United by Zero: The Ayatollah and His Opponents

There is no love lost between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the dissident Akbar Ganji (who has famously said “Khamenei must go”), and the political opponent Mohsen Sazagara. The three diverge on almost everything that matters, but they do have one thing in common: none of them “follow” anyone on Twitter. While the purpose of Twitter is to facilitate a conversation by sharing one's news and opinions while reading and following those of others, these men choose only to send their tweets, and receive none.

With 555 million members and 135,000 more joining daily, Twitter is one of the top ten most visited websites in the world (Facebook has 1.1 billion members). Even governments hostile to the internet have been attracted to this social network and have opened accounts in order to introduce their ideas for the future.

Although Ayatollah Khamenei is a Twitter user himself, it’s actually the Supreme Leader’s office that updates his account daily. No one knows what uses Iran’s leader has for the internet, what websites he frequents, or how many minutes or hours he spends daily on the computer.

But he has left some clues that show he follows political news on the internet. When former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani published a letter in the last hours of the 2009 election, he later recounted a conversation with Khamenei to the publication Communication Management Monthly, in August 2010: “At the last moment [before] I was going to visit Mr. Khamenei, I posted a letter, and when I went to see Mr. Khamenei he said, ‘I was reading your letter online.’”

Unlike his two political opponents, who both live in the United States and tweet in Persian, Mr. Khamenei’s Twitter account tweets from Iran in English, Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Spanish.

We cannot know why these three personas—the leader of Iran and two of his opponents—refuse to follow anyone on Twitter. We can, however, venture a guess, which might be wrong, but should prove entertaining at least.

If I were to guess, I would suggest that Twitter is not being used efficiently by high-level Iranian political personalities—academics, ranking officials, or critics, both inside Iran and abroad—as a professional tool in communicating with their supporters, voters, fellow thinkers, and critics. For most officials, Twitter remains something new, its usage and potential neither entirely grasped nor trusted. Especially for officials who aren't directly in contact with the masses, or not used to being exposed directly with random people or familiar with diverse ways of thinking, there's a lingering suspicion around such technology. Maybe it takes time to get comfortable sharing instantaneous short bursts of thought with thousands and millions of people. I assume with time many of these officials will be persuaded to establish a more real connection.

Another problem that arises when following the writings of others on Twitter is that the act of following can create speculation as to what kind of relationship exists between the Twitter user and those followed. Particularly in Iran, and amongst Iranian political figures who live and breathe conspiracy theories, the very act of following can be interpreted as a sign of recognition, such as when someone you admire follows you.

Also, in regards to Mr. Khamenei’s Twitter account, as a religious leader and official Shia "source of emulation,”  it would be downgrading and unacceptable for him to “follow” others. So other members of society must follow him and not the other way around. There is a joke in Persian that goes, “A pilgrim goes to Mecca, not Mecca to the pilgrim.” You never know, perhaps in the future, once ayatollahs enjoy the idea of having online followers, they may demand that their fans follow them on Twitter and even issue a fatwa with religious consequences if they don’t.

Of course, in examining the motivations of these three figures, the religious issue does not apply to Mr. Ganji or Mr. Sazagara, who must have their own reasons for not following anyone on Twitter.

Clearly the worst explanation for having a Twitter account with thousands of followers but not following anyone back is that such figures essentially enjoy the monologue –  wanting only to be heard and followed but having no interest and curiosity in hearing others' thoughts or beliefs.

To this list of Twitter monologuers we can add Sadegh Zibakalam, a prominent political science professor at the University of Tehran, a popular academic in Iran and a political analyst of contemporary Iranian history. He started tweeting in April last year, but he doesn’t follow any individual or group, and everything he writes references his interviews and writings in the media. In contrast to Zibakalam, whose writings are just about promoting his work without creating any conversation online, Ganji goes so far as to reveal his excitement in his tweets, like this one right after one of the Iranian National Volleyball Team’s recent wins: “Congratulations, Congratulations, Congratulations, Congratulations, Congratulations, Congratulations, Congratulations...Iran Nat Volleyball team had 3-1 victory against Cuba.”

Highly respected political personas like president-elect Hassan Rouhani, former presidential candidate Mohammed Reza Aref, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani also have a presence on Twitter. Among them, Hassan Rouhani tweets in English and sometimes re-tweets the writings of Khamenei’s account, Mr. Aref’s, and even Scott Peterson’s of the Christian Science Monitor. According to Mr. Rouhani’s Twitter account, he follows four people: Ali Khamenei, Mohammed Reza Aref, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Mohammed Khatami.

It seems that little by little an unwritten rule has emerged: when an Iranian official joins Twitter he should follow the Supreme Leader’s Twitter account as a demonstration of his his online obedience and respect. And I won’t be surprised if in the near future, those who seek public office have to demonstrate their respect and dedication to the leader by the number of re-tweets and/or quotes from him.

If we consider Twitter as having four main functions for users—talking about their daily activities, recounting conversations and debates about different issues, sharing information, and publishing news—Khamenei, Ganji, Sazagara, and Zibakalam all use Twitter exclusively to publish news. 

The relatively small number of followers of Iranian political personalities such as Iran’s leader, Rouhani, and Aref, reveal that they have just started to use this tool, and that they have a lot of room to grow.

At the moment, Ali Khamenei has 14,000 followers. The Shia world leader (in the opinion of some of his fans) is a few thousand behind Reza Pahlavi's 20,000. Pahlavi, the son of the previous Shah of Iran, lives in the United States and wants no less than the toppling of Khamenei; his followers consist of ordinary people, journalists, and political analysts.

But Ali Khamenei is not alone in refusing to follow. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has over 3.2 million followers on Twitter, and Mohammed Morsi, who was recently deposed as Egypt’s president in a military coup, has 1.8 million followers, yet neither of them follow anyone on their Twitter accounts. Interestingly enough, Russian president Vladimir Putin can be added to that list as he has over 177,000 followers, though he does actually follow one person back on Twitter: his own English-language Twitter account.

If Iranian politicians have a slow rate of increase in followers, it can be attributed in part to Iranians’ lack of access to high-speed internet, censorship, the fear of being outed online if you use a pseudonym, and the fear of authorities arresting a user for writing opposing views.

The Supreme Leader and other high level authorities who want to connect with a different audience to increase their influence and expand their engagement, especially with the internet-savvy youth demographic, will eventually learn that creating a powerful online fan base requires a serious review in their traditional patterns of communication, and not the same mundane use of repetitive machines to get their message across. And as unbearable as it may look and feel to, they need to go from monologue to dialogue.