Twitter got an interesting tech support call from a highly unique customer today: The Obama Administration, via the U.S. State department, which reportedly asked the microblogging service to delay a system upgrade in order to maintain the tsunami of history-making tweets about and emanating from Iran via Twitter’s #iranelection topic in the wake of the country’s highly disputed presidential election. It’s unclear if high-ranking members of President Obama’s team were directly involved in this Twitter request; given that this is by far the country’s most Web 2.0-centric Administration, however, it’s possible they were. (Last April, the State Department included Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in a sponsored delegation of technology executives to neighboring Iraq, in order to show, among other applications, a spokesman explained, how “new technologies can be used to build local capacity, foster greater transparency and accountability, build upon anti-corruption efforts.”)

In any case, it’s fascinating to contrast this behind-the-scenes activity with the official statements coming from the White House. President Obama’s first public statement on the Iran turmoil yesterday was muted and highly cautious, taking pains (in light of historic U.S. interference in Iran) to emphasize that his Adminstration respects Iranian sovereignty and self-rule. (Critics have instead urged him to condemn Iran’s repressive tactics.) At the same time, however, his State Department is actively working with the central conduit of protest against Iran’s government: Twitter. As the President put it yesterday, “[W]e do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.”

What is democracy? Is it just a vote every 4 years? Is that all the citizen has?

Who ensures that even that limited moment of choice and opinion is secure and trustworthy. How are the votes counted? Who ensures that the people have even voted? You don’t have to be living in Iran to wonder about that!

How does a candidate get chosen? In the west it depends on a party and immense sums of money. In other places, the regime makes the call. It is all but impossible to become powerful without having made a deal with the in group whether this is in Iran and the Mullahs or anywhere.

What might democracy become in the age of Social Media?

Could President Obama have gathered the financial and voter support in his campaign without it? I think that it would have been unlikely. Are most politicians responding to what happened in that election?

I don’t think so. For I think that they miss the point.

The tools of social media are just that. Tools!

The point is that to engage the people you have to have a cause that strikes to their heart. Obama had that.

What the tools do is to make a real cause too powerful for the status quo to push under the rug.

In Iran, people are risking and losing their lives for change. In the before Social Media times such as at Tianemen Square, the regime can and did utterly squash dissent. I don’t think that this is possible today if the cause is well enough supported. Yes, the regime can set up a massacre that may stop the demonstrations. But the legitimacy of the regime will be ended. Their only chance then will be to become a North Korea or an Burma – a true pariah. The story will not end there.

The tools and the supporting global community are enabling the story to be told. The world is a witness.

There is also another aspect that I see. Our response to the traditional media is usually helplessness and then numbness. We see terrible events but we can do nothing but feel bad. Traditional media is so one way and so passive.

But people outside of Iran not only know what is going on but many are actively engaged in helping or in providing emotional support. This was even true for the Obama campaign. Millions of non Americans became personally engaged in the election in a way not possible by simply reading the paper or watching TV.

The Obama campaign – but regretfully not the Obama administration – and the Iranian push-back – will surely be seen in retrospect as a Tipping Point in the evolution of democracy. What will happen, I cannot know yet.

But the regimes everywhere will have to take note. There is a line of self interest and oppression that cannot be crossed. For if it is, the “Sleeper will awake”.

The voice of the people is no longer restricted to the ballot box. No longer subject to the control of the ballot box. No longer subject to the needs of party affiliation or millions of campaign dollars.

I don’t know how this will play out but it sure sounds more democratic to me.