"Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away indroves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting themin cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they'resending all the Jews....If it's that bad in Holland, what must it belike in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans aresending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. TheEnglish radio says they're being gassed." — October 9, 1942

Excerpt from Anne Frank's Diary

Anne Frank wrote with paper and pen, while she and her family lived hidden behind a movable bookcase. I'm absolutely moved to tears contemplating how differently her story might have ended if others had been able to read it in real-time. Before she died in a concentration camp. If she had been able to share this online, people could have organized to help her... shared what they knew about what was happening in those faraway and uncivilized places... connected her with others seeking the same information.

I don't know enough about history to suppose what might have happened if Anne Frank had Twitter... Or if students at Kent State had organized with other campuses online... Or if protesters in China could have uploaded pictures from Tiananmen Square... But I know that new media is shaping the way history unfolds right now. The gravity of what's happening in Iran, and how this technology may affect the future is stunning.

Last night I watched Brian Williams explain that their correspondent was allowed to be in Tehran, but could not share photos or video of the protests without breaking Iranian law. New Media allows me to show you what I'm talking about here...



Today I went on to Twitter, a site I thought was largely useless and have never really explored until now. A few clicks to see the photos and messages citizens are sharing with each other... the world... and I was overcome with emotion. These people don't need state sponsored TV to tell them what to think about what's going on. They are connected to each other, and that's so incredibly profound.

None of this is news to you, and you have a vast selection of legitimate sources for good information about what's going on in the world. I break from my usual format today because this story about how new media is now, and will continue, affecting history is just so big. I'm overwhelmed trying to predict its significance in the future by applying it to the past. The thought experiment didn't even take me 100 years back before I was was completely blown away. Just think about what might be now if what we call "new media" were at least as old as Hitler.