From Wikileaks to #ukuncut, Twitter gets political

[Joanne98]

(Reuters) - From keeping the WikiLeaks site alive to helping British anti-austerity protesters outmanoeuvre riot police, Twitter is entering the Western political mainstream as a powerful tool for dissent.

The website where anyone can post 140-character messages with links to multimedia content was praised by the United States last year when Iranian protesters used it to organise and spread news after a disputed presidential election, until Tehran blocked the site as part of a wider clampdown.

Now, as campaigns around both WikiLeaks and British student protests demonstrate, it is showing its effectiveness in new ways as a thorn in the side of established bodies and authority.

Twitter has been at the heart of WikiLeaks' fight to survive. It pointed followers towards "mirror sites" in Europe after Wikileaks.com was taken down as part of a wider campaign against it following the leaking of U.S. diplomatic cables.

As cyber attackers shut down the MasterCard corporate website on Wednesday in apparent retaliation for its blocking of payments to WikiLeaks, Twitter was the vehicle for a group styling itself Anonymous to claim responsibility.

In recent weeks, British students protesting against government plans for a near-trebling of university tuition fees have mobilised the power of the new medium in a battle of wits with police that has also erupted into physical skirmishes.

POLICE CHASE

Last week, police in body armour and fluorescent jackets found themselves literally sprinting to catch up with student demonstrators. Students who had found themselves hemmed in by riot police the previous week used Twitter and smartphones to tip each other off about the location of police lines, and dodged them by breaking into small groups.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLNE6B702A20101208

[snappyturtle]

1. Love it! The people will not be silenced! nt

[northernlights]

2. the tripling of university fees is absolutely outrageous

Imagine being in hock for 3 of a 4-year degree...and then discovering that you can't come up with the money to finish that degree. No way to finish. No way to pay off the debt. 3 years of your life flushed down the toilet and a lifetime of debt servitude.

The more power to those students for their ingenuity...

For those who say that Americans will never protest, there is a MASSIVE difference between a 20% increase and a 300% increase. One hurts and is bad; the other is absolutely fatal.