i probably don't have any info you don't (assuming you're following the story) but i do know that satellite dishes are very common in the middle east. it wouldn't surprise me if satellite phone and internet service are equally popular, particularly among the set of people who are most likely to be involved in twitter.
that said, i'm sure there are a lot of fakes out there right now, but there are those who do seem legitimate enough that the information from them is worth weighing against everything else as we try to understand this situation for ourselves.
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as with all news stories involving dubious sources, it's important that you establish a set of baseline facts of the situation that you can use to help evaluate the credibility of what you see. for example, if they mention eating breakfast, make sure it's not 6pm where they claim to be. if they mention locations, do what you can to verify them. fact check to the extent that you can. this won't keep you from being duped by a motivated person, but it can help you establish a comfort level with respect to how far you are willing to trust what you've learned. if something doesn't seem right, it probably isn't, but keep in mind that cultural and language barriers can dull your sense of deception.
I wish I could upvote you more. I am learning Farsi right now, so naturally I am trying to follow all of the happenings in Iran as best I can. There is an interesting exchange on CNN, for instance, that is really disturbing me.
Christiane Amanpour asked M. Ahmedinejad if he would guarantee the safety of his rival. He said everyone is equal under the law, Mousavi would get a fine just like anyone else. Which is a strange answer to that question, almost like he was answering a different question. At any rate, CNN reported it as "Ahmedinejad declines to guarantee rival's safety".
Well, I speak a lot of languages, one of them is French. A while later I was bouncing around lemonde.fr and got to another version of the same exchange. Only this time the translations were audible. The translation for safety was strange, it was not safety, it was a phrase akin to 'safety from law'. Now my Farsi is terrible, so maybe 'safety' is always translated this way. I would need more info to know, just like you said.
It does leave me with troubling questions though. Why does CNN not air the translations? It's probably perfectly innocent because Christiane Amanpour looked confused as well. So I wonder, was the translator making translations that confused more than just me? Given the confusion evident in this whole exchange, why did CNN report it as it did?
I think this is a textbook case of what you are talking about. Because, for me, the '... cultural and language barriers...' are dulling my sense of deception. That said, I can tell that something is out of place with a lot of the reporting around this issue.
I actually watched that exchange live on CNN and was really confused by it. Have you come across any good accounts of what was really going on there? I'm particularly curious about what was going on while she restated her question, it seemed like the translator was almost trying to shout her down. I am pretty sure she is at least conversant enough to know what was being said natively without translation.
that said, i'm sure there are a lot of fakes out there right now, but there are those who do seem legitimate enough that the information from them is worth weighing against everything else as we try to understand this situation for ourselves.
[edit]
as with all news stories involving dubious sources, it's important that you establish a set of baseline facts of the situation that you can use to help evaluate the credibility of what you see. for example, if they mention eating breakfast, make sure it's not 6pm where they claim to be. if they mention locations, do what you can to verify them. fact check to the extent that you can. this won't keep you from being duped by a motivated person, but it can help you establish a comfort level with respect to how far you are willing to trust what you've learned. if something doesn't seem right, it probably isn't, but keep in mind that cultural and language barriers can dull your sense of deception.