The Iranschluss and the role of Social Media

The original Anschluss was the Nazi German takeover of Austria:

a well-planned coup d'état by the Austrian Nazi Party of Austria's state institutions in Vienna took place on 11 March, prior to the referendum which was cancelled. With power quickly transferred over to Germany, Wehrmacht troops entered Austria to enforce the Anschluss. The Nazis held a plebiscite – asking the people to ratify what had already been done – within the following month, where they claim to have received 99.73% of the vote. No fighting ever took place and the strongest voices against the annexation, particularly Fascist Italy, France and the United Kingdom (the "Stresa Front"), were powerless or, in the case of Italy, appeased.

(from wikipedia, but it is roughly correct....)

Over the last few days we have watched as the Iranian election initially returned statistically "interesting" results - as commentators on the FT note. The main ones that have me scratching my head are:

- The percentage of the voting was [nearly] the same in all places. It means all the votes cast in various provinces, average tribal, rural and urban votes were almost the same. Such thing is impossible not only in Iran but also in the world. It is amazing that percentage of the vote cast for all four candidates was the same in all over Iran.

- Reformists had total votes of more than 20m in the past three elections. How come they had only 12m in this election, when many of those who had never participated in elections before voted this time for the reformists?

- The filtering/crunching down on all forms of media as elections started.

At any rate, the fascinating thing to watch over the last few days is how the social media that are not purely centralised are still sending a lot of details out of Iran. The lesson is that it is now very hard for good old Anschluss tactics to work, as a plethora of digital media systems capture media and push it out (see the BBC list here or search #Iranelection on Twitter).

But a big difference compared to the previous big breaking stories like Mumbai etc - the Mainstream media were on the story pretty fast, a sign that they are monitoring user generated and real time media services far more closely than a few months ago. (Except for CNN of course, which is now (in)famous for fiddling with a stories discussing Twitter's relevance while Tehran was burning (well, there were a few fires...) - makes bloggers look good in comparison

And this does not mean that Social Media will usher in a new democratic world in and of itself as one overoptimistic article very nearly argued - but, as that article noted in one of its more down-to-earth paragraphs:

My perspective is that the technology we deal with today is a chisel which allows us to chip away at the walls placed between ordinary citizens and those that enjoy positions of power. The previously unassailable press institutions can no longer hide behind veneers of objectivity and accuracy when fact-checking is just a Google away.

I have a sense of foreboding though. Wailing on Social Media is one thing, but the Anschluss was carried out because no one could do anything to stop it in real life. Information is power, but its a slow burn type.