this critical time to make sure the site is available to users.
“It is a very good example of where technology is helping.” The official said.
