Twitter Deserves a Nobel Prize

Twitter’s been so instrumental in giving Iranians a voice that it, and its creators, deserve Nobel Prize consideration, writes Mark Pfeifle for the Christian Science Monitor. Scoff all you want at the 140-character “time waster.” “In the past month, 140 characters were enough to shine a light on Iranian oppression and elevate Twitter to the level of change agent.”

When traditional journalists were forced out of the country, Twitter gave the people a voice. Beaming tweets from cellphones to the whole world—instead of just a friends list—it became the tool the regime couldn't suppress. Its crowning achievement was to give the world the video of Neda Agha Soltan, dying on the street for daring to dream of a free Iran. “Neda became the voice of a movement,” writes Pfeifle. “Twitter became the megaphone.”