Crowd sourcing Basij Activities

Crowd sourcing Basij Activities;

Iranians can report Basij movements while all the protesters can

see it on their cell phones, or PCs. G

As the protests in Iran continue for the second week, a Google user named Xárene Eskandar is following the activity on a Google Maps page, logging the events each day as they’re reported.

The latest map from Wednesday << CLICK ) tracks events by the hour and shows the movement of special forces vans and military helicopters as they close in on protesters, as well as the location where protesters have reported seeing or hearing gunshots.

The maps are similar to ones created last year to crowdsource information from citizen journalists about violence in Kenya following a disputed election. In the Kenya case, an activist developed software called Ushahidi (”testimony” in Swahili) that allowed anyone to contribute information by e-mail and text messages. That info could be coordinated by an administrator who sent out instant alerts to protesters and other citizen journalists and posted data to Google Maps.

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