iran

Yesterday: Voice of America. Today: A Twitter Feed

Frederic Lardinois

14 Feb 2011 — 1 min read

After World War II, the United States launched the Voice of America broadcasting service to get its message to the citizens of America’s friends and foes. Now, after social media played such pivotal roles in the successful revolution in Egypt and the earlier uprisings in Iran and Tunesia, the U.S. State Department has begun sending Twitter messages in Farsi to Iranians from an account called USAdarFarsi.

According to the French press agency AFP, the first message posted to the account said that the State Department “recognizes the historic role of social media among Iranians. We want to join in your conversations.” Later messages directly criticized the Iranian government (“#Iran has shown that the activities it praised Egyptians for, it sees as illegal, illegitimate for its own people”) and called on Iran to “allow [its] people to enjoy same universal rights to peacefully assemble, demonstrate as in Cairo.”

The account already has over 2,100 followers and currently follows 24 Twitter users, including Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian-American journalist and author Azadeh Moaveni.

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