Twitter had been planning to have a 90 minute downtime tonight for maintenance. Given what’s going on over in Iran right now, that was a problem. And so Twitter has decided to reschedule the maintenance so the protests can go on.
This is a good move by Twitter. It clearly didn’t want to have to move the maintenance window that it calls a “critical network upgrade,” but the #nomaintenance hashtag that has spent the entire day on the trending topic list, made it pretty clear that Twitter’s users don’t want the service going down at all during this important time. So Twitter worked with its network partner NTT America to reschedule the maintenance for 2-3 PM Pacific, which will be 1:30 in the morning in Iran, rather than during the day.
Twitter uses the rest of the post to praise NTT America for its flexibility, but really this is all about Iran. The people over there are using Twitter as a tool of choice to spread information about what is going on, even as other outlets for communication are being blocked.
[photo: flickr/.faramarz]
+1 to Twitter!!!!!
+1 to twitter but -1 to the post. After the post, Iran will block twitter. Then, it defeat the purpose
It already is blocked. That’s why everyone is passing around proxies that are still open.. just that once you are through twitter seems to be the most useful tool.
Well done to Biz and team for a good decision.
BTW:
Xeni Jardin (1 hour ago)
RT @johnperrybarlow: RT @duckdaotsu: Send Functioning Iran proxies to @StopAhmadi, do not post them! They are screening Twitter!
I don’t understand what sending proxies means. That lets them get on the internet? Or around the security wall?
Rather than switching off the entire net Iran is blocking the IP addresses of sites such as twitter and facebook.
A proxy is a clean IP address that forwards you to other websites so that you are hidden.
People are passing the addresses of new proxies on twitter because the Iranian government is blocking them like whack-a-mole.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=proxies
You think Iran reads TechCrunch?
That is super cool.
Here in Arlington Virginia we have many facebook users but not too many myspace user I go to the cafe the other day order some starbuck ice coffee the lady toll me to thing about it if it not good cafe I shouldnent put coupon on the facebook website page I sip a couple of sip and thing about it and I thing she was right that why it not what you thing it what it look like that way we dont go all the way and regret it.
Um… What?
wahoooooooooo
Best TC comment evar.
This is very impressive. Huge props to the Twitterers and Twitter team who made this happen.
That’s weird. We (OpenDNS) buy transit from NTT DoCoMo (AS2914 – a rather Very Large Network) and didn’t have this scheduled maintenance touch any of our numerous circuits both in and out of North America. Maybe this is just their enterprise hosting group, or just the Fremont facility. Either way, this was certainly not a far-reaching 2914 maintenance.
And FWIW, we’re extremely happy NTT customers.
umm.. david…
90% of these guys wouldn’t know what the hell “transit” even is regarding the ‘net!!!
+1 to Twitter. I hope there are enough proxies running out there to make it over the the censorship.
Moldova, Guatemala, Iran… Twitter: a global tool for democratic organization and political transparency.
imo this is pretty groundbreaking in terms of real time relevancy and globalised recognition of important and happening contemporary issues. Whether it is a publicity move or not, it still counts as standing for democratising information.
Is there no end to the twitterverse?
We can’t control the nukes in Iran, what makes the rest of the world thing they’ll have any impact on these so-called elections?
Bill
bill ur an idiot…iran doesnt have nukes lol
…not yet. Or rather, the west doesn’t actually know how far advanced their nuclear research has got them.
As soon as something like this reaches the eyes and ears of people who don’t like free-flowing information, it gets blocked. Same for China, and if Mugabe’s Zimbabwe was sufficiently 20th century, he’d have done the same.
Kudos to to the tweeting revolution!
Regarding the elections in Iran… 30 years after their revolution (and not counting it’s Iraqi neighbour) despite however flawed it appears, how many other countries in that region do the same – i.e. allow people to vote for leaders ?? not many.
ummm….
if you guys knew your history… iran had a somewhat embryonic democratic experiment… or at least the possibility if they could have dealt with some issues, prior to the US putting the Shah in power years ago…
what’s that about chcikens and roosting… and home???
but anyway… unfortunately, this too shall passs…
until you have a sufficient amount of people who are willing to die, and these people number more than the other side is willing to kill.. the guys with the guns win every time…
welcome to the world….
Back in 2005 when Ahmadi Nejad was elected and somewhere in 2006 when the rumors first began, UN inspectors categorically stated that Iran would need at their then stage of 500+ centrifuges, more than 10 *years* to get a real bomb.
It’s just 3-4 years since then. Do the math.
Iran is Iraq-II
Netanyahu should be selling Israeli solar technology to the whole of Africa and the world, maybe starting with Egypt and central European states.
Instead the ass is trying to start a war to help America sell guns to local arms traders. I just pray for the voices of sane Israeli and US Jews to be heard – govts and politicians don’t bend without a nice public lashing. No one wants to finish Israel – as Iranian moderate protesters are showing. A re-election is in the interest of peace in Israel, but now it’s probably too late.
One way is to colonize Africa again and milk it, the other is to partner and prosper. Israel’s politicians’ choice will soon decide the fate of the people of the Holy Land.
Not yet.
This is seriously very sensitive of Twitter. Kudos to them.
Well done to NTT and twitter.
Baffles and amuses me equally how Siegler can refer to these history-making events in such an abstract manner. “… what’s going on over in Iran… the people over there….”.
NEWS FLASH:
I’m switching my lube and oil change appointment due to Iran crises.
did your cable go out?
my bad… but that was a slow one over the plate!
Twitter you guy’s rule, bending over backwards to help out folk, good work in my book
Big applause to Twitter for recognizing the needs of the Iranian people to get the word out, and doing their part to help that happen.
I’m a huge fan of Rick Sanchez on CNN. He has been using Twitter on his daily newscast for a while. Many have questioned the value of Twitter, especially in a “serious” newscast, but I think that what is happening now with Iran has proven that his faith in Twitter was well-placed. Without Twitter, would any of us here have heard the voices of our brothers and sisters in Iran who are fighting for justice and freedom, or would we have only heard what the Iranian government wanted us to hear?
My best wishes to the people of Iran. We in America are rooting for you, and hope you are able to restore real democracy and fair elections without any need for violence. We stand with you!!
I think Twitter is too good for on the street news coverage and communication – sure there are jerks as well.
Twitter was a major source of information for me during the Mumbai terror attacks in India last year…
Power of free speech!
Censorship is not right. Censorship is used like a weapon of mass destruction. How can one expect to have a normal debate if the censorship tactic is being employed?
Those who have to resort to censorship are those who are control freaks that don’t believe in free will choice.
gee, really? thanks for your wisdom
what an amazing world.
What a twitterlitical thing to do.. Kudos..
That is a great humanitarian effort from Twitter…big ups : )
twitter++! Of course, one has to wonder how much it matters since the Iranian government has been blocking twitter and a lot more ever since before the elections. (Yes, they also interfere with satellite Internet services, apparently.)
as pointless as twitter seems sometimes, this truly shows the importance of it as a communication platform. This is truly a class act, by ntt america and twitter.
how does this change the outcome of the election over there?
It allows people to organise and coordinate the response, such a the 100,000 person flash mob in the capital Tehran.
Nada
, they lost. idiots trying to become like the West. What friggin losers 
Soon they will want to have Metallic play live in Tehran and give a devils hand sign. Never will this happen. I tell these young ones influenced by the western wine.
Soon they will want to marry Jewish women. Can you imagine a half Jew and a half Persian President of Iran? WTF
The world is shrinking bro, but to what and where 
You, my friend, are a genius idiot.
as if twitter and alikes were the only possible way to communicate news…
in the rush of “breaking news”, we often miss real news and journalist investigations
to me, twitter is still closer to a media than a medium
I would assume the reason it doesn’t matter if twitter is blocked is because you don’t need to go to the website to update it – all you do is text 40404. So even if the WEBSITE has been blocked by the government, the people can still tweet.
Cell and SMS service has been blocked by the Iranian government. The citizens are working with VERY limited internet access – accessing Twitter through the API and via m.twitter.com on the web – all through proxy. It’s not as easy as you’d think.
Folks are tweeting that the Iranian ‘govt’ is monitoring Twitter for identifiable information about protesters posting from inside the country. As a result, there tweets calling for subterfuge by mangling the @username, or by asking non-Iranian twitter users to change their profile to Tehran’s timezone.
The former seems like it would be ineffective (and could be misinformation), but I could see how the latter might indeed make the censors’ job much harder, increasing the number of twitter profiles attached to Tehran’s timezone by an order of magnitude.
For the very first time, I respect Twitter and its value.
Thanks for keeping the Twitter services running to keep the flow of information coming from freedom fighting Iranians!
We did this alltogether to help the Iranian people in this crucial moment of their history. We used #nomaintenance hashtag and went viral. Thanks to the Twitter Community, Management & Provider!
Signed @Emergent007
My only guess is that Twitter may be silently contesting the current Iranian election themselves indirectly. Who knows, right? LOL