Paris - (AFP) - From the "Arab Spring" uprisings to the feminist "MeToo" movement to expose perpetrators of sexual harassment against women, Twitter has proven its position and role as an ally of political activists and opposition groups, thus becoming a platform that is difficult to replace.

The number of users of other social media platforms may be greater, but the network now owned by billionaire Elon Musk dominates global communication, despite the ambiguity surrounding its fate.

"It is clear that (the platform) Twitter is very influential in obtaining the attention of the media and officials. It has a very special and unique place in this regard," said Mahsa Ali Mardani, a researcher at the human rights NGO "Article 19".

Ali Mardani explained in a statement to Agence France-Presse that the tweets "help the Iranians" during the anti-government protests that Iran has been witnessing for months, in documenting "the pain and struggles of their citizens," and also help the world document what is happening.

Twitter is a lifeline with the outside world, especially in countries that restrict independent journalism and foreign correspondents.

This week, posts from inside the Chinese iPhone factory operated by Foxconn showed workers rebelling against the lockdown imposed to contain Covid, undermining the government's attempts to suggest calm prevails amid major efforts to contain the virus.

"It is very important not only to draw information from international media, but also to document human rights violations and atrocities," said Markus Mikkelsen, a researcher who specializes in digital activities under authoritarian regimes.

At the end of June, the number of daily Twitter users reached 237 million, a number far below that of TikTok and Facebook. The number of daily users of the first platform is one billion, and the second two billion.

But the short and simple formula makes the network a force beyond its size in the hands of opposition groups, as anyone can become a "citizen journalist" who instantly publishes images that the government authorities do not want to be published.

Nadia Edel, an Egyptian-British activist who participated in the Tahrir Square uprising in Egypt in 2011, said anti-regime tweets across the Middle East had encouraged people, showing them that they were not alone.

And she added, "Its (the platform's) ability to spread this event widely and the number of activists who were tweeting in English" moved the scene abroad.

With tweets that have gone viral and sparked international outrage, foreign governments can sense domestic pressure to act or at least condemn the repressive authorities.

Even in democracies where Twitter serves as a digital space for communication between officials and members of society, the platform can provide activists with a means to spread their views on a scale previously unattainable.

In the last decade, the "Black Lives Matter" hashtag has become synonymous with the movement that was launched to highlight racism and police violence in the United States against African Americans, which put under the microscope discriminatory practices that often went unreported.

"They use the features of Twitter and social media to create a protest identity, to create a common sense within the movement," Mikaelsen said.

"They know that they can reach more and more directly to journalists and decision-makers than, for example, Instagram."

Since the turmoil caused by Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, many have abandoned the platform due to concerns that platform officials will stop sufficient scrutiny of what is published to remove misleading or provocative content.

Activists warned that if Twitter were to disappear, the world would lose a very important historical record of protest movements that would not have gained momentum without digital documentation.

Ali Mardani said, "Twitter constituted an archive for a very large number of movements and events... So the loss of this archive will be a great loss, as it is a somewhat historical record."

Charles Lister, a political scientist at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said that repressive regimes or terrorist groups will be the only beneficiaries of the demise of a platform capable of exposing their behavior.

In his research on the war in Syria, Lister said Twitter has been "vital" to documenting war crimes and providing aid.