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In a precursor to this year’s Arab Spring, citizens turned to digital communications such as text messages and social networking to organize demonstrations and tell the world what was happening as the government cracked down. Texting has become the predominant means of digital communications because more than 70 percent of Iranian households have a mobile phone -- four-times greater than the percentage with internet access.

While unrest has shaken or toppled other authoritarian regimes this year, sophisticated monitoring helped mute protests and activism in Iran, according to Mahmood Enayat, director of the Iran Media Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Iran is clearly employing technology to neutralize political opposition, he says.