Being a resident of a developing country caught in political turmoil, I can identify with this story. Western media often has inaccurate perception of things going on in other parts of the world. I have found that, at times, seemingly trivial events are blown out of proportion while imperative issues go entirely unnoticed. It might not be a premeditated or deliberate exercise, but it certainly is a big failure in part of western media in grasping the ground issues.

There can be no gainsaying that Twitter did a great job of spreading the news about Iranian protests around the world, but it's very much plausible that Twitter was largely of no consequence within Iran.