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Yesterday I asked the question: does China really feel threatened by U.S. social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube? As usual, I got an education in the comments to the post. While it's true that the Chinese government blocks Twitter, Facebook and all of the main American social media sites, several commenters pointed out they are blocked not because of their popularity (because they aren't, in fact, very popular in China), but due to their degree of freedom. In other words, the more open a social media service is, the more likely it will be blocked in China.

However, perhaps authoritarian governments shouldn't block social media - it may actually be helpful to them!

According to a report released today [PDF] by Reporters Sans Frontières, the number of bloggers around the world arrested because of their online work jumped from 59 to 151 between 2008 and 2009, an increase of 155%. Additionally, one blogger died in prison and 61 were physically assaulted. The most infamous cases perhaps occurred during the violent unrest in Iran following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection. But RSF said the number of overall arrests and attacks can actually be traced to crackdowns in at least 10 countries.

"The number of countries affected by online censorship has doubled from one year to the next - a disturbing tendency that shows an increase in control over new media as millions of netizens get active online," said Lucie Morillon, head of the group's Internet and Freedoms Desk.

At its peak, a search for "Iran" on Twitter generated over 100,000 tweets per day and over 8,000 tweets per hour. The plot just below shows the growth in volume of information in the number of tweets per hour.

How does an Internet junkie, news organization, or political operative monitor rapidly evolving real-time events, from the crucial details to the bigger picture? More importantly, how can a data stream be turned into real-time action, reaching the people who need it, when they need it, and in a form they can easily digest?

According to a report today from the BBC, Iranians are able to text message one another for the first time since the day before the presidential elections.

SMS service, which political dissidents had used to spread messages and organize protests, has been restricted since June 11, causing many Iranians to use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social sites to broadcast and communicate.

Network analysts Renesys reported this morning that the global effort to supply proxy internet servers for Iranians to route around government control and communicate with the outside world is slowing down and facing increasingly effective state repression. The company mapped two thousand proxy servers shared on Twitter and other web sites over the course of the last week and found that it truly has been a global effort.

It can't be assumed that all the proxies were created to support Iranian protesters, but they were probably all shared for that purpose. Renesys reports that the rate of proxy creation appears to have slumped dramatically over the last few days and newly shared proxies are now being added quickly to the official list of filtered destinations online. This could have consequences for the political movement's global visibility and underlines how important it is for everyday people to create proxies and share them with friends overseas ahead of time.

The aftermath of Iran's election last week was startling. From the eyebrow-raising lopsided vote tally, to the surge of protesters into the streets, to the pivotal role of tools like mobile phones, Twitter, and YouTube in getting the story out, it's hard to say what's been the most remarkable.

As of tonight, Facebook has launched a new beta version of the site in Persian, in order to further enable the flood of news that has poured out of Iran in the wake of that country's contested election last week.

As Twitter became the star platform for Iranians to convey breaking news from on the ground, Facebook has been quiet by comparison. Now, by releasing an edition in the official language of Iran (also colloquially called Farsi), its attempting to capture some of the revolutionary self-expression that has thus far passed it by.

With Twitter and Facebook playing such an important roll in getting information out of Iran this week, the last thing the world needs is an appearance of The Fail Whale. CNN's State Department Producer, Elise Labott, reported this morning on the Anderson Cooper blog that "the State Department is advising social networking sites to make sure their networks stay up and running for Iranians to use them and helping them stay ahead of anyone who would try to shut them down."

Twitter decided yesterday to delay a scheduled downtime for maintenance until the middle of the night, Iran time. CNN reports that the decision was made at the suggestion of the State Department, but a large number of users suggested it as well. Incidentally, open source Twitter alternative Identi.ca, which has the potential to be much more useful due to its decentralized nature, followed Twitter's lead and also made major changes at a time convenient for Iranians.

The Twitter firehose is glutted with retweets, hashtags, and information of every possible bias and contradition surrounding one topic: The recent election in Iran and supposed fraud in tallying votes for the losing candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

In the aftermath of the election, during which a (some say statistically improbable landslide) victory for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced, the social media buzz grew into a roar as a meme began to circulate: Where Is My Vote. A website, several Facebook pages, and now thousands of tweets have ensured few social web users have not yet heard of the controversy and the Iranian government's response of censorship.

Note: This post was written at midnight PST last night, at which point CNN.com was hours behind much of the rest of online media in prioritizing the big news in Iran. The site has since focused on Iran but we believe this post remains relevant in discussing concerns about what sources are first in covering important events. For really good journalism on these events, see Robert Fisk's account.

The western world's most feared government is shaking with insurrection in the streets after a contested election and the leading name in news, CNN, is shockingly absent from the story. Twitter, meanwhile, is how Iranians are communicating with the outside world. It's the best place to follow events going on in that country and CNN's failure to engage with the story is one of the hottest topics of conversation there.

Hours after Iranian police began clashing with tens of thousands of people in the street, the top story on CNN.com remains peoples' confusion about the switch from analog TV signals.

There are reports today that Iran has blocked Facebook, apparently to "prevent supporters of the leading opposition candidate from using the site for his campaign". Opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has more than 5200 supporters on the popular social networking site and is said to be gaining momentum against current Islamic Republic of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Omid Reza Misayafi, one of a number of Iranian bloggers arrested for "insulting" the government and religious authorities in that country, is dead. Misayafi's death was reported on Global Voices Online via an Iranian human rights site in Farsi and we learned of it from The Committee to Protect Bloggers.

No cause of death is yet known, but the Committee says torture of bloggers is common in Iran and they are usually placed in close proximity to the most dangerous criminals in any facility. Misayafi was sentenced in December to 30 months in prison "for insulting Islamic Republic Leaders." The man said he was a cultural blogger, not a political one, and only wrote a few satirical articles that got him into trouble.

Millions of young bloggers are challenging the conservative government of Iran, at great personal risk. The following "infographic" video from the Vancouver Film School tells this story powerfully in just 2 minutes.

It's reminiscent of the recent film Persepolis and helps put "social media" in a much more serious context than people often presume it goes on in.

The Iranian parliament is set to debate a draft bill that would add a number of crimes to the list of those that can result in execution, among them "establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy." Apostasy means the abandonment of a religion. The official Iranian news agency reports that the bill is intended to "toughen punishment for harming mental security in society."