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.
