When Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif began his tenure in 2013, the American-educated diplomat knew that he would need to bypass many of the traditional media outlets to spread Iran's message directly on the international stage. At the time, there was no platform better suited for this objective than Twitter. There was only one problem. Since the 2009 protests, Twitter, along with Facebook and YouTube, had been blocked in Iran.

Zarif's use of Twitter via software to bypass Iran's internet restrictions was a clear and very visible admission by the government itself that the lack of online presence, particularly on Twitter, was detrimental to Iran's spreading its viewpoints on the world stage. With Zarif's entry, journalists and activists, mostly Reformists and moderates, quickly jumped in. Several years later, Iran's conservatives caught on to how important the platform was not only on the world stage, but also domestically.

In an interview March 28, Mehdi Mohammadi, a media adviser to former hard-line nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, spoke about the importance of Twitter for conservatives. "The talking point that Twitter is completely the environment of the enemy, has room for debate," said Mohammadi, who is now one of the leading political analysts on the right.

When asked his opinion on "revolutionary groups" (conservative voices committed to the principles of the Islamic Revolution) becoming active on Twitter, Mohammadi said, "At the moment, Twitter is the prime location for shaping movements. … Revolutionary groups must turn this threat into opportunity and must never pull themselves out of this influential arena that can publish the positions of the revolution and the views of the Islamic Revolution at the international level."