You can do that to twitter?

[Themightytom]

Theres a message being passed around on facebook, myspace and apparently through twitter itself that goes something like

If you use Twitter, set your location to Tehran & your time zone to GMT +3.30. Iranian security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut down Iranians' access to the internet. Cut & paste & pass it on.

Possible? Y/N? I did a search on hoax and urban legend sites and found nothing about a hoax, then i goolged the passage and got a lot of isntances of relays, but only one alleging a possible worm in the original message on twitter.

[Stark]

This is the equivalent of joining the facebook group 'Down With Khomeni' and expecting to 'help' the 'revolution'. Sure it's techncially possible, but by the same token NOT setting their goddamn profile in this way would be a good idea too, highlighting things any repressive security force has already thought of.

[Oskuro]

Yay! Let's all play revolutionaries from the comfort of our homes! They should get XBL achievement points for this.

[Old Plympto]

I read the same thing on one of Fark.com's 30+ Iran revolution threads. They hit 1500-2000 posts every 3-4 hours at the peak of its activity. The idea I believe is to make it difficult for the Iranian government to locate local Twitterers from their profile pages or something. One person brought up an interesting question a couple of days ago: why don't the Iranians change their profile to another country? (I have no idea. I don't Twitter, or be a twit or a twat or whatever you call it.)

I don't recall which is the thread that first displayed the message but here's the link to Thread 39, the latest one.

[Stark]

Yeah, it's pretty hilarious people a) believe the Iranian 'security forces' are seriously just trolling for 'people on twitter in Tehran' instead of cross referencing other sources of information and b) believe Iranian 'revolutionaries' are too stupid to just set their location to 'London'.

Turns out it's a fad? People want to feel a 'part' of something?

[Oskuro]

Are you implying that posting on the internet and changing your profile information while drinking a soda is innefectual and won't change the world? LIES!

[Themightytom]

So its pretty much adding hay to a haystack to hide a needle...
And the needle can just switch haystacks on its own. Awesome.

[General Zod]

So its pretty much adding hay to a haystack to hide a needle...
And the needle can just switch haystacks on its own. Awesome.

Except the people hunting for the needle have metal detectors. Sort of makes it hilariously pointless.

[Havok]

Question. Do most Iranians Twitter in English? If not, then still just focusing on the Twitter blogs that aren't in English, or whatever non Iranian language, pretty much makes this moot and just one more stupid chain e-mail. Along with the reason Stark already pointed out.