US asks Twitter to stay online because of Iran vote

    Add new comment

    Date: 
    17 June 2009

    The Obama administration took the unusual step of asking Twitter to delay a planned maintenance outage because of the social blogging site's use as a communications tool by Iranians following their disputed election, a senior official said Tuesday.

    The request highlighted the administration's Web-savvy ways and the power of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook in organizing protests over the election results in the face of a ban by Iranian authorities on other media.