The use of social media like Twitter and Facebook to organize Iranian protestors and broadcast news to the outside world is a testament to the potential for social media to break through a repressive regime’s media iron curtain. There is a wealth of real-time reporting, and aggregating of this information using social media tools online today.

Still, too much of the Stateside chatter online in the past 48 hours has treated the protests as an opportunity for social media cheerleading. Sites like ReadWriteWeb, Mashable and Gawker appear primarily interested in slapping the wrists of the American MSM while using the protests as a case study validating their pet talking points about the irrelevancy of old-school media, the world-changing potential of social media, and all the usual harangues. This is all spiced with a touch of vicarious protest pr0n from bloggers, Twitterers and the like, perhaps rueful that we don’t have a bloody riot of our own to gape at.

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