In case you didn't know - and I'm betting you did - some activists from Iran apparently hacked Twitter during last week so instead of seeing Twitter's home page people saw a poem in Persian (people under 44 might not be aware that Persia was the old name for Iran before major regime change). The story is here.
I have a few problems with this. I thought, rather than the traditional end-of-year stuff a load of bloggers come out with at this time of year, I'd offer some wisdom to any other 'activists' thinking of doing anything similar.
1. Nobody, repeat nobody, who knows anything, uses the Twitter.com site. We're all on Tweetdeck or something similar. You've shrunk your potential viewership before you've started.
2. The people who have used Twitter to object to what they perceive to be going on in Iran are possibly the least likely individuals to speak Persian in the known universe. You can put a poem about your faith in there or you can put your shopping list, they really won't know the difference.
3. Whether it's people saying they love Britain's National Health Service or people making claims about Iran, these web shennanigans make no difference whatsoever. A load of people dyed their Twitter avatars green to 'object' to Iran - did you notice? I mean, really, literally notice?
4. On a personal note, a whole load of us in the UK grew up with Muslims around us the whole time. We honestly don't recognise any of the things of which any of the extremists are accused these days as having anything to do with those people, any more than buying my daughter a Christmas present means I'm going to start another Crusade tomorrow...
Just my thoughts.