[liberationtech] Iranian-Americans 'hungry' for updates amid tumult in Iran

[Yosem Companys]

Iranian-Americans 'hungry' for updates amid tumult in Iran

   - Story Highlights
   - Iranian-Americans check newspapers, cable news, social networking sites
   for info
   - U.S. company launches Facebook app, Iran Voices, to keep people
   informed
   - Videos of what's happening on ground serve as"cyber-space echo-chamber"

By Charley Keyes
CNN Senior Producer

*WASHINGTON (CNN)* -- The Iranian-American community is half a world away
from the turmoil in Iran, but they are tuning in, logging on and even
stepping out in demonstrations to show solidarity with relatives and
friends.

Americans with Iranian roots showed their interest in the election Friday by
voting at more than three dozen polling places from Washington to Los
Angeles.

And now the post-election turmoil has ratcheted up that interest higher than
ever.

"The Iranian-American community is hungry for all news and information
coming out of Iran," Afshin Molavi told CNN on Tuesday in a telephone
interview. Molavi was born in Iran but grew up in the West. He is affiliated
with the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, and has been a
frequent commentator on events in Iran.

He said the Iranian-American community in the United States has been
electrified by events. [image: Video]Watch protesters outside the U.N.
»<http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Iranian-Americans+%27hungry%27+for+updates+amid+tumult+in+Iran+-+CNN.com&expire=-1&urlID=405030947&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2009%2FUS%2F06%2F16%2Firanian.americans%2Findex.html&partnerID=211911#cnnSTCVideo>

"We are seeing real excitement," Molavi said in a telephone interview. "Not
since 1997 have we seen this." That was when reformer Mohammad Khatami was
elected president.

Iranian-Americans check newspapers and cable news outlets but are also
turning to YouTube and social networking sites such as
Facebook<http://topics.cnn.com/topics/Facebook_Inc>
.

"They will tune in CNN first. But they will spend hours in front of a
computer searching YouTube <http://topics.cnn.com/topics/YouTube_Inc>,
Twitter and Facebook," Molavi said. "YouTube is easier to process. It is
just raw video of what is on the streets of Iran." He said Iranian-Americans
are carefully following how protests are going not just in Tehran but also
in other Iranian cities.

The videos become what Molavi calls a "cyber-space echo-chamber" with people
sending and forwarding other favorite snippets of video.

One video making the rounds -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSECAvBTanQ --
appears to show a large crowd of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi's
supporters on the march. Then it cuts to a police motorcycle burning in a
street and shows the crowd protecting the fallen police officer, offering
him water. Molavi says it's popular both because it is a dramatic slice of
life and because it shows Iranians feel a kinship even to those trying to
stop the demonstrations.

The excitement and frustration of some Iranians in the United States has
sent them to protest in recent days in Los Angeles and outside the Iranian
Interests Section in Washington. That office, technically part of the
Pakistani Embassy, acts as the formal representative of the Iranian
government in the absence of diplomatic relations between Washington and
Tehran, which were severed after the hostage crisis in 1979. [image:
Video]Watch
how bloggers are averting Iran's Web filter
»<http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Iranian-Americans+%27hungry%27+for+updates+amid+tumult+in+Iran+-+CNN.com&expire=-1&urlID=405030947&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2009%2FUS%2F06%2F16%2Firanian.americans%2Findex.html&partnerID=211911#cnnSTCVideo>

Individual Americans have been trying to maximize communications with Iran,
even before the election.

MetroStar Systems, a New Jersey company, recently launched its own Facebook
application, called Iran Voices, to speed up the flow of information and
political debate. The company had done work in the past for the State
Department <http://topics.cnn.com/topics/U_S_Department_of_State> and
developed a cell phone game called X-life. But MetroStar says Iran Voices
was done completely independent of the U.S. government.

MetroStar's CEO is Ali Reza Manouchehri, an Iranian-American who went to
high school in Iran.

"My identity is Iranian-American, and my passion is cyberspace and
democracy," Manouchehri said in an e-mail message to CNN. "Utilizing tools
such as Twitter, Facebook and other social media applications provides an
unrivaled forum to keep myself and other Iranian-Americans directly involved
in real-time while these unprecedented events are unfolding on the ground."

The site -- at apps.facebook.com/iranvoices/main -- has communications from
people in Iran and the United States, via
Twitter<http://topics.cnn.com/topics/Twitter_Inc>and other sources.
And sites such as Iran Voices have become even more
important as the Iranian government has tried to stifle communications
between Iran and the outside world.

The U.S. government is carefully sticking to the sidelines in the uproar
over the Iranian elections. But one outpost of Iranian-Americans, the U.S.
taxpayer-funded Voice of America, has been beefing up its operations and
increasing its television broadcasts to Iran.

VOA's Persian News Service -- online at http://www.voanews.com/Persian/ --
has expanded its daily broadcasts in Farsi, and just introduced a new
morning program.
It says it has been "flooded" by thousands of videos, pictures, e-mails and
calls from inside Iran that it passes along to its audience. VOA had
established additional satellite paths before the election to limit
government jamming, according to one VOA executive.
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