WoW as a channel for news from Iran?
by Mike Schramm 
Jun 21st 2009 at 6:00PM
Normally, this wouldn't rate too high for us -- lots of people have ideas about how to use World of Warcraft, and many of them never actually come about. But then again, this is in the Wall Street Journal of all places, so we'll give it a look. If you're on Twitter, you've probably heard about what's going on in Iran right now -- there was an election, the "official" results given were judged as rigged by many involved, and the government seems to be cracking down on both news media and citizen journalism, as well as protesting citizens, to very sad results. How does World of Warcraft fit in to all of this? Andrew Lavallee of the WSJ's Digits blog points to this report by Craig Labovitz, which talks about how Internet traffic has been filtered out of the country around the election. At the very end of his analysis, Labovitz points out that channels for videogames, including both Xbox Live and World of Warcraft, have shown very little government manipulation. That suggests that if the government in Iran does continue to shut down certain channels, citizens there might be forced to spread the news through any virtual route they can, including possibly Azeroth.This is obviously all just analysis and speculation so far -- while there clearly (from those charts) has been interference in the media, no one (as far as we know) has yet had to resort to chatting in World of Warcraft to get their message out, and though what's happening in Iran is made up of some very serious (and seriously unfortunate) situations, the fervor online about using brand new channels like Twitter to share real-time news is often overstated. Personally, I believe that even if Twitter didn't exist, this information would find another way to get out. Still, the interesting thing to take away here is that even our "silly" video games today are actually media on a global level.
Thanks, Cedars!
In the past, you'd play games with just your roommate or your friend down the street, but thanks to Blizzard's MMO and other online services like it, you could be playing virtual shoulder to shoulder with someone halfway around the world. And in the unlikely event that Azeroth was ever called upon to serve as a method of communication for delivering serious news like what's happening in Iran, Azeroth could probably do it.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Virtual selves, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Docp Jun 21st 2009 8:34PM
You should care because people are dieing and suffering. I'm not saying you have to rush out and do something but having a bit of empathy for someone in such a dire situation wouldn't go amiss, and if you, or the government is in a situation where they could make a positive impact on the situation then being aware of it will certainly help. (although I don't think there is much the government can do and should remain out of this).
You're right that there's no real evidence of vote tampering but the evidence does point that way considering the massive popularity Mir-Hossein Mousavi had before the vote, with most opinion polls saying he'd win, and by a close margin, and then he loses 63% to 34% does seem dubvious.
Khremloc Jun 21st 2009 8:43PM
Racism isn't acceptable because it's a form of discrimination. It's not a political view, and have fun trying to get an analogy that supports it.
First off, Iran isn't a third-world country. Let's just clear that up. It may be in the Middle East, but don't stereotype that every Middle East country is poor.
The Iranians are taking care of themselves, notice the lack of interference. Countries have been condemning the Iranian government's actions and have shown their support for the protesters, because they know that only the protesters will be able to solve this. Sure, a country could go in, help overthrow the government, but that would be meddling in their affairs and would result in large disapproval.
Why should we care? Because it's always important to keep up to date with world news. If we all focused on our own countries, we would be guilty of preventing any injustices that happened to take place elsewhere. Have you heard of the Tiananmen Square protests? Peaceful protests that were made violent when the government called in the military to shoot at vulnerable civilians. We can compare this to the protests in Iran, because peaceful protests are being extinguished with violence by the government.
As I said in a previous comment, it's not just about the fraudulent elections anymore. It's about a nation whose voice needs to be heard.
You can't remain ignorant to foreign affairs, because in some way or another, it's going to effect -you- in the end game.
You think I'm the only one claiming it's rigged and that protesting about it is pathetic? You might want to say that to the Sea of Green that has been walking through the streets of Iran every day since the "results" were announced. The problem is, they've claimed it's rigged, asked for a recount, and what does the government do in response? They send paramilitaries out to kill innocent people and helicopters that spray acid on crowds to disperse them. The current government is obviously hiding something and countries have realised this.
Noscy Jun 21st 2009 8:53PM
go back to hicksville
Seriously Jun 21st 2009 9:31PM
I find it interesting how so many of the same media here in the U.S. who have been so happy to demonize Iran and advocate that we start yet another bloody war in the middle east, are now so concerned about the health and safety of the Iranian people. The U.S. has a long history of supporting coups in other countries in order to bring to power leadership that is friendly to U.S. and western interests. From where I sit this just seems to be one more in a long line of covert efforts by the U.S. to destabilize governments that don't support them. Just the other day Obama even said that the CIA was responsible for the 1953 coup that changed the leadership in Iran.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
The U.S. has a long and bloody history of destabilizing unfriendly governments through either covert or overt military action. Even just recently they were pretty much caught red-handed trying to engage a coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez. The reason? Chavez had the silly idea that the profits made from selling the oil in Venezuela should be used by the state to ensure that the poor in his country had a higher standard of living, as opposed to being used to enrich a small group of Exxon bureaucrats and other assorted profiteers. Be a shame if silly ideas like that were to spread to the U.S. wouldn't it? The same U.S. where the gap between the wealthy and the poor has been growing for the last 50 years. People really need to question what they see on the news because the western media does not tell the truth. Here's a link to a really enlightening documentary about the attempted CIA backed coup in Venezuela and how the media in that country played an instrumental role in helping to oust (for a time) a leader with popular national support.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u2MYqx5Qu8&feature=related
Another kind of funny thing about this whole Iran election thing? The same U.S. media that is sooo concerned with the integrity of elections all of a sudden bent over BACKWARDS in 2004 to ignore a mountain of evidence that the 2004 presidential election in the U.S. was rigged for Bush. Funny that. I guess it doesn't matter so much if elections are rigged right here in the good ol' USA. It's not like the thugs that rigged it started a bunch of wars in the middle east resulting in the deaths of millions, or pretty much destroyed the world economy. Oh wait...they did, didn't they? Oh, and they also put alot of effort into reducing american civil liberties and constitutional rights through the Patriot Act, and then threw in a nice dash of torturing people in Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo Bay (hint: alot worse than waterboarding has taken place).
Now, I'm not saying that Iran's government is innocent or blameless or anything like that, government's as a rule tend to kind of suck, but I think it's important that people remember that the U.S. media is the same group that told us there were WMD in Iraq, that, that failed to report on the banking practices that wrecked the economy and made people's 401k's lose so much value, and the same media that has been cheerleading for a war with Iran for years now. Seems to me they couldn't get support for their war so they decided to try for regime change thru covert means.
Anyway. Here's a few websites for those that are interested in this point of view:
(posting in following comment hopefully)
Just to name a few. I don't vouch 100% for what's on those sites but if you want an alternative to the manipulative and hateful drivel that you see in the mainstream media you'll certainly find it there.
Oh, and to the author of this article, if you're going to inject politics into a video game blog perhaps you could be gutsy enough to do an article about U.S./Israeli oppression of the Palestinians and the Arab world in general. There's already a couple million dead.
Groth Jun 21st 2009 6:22PM
The only problem would be verifying the information. It could well be that a "front line source" was actually a bored 16 year old sat in his bedroom in a totally different country. And if it was a real Iranian source, how could you guarantee that the reports were true or reliable?
It could happen, but the volume needed to make it reliable is a little less likely for azeroth.
JustinScott Jun 21st 2009 6:42PM
IP addresses are a wonderful thing :)
Groth Jun 21st 2009 6:52PM
Yup, and how often do you look at other players IPs?
JustinScott Jun 21st 2009 7:42PM
Im not talking about me or just the average person, im saying if someone really wanted to know where the info was coming from, especially if was being exchanged thru WoW, then blizzard could locate where the account was from and what computer thru the IP address :)
Autumnn Jun 21st 2009 8:55PM
In big news companies you know geeks got together and shared what games/toons they play.
"Hey bob, whats been happening?"
"Oh nothing much, just gonna play some games since we are stuck in our hotel room."
Innocent convo that would pass through filters.
Wes Jun 21st 2009 10:23PM
But Blizzard is too busy not updated wow or adding new content to possibly have time to track ip addresses and real addresses of everyone claiming to come from Iran :D.
Its ironic though that Iran is being demonized by the US media so much. There was a poll down by the Rockfella Survey Group which is the ONLY poll down right beofre the election that included 20 of 22 states of Iran which showed the incumbent president as having a 2:1 majority lead. About 64%. He won with 61%. Yet, the US Media keeps claiming not stop that "IT MUST BE RIGGED!". When it reality, its not a president whose infavor of Iran having nuclear power plants to supply relatively clean, cheap, free energy to its citizens (which also US, Canada and UK benefits from). Shame on that Pro-Iranian come first president.
What kind of president, thinks his own country is the best and wants what's best for his own citizens before listening to what leaders of other countries tell him he should want? Geesh. I mean, imagine if Stephen Harper listed to Obama's demands before his own Canadian citizens. It would be the perfect...world? Wait a sec.
Friday_Knight Jun 22nd 2009 5:00AM
Wes, if you really believe that you're incredibly naive and you clearly have absolutely no idea what kind of insane whacko Ahmadinejad and the kind of things his regime condones and does.
tim b Jun 22nd 2009 12:01PM
I'm aware that this forum is kind of a strange place to be discussing this matter in depth, but just to point out, that poll has been criticised on a number of levels, including the fact that when it came out, its producers actually used it to predict that noone would win in the first round. There was a very high level of 'refuse to say who I'm voting for' or 'don't know', which would be understandable in a country where people might be reluctant to criticise the government over the phone to a total stranger. Also, my understanding is that Iran would be allowed to have nuclear power by the international community, just not nuclear weapons.
trollzmon Jun 21st 2009 6:44PM
Maus, I would never have clicked on that link if it wasn't for you.
Thanks buddy, that's some nice shit.
Otso Jun 21st 2009 6:45PM
You have to confirm you are 18 for a reason.
Osaka Jun 21st 2009 6:50PM
Wha?
Maus Jun 21st 2009 6:50PM
I am 18, but seriously, that video, for whatever means it serves, is grossly out of context.
McKrackin Jun 21st 2009 6:51PM
You're an absolute bloody idiot if you believe that Twitter hasn't played an incredible role in getting information out past censors. It's easy to cut off phone lies and individual IP addresses, but Twitter's incredibly flexible and compatible software makes it impossible to block without shutting down the internet entirely. Which is why most of the information getting out, originally found its way out through Twitter.
Don't comment about things you have no understanding of, no one wants to hear some idiot video game writer's musings about a nation fighting for its freedom.
theRaptor Jun 21st 2009 10:00PM
Oh look a Twitter fanboy (do you work as a print journalist? 90% of them seem to be in love with it). Please tell me how Twitters "incredibly flexible and compatible software" prevents a government from blocking its IP addresses? Sure you can get around that with proxies but you can do that to EVERY OTHER WEBSITE ON THE INTERNET!
The difference between this happening five years ago and it happening today is that five years ago they would have been posting on decentralised blogs and web forums. Twitter just enables a central point of failure.
The reason we are even still getting reports out of Iran is because some people have gone to considerable effort to set up masses of proxies for use by the Iranian resistance. Network freedom* and redundancy is the hero here, not a lame social networking site.
* Which plenty of countries including my own are attempting to kill.
Otso Jun 21st 2009 6:57PM
I really didn't think it was that bad, and I'm much younger than 18.
If you're on Youtube, and you see "You must be 18", there is a good chance that there will be a little bit of gore. ;)
phaer Jun 21st 2009 6:58PM
They shouldn't have publicized this, now these channels will be shut down if Iran's government gets wind of this, potentially putting in danger anyone in Iran that plays this game.
Stupid media...