WORLD’s Mindy Belz reports that despite the government shutdown of internet and text-messaging, Iranians protesting the presidential election results have been using Twitter as a means to communicate their plight to the world:

The government went to extraordinary means to shut down coverage of chaos in Tehran following the vote—even jamming satellite feeds of the BBC and others—but Iranians took to the streets with their mobile phones and mobile phone cameras to find ways around the news blackout. One thing the authorities forgot to turn off was Twitter, the microblogging service that became the news feed for much of the information reaching outsiders in the past 36 hours, with hundreds of Iranians posting real-time news of the events and finding it as a means to link to YouTube and other sites the authorities thought they had blocked.

For example, Change_for_Iran tweeted:

it’s worth taking the risk, we’re going. I won’t be able to update until I’m back. again thanks for your kind support and wish us luck.

And Persiankiwi wrote:

there is gunfire still coming from direction of Azadi square. we are trying to get info” and “people are running in streets outside. There is panic in streets. people going in[t]o houses to hide.