Peter Cochrane's Blog: Iran, tweets and e-democracy

Compiled at the IoD in London and dispatched to silicon.com via a free wi-fi service on the same day

Like most of you I have been following the aftermath of the Iranian election via printed press, radio and TV. But it has been blogs and Twitter that have proved the more interesting, informative and up-to-date.

Some of the reports presented by the established media have been 12 hours behind the bloggers, while the detail and honesty of the mainstream press has been lacking by comparison to the upstarts.

The reaction of the Iranian authorities to the flow of information and reports was predictable: they tried to close down all communication channels while also ejecting foreign journalists from the country.

As a result even more blogs and tweets have been generated!

Meanwhile various statistical and observational analyses, such as those discussed in this blog, have shown it to be unlikely the elections were fair in the first place.

Whatever the outcome of this situation, it has become clear that a globally connected people are going to be hard to govern for a ruling elite that is largely ignorant of technology. They will always stand to be outsmarted by a younger population that is tech-savvy and connected.

What is it that these rulers don't get? The obvious: countries with borders isolate people but the internet is borderless and connects everyone. And of course, a connected population is always going to be smarter than a disconnected elite.

Technology always changes societies, and now it is changing politics and governments - faster than ever before! Who knows, we may even see a breakout of democracy, e-democracy...