Obama Intervention Keeps Twitter Open in Iran

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The White House asked Twitter to postpone its planned site maintenance on Monday night.

President Obama has reached out to social networking site Twitter in a bid to aid the political situation in Iran.

In the wake of this week’s election chaos, Iranian protestors have been logging on to Twitter to forward information and news regarding protests. Iran has experienced many problems since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election thus retaining power, with fighting erupting in the streets in response to the result.

President Obama has stated that he doesn’t wish to meddle in the country’s affairs, however it has been confirmed that Twitter was contacted by the White House and asked to hold off on closing the site for maintenance during Monday evening.

The New York Times reported that the request was made by a state department official within President Obama’s administration named Jared Cohen. Of course Twitter readily complied with the request and delayed the site overhaul until today.

Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for the White House, wouldn’t confirm the reports at a recent press conference. However the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, PJ Crowley said: “This was just a call to say: ‘It appears Twitter is playing an important role at a crucial time in Iran. Could you keep it going?’”

The President of the United States has publicly said that he wishes to allow Iran to deal with its own matters without US interference in the hope that talks regarding nuclear weapons will not be jeopardised.

Mr Crowley added that the request to Twitter was not really a direct intervention, rather it was a way of keeping information flowing at this turbulent time: “We are proponents of freedom of expression. Information should be used as a way to promote freedom of expression,” reported The Guardian.