Enabling Citizen Journalism

This week, there is no story more important in the world today than Iran. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians, if not more, are courageously trying to take back their country from a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad government that increasingly appears rotten to its core. Despite the government’s arrests, intimidation with violence, raids and destruction, killings, censorship of journalists, attempts to jam Internet and cell communications and more, Iranians continue to assemble en masse to call for a new and honest election of their next president.

The situation, in short, is calling for some very creative solutions to maintaining communications about events with the rest of the world. One unlikely hero that's emerging is YouTube. As the Iranian government moves to block its citizen’s access to the online video service, the company is taking exceptional measures to help get citizens' words out. In a statement, YouTube explains: “In general, we do not allow graphic or gratuitous violence on YouTube. However, we make exceptions for videos that have educational, documentary or scientific value. The limitations being placed on mainstream media reporting from within Iran make it even more important that citizens in Iran be able to use YouTube to capture their experiences for the world to see.”

Elsewhere, according to a report in The New York Times, as a way to help Iranians evade their government’s censors, sympathizers with the protesters have been offering their IP addresses of their computers via Twitter to serve as “proxy servers.” Three students at the University of Chicago have rapidly put together a new avenue for Iranians no longer able to Twitter their news and images to at iranfax.org. Called Iran Dissident Fax Project, the site posts faxes that they receive from Iran. (The fax number for sending messages is 001-773-321-0202.) Finally, another good site to see many of the most striking videos coming out of Iran, as well as a host of other videos that are “changing our world,” is CitizenTube.com.

Other heroes? Let us know by commenting below.