Twitter has gained a lot of attention this week, not from Oprah and Ashton Kutcher, but from the U.S. State Department, which asked Twitter to delay maintenance on the site to avoid disrupting communications in Iran during election protests.

What’s significant is not that Iranians are using the Internet to communicate, rather it’s that the U.S. State Department has finally recognized its significance. It’s certainly not the first time the Internet has been used for protest. In fact it has a long history of supporting political organization and protest.

Here are just a few examples.

1971
CTSS user at MIT sent a system-wide message (supposedly the first spam) with the following anti-war statement: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the Way.“

1989
While there is little documented proof, email was rumored to play a role in The Velvet Revolution, which toppled the communist government in Czechoslovakia in 1989. The fall of the regime has been credited to an anonymously donated valise of 2400-baud modems that were used —to circulate manifestos, declarations of solidarity, rumors, and riot news (http://tinyurl.com/lcvzow).“

1994
A revolution occurred in Chiapas, Mexico and the revolutionary Zapatistas used the Internet as a communication tool, both to post their issues and concerns to outsiders, as well as to gather and disseminate information within their community. Thus the first cyber-revolution demonstrated the Internet‘s capability to not only communicate on both a local and global level, but to also gather worldwide support.

1999
The World Trade Organization conference assembled in Seattle, along with thousands of protesters from around the world who used the Internet, including newsgroups, listservs and websites, to raise awareness, solicit volunteers and organize rallies (.

2003
The UFPJ (United for Peace and Justice) used the Internet to organize mass anti-war protests on February 15, 2003. With less than $10,000, the group organized 10 million people across 792 events on a global level in only five weeks. It was the single largest day of protest in world history (Boyd 13).

And then there’s Obama, and we all know that story.

Tags: Communications, Google, information, Internet, Spam