“The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful.”
— Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard law professor and Internet expert, in Tuesday’s New York Times. Zittrain explained how the social network was able to evade censorship by the Iranian government because there are so many ways for posts to originate. (There are hundreds of tools that can post to Twitter, like Tweetdeck and Twitpic). “It is easy for Twitter feeds to be echoed everywhere else in the world,” said Zittrain. So while you may not care what your buddy had for breakfast, the technology that allows him to share this with the planet is also giving a voice to activists in Iran. –Jessica Shambora