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Let’s ditch the green avatars and really DO something for Iran

By Martin Bryant
June 25, 2009
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Lets ditch the green avatars and really DO something for IranThe election crisis in Iran has captured the imagination of the Twitterverse in a way that no previous event has.

With Social Media being used by a daring few in Iran to spread word of the atrocities being carried out there, a huge movement of support for the Iranian people has emerged online. Over the past two weeks it’s become increasingly common to log into your favourite Twitter client and be confronted with a sea of green avatars.

Yes, the green-tinted avatar has become the symbol of support for Iranian democracy. It only takes one click of an oft-retweeted link to give your avatar a green tint. While it’s great to see so many people engaging with global politics, the question has to be asked: what does turning your avatar green actually do?

It might sound callous but if we’re honest the answer is “Not a lot”. The green avatar is a token gesture of support that doesn’t do much, if anything, to actually help people in Iran. What’s more, it makes using Twitter more difficult for everyone. Visually scanning through your Twitter stream for friends’ tweets is a lot harder when everyone looks like The Incredible Hulk.

So, how can you make a real difference to the people of Iran?

Kase Wickman, Editor at Air America Media has compiled a list of things you can do today. These include:

  • Making a donation to the Red Crescent, an organisation allied with the Red Cross that is providing much-needed medical help in Iran.
  • Making a donation to Tehran Bureau, a recently-launched news organisation playing a vital role in getting news out of the country. Many foreign journalists have already been asked to leave Iran or been arrested. The more sources we have getting news to the wider world, the better.
  • If you have the know-how you can set up your own Twitter proxy to help Iranian Twitterers keep in contact with the outside world.
  • You could change your Twitter profile’s Location and Time Zone information to match Tehran, hopefully confusing Iranian government censors.
  • You could contact the United Nations Human Rights Council, urging them to take action.

Looking at the sea of green that confronts me whenever I load up Tweetdeck, I sometimes feel guilty that I haven’t changed my avatar when many people I like and respect have. To me it just felt like too much of a token gesture. Now that I’ve just donated $15 to Tehran Bureau I’ve helped made a difference that a one-click avatar change can’t match.

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  • Good idea to put this all in another light.

    I've also seen the Time Zone changing question a lot, but I really wonder if this is not effective.

    Can you say something about that?
  • Yes Nico, that's the one I'm least sure of which is why I haven't done it myself. Can't hurt to try though.
  • While the things you list certainly feel more concrete and I encourage us all to do them, don't underestimate what it can feel like for someone living the nightmare on the streets of Iran to realize that people all around the world are bearing witness and letting you know with symbolic gestures such as turning their avatars green.

    The way oppressors maintain power is to instill and nurture doubt in oneself at so many levels. Doubt of one's convictions, doubt for one's safety, doubt of one's own veracity. It is this doubt that often stops us from taking courageous actions. Witnesses counter-balance the efforts of the oppressors. The protesters in Iran know this and it's why they are trying to get their words and images out.

    Clearly they feel morally supported by the fact that we are bearing witness. The green avatars are a small sign of that. It's too bad you're more concerned about seeing a green wave on your Twitter feed that might make it challenging for you to readily pick out your own friends' tweets. I think that whatever we can to do offer signal support to the brave souls risking their lives is a higher priority right now. Symbolic or not.
  • spongekill
    The display of sympathy is wonderful, but it bears little relevance in Iran, where there are an estimated 19,000 Twitter users out of a population of over 70 million. Not that you SHOULDN'T make your icon green, but let's not pretend we're somehow sharing in the experience of those who are being beaten and shot at in the streets...it's largely a self-gratifying gesture for westerners craving involvement.
  • I did not at all say that we were sharing in the experience. I was simply saying that we were signaling the fact that we were bearing witness with a symbolic gesture. 19,000 people feeling that support has value. And those 19,000 can communicate to their networks of friends what they're seeing on the internet.

    I'm not pretending anything. I agreed that more concrete ways of helping are just that, more concrete. And I have done those things. But it shouldn't have to be an either/or proposition. Both types of actions have their merits.
  • rune
    Well just a little political food for thought. Contacting the UN Human Rights council will probably do less that turning your avatar green - they're a diplomatic venue and can't even set their agenda themselves. So contact your own foreign office, congressman, and maybe the OHCHR (UN office of the high commissioner for human rights).
    And according to standard description of a NATION it is an 'imagined community ' - which means that it is a gathering of people who imagine they've got somethin in common. Green avatars isnt there yet, but if everyone had dizzed the idea of lets say irish immigrants to the US having something together with their polish immigrants to the US, well then there wouldn't have been a US today. So yes, showing who you are, what you feel and to which groups you want to belong has a meaning! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagined_communities)
  • Esko Reinikainen
    How can advocating 'ditching' the green tint help in any way? What that says is 'we're bored now, throw us a new meme to get excited about'. I'm on Allison's page here. Visibility of support is incredibly helpful as a moral boost to those who are still dodging bullets and batons in Iran. If you had contact with people in Iran you would know that.

    I don't disagree with your suggestions, but they are not entirely original. A more wide reading of the support sites out there have many, and more directly useful (imho) suggestions for how to help more concretely than show green tint. In fact, you missed a pretty good opportunity right here to reference them more comprehensively.

    So no, you don't get to play the 'stop doing that, my ideas are better card'.

    But all mentions of the Iran resistance in some way keep the momentum going, so thank you for that.
  • "you missed a pretty good opportunity right here to reference them more comprehensively."

    And you missed a pretty good opportunity right here to reference them more comprehensively in your comments. Go ahead, share those links so we can update the post!
  • Esko Reinikainen
    I've already written on this subject, on 16th June I wrote this http://bit.ly/XLwEg you might recognise one of the suggestions above. Then I wrote this http://bit.ly/AFYxb on June 23rd. The later post references a lot of the resources out there.
  • DON'T DITCH THE GREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Just do more!

    What do the green avatars really do? They help with morale on the ground in Iran. When someone in Iran looks online and all they see is a Sea of Green Avatars, they can tell their friends how much support they have in the online world. And they can see that with just a quick glance, which is all many of them have time for these days.

    Change your avatar on Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed!
    Put a green ribbon on your arm, your car.

    Do whatever it takes to make sure that people everywhere know of the atrocities that are being committed in Iran. Someday, it might happen to you. (and don't think it can't just because you live in a nice country in the West....things can change very quickly)

    Please: Send Money, Post Links to news where all your friends can see, Keep pressure on the news organizations to keep the story on top, Setup Proxies (DM @ProtesterHelp w/info) and combat the twitter spambots from the Basij & IR police/IRG.

    But most of all SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!!
  • You've raised some good points here. I clicked through to make a donation to the Red Crescent, but that donation page does not appear to be secure. (i.e., no "lock" icon in the status bar of the browser).
  • spongekill
    hahahahah
  • tilda smith
    why not do both?
  • Jim
    It's interesting how you diluted some good ideas, by insisting on putting people down (all us clueless people with no political experience with green avatars).

    And as for changing your timezone to Tehran, does that do much more good than the color change?

    Truth is, every bit counts, and the self-righteousness of "let's really do something" is asinine.

    If we really want to do something, let's stop talking about really doing something.
  • Censoring ANYONE'S freedom of speech and preventing the people from communicating freely with the outside world is a bad thing. It's not just the Iranian government that is violating human rights in this area, most governments around the world are now implementing filtering systems and violating your human rights - YOU COULD BE NEXT.

    We're not changing our avatar green but we are giving away free VPN accounts to people in Iran so that they can bypass the internet censorship and communicate anonymously and freely on the Internet.

    Information freedom & power to the people!
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