The CBS-affiliate from Eugene, Oregon, which is where English, baby! CEO and co-founder John Hayden grew up and went to school, recently met with John at one of our client schools, Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon, to talk about how Iranians have been using English, baby! to express themselves following the disputed election in their country last month.

The segment included information about other sites that have been used to disseminate information in Iran recently, so John spoke as an expert in social media in Iran and around the world. It’s a story we’ve heard a lot these weeks, but this one had an unusual and particularly positive spin, spending some time on “the Iran we don’t see,” with its long and rich history.

Enjoy the video. As I understand it, Chemeketa closed off a large and stately room for John and the reporter, Elissa Harrington, to talk.

Sites like twitter have a played a big role in helping protesters organize in Iran. But it’s hard to carry on a conversation and analyze the situation with so many urgent posts that pertain to people on the ground in Tehran in the #IranElection topic.

That’s where sites like English, baby! come in. Beth Arnold, a Paris-based writer I’ve been writing and twittering back and forth with about Ebaby! for a while, featured the conversation about Iran on Ebaby! in a piece for the Huffington Post. It focuses on how the Chinese–who don’t vote–are reacting to claims that the vote was stolen in Iran.

We’re honored that our site and our members are part of the discussion about the events in Iran on one of the first sites we look to for political news and commentary, and we couldn’t think of a better place to have our contribution go than Beth’s “Letter From Paris” column.

With many sources of information blocked in Iran, englishbaby.com, a social network for people who are learning English,  offers a unique breadth of voices from the country’s English-speaking youth. Unlike Twitter and Facebook which are monitored by the state as well as the media and can so full of posts on Iran they are chaotic, English, baby! is home to unfettered and well-thoughout discussion among the site’s 10,000 Iranian members and the million more around the world.

This forum begins with a list made by a 16-year-old named Payam of all the good qualities of Iran, which he hopes are not forgotten during this time.

In this forum thread, the longest on the topic on Ebaby!, Tufan, a 24-year-old Iranian man, says that many people’s opinions of the current regime have changed since the election: “Now even people who voted to Ahmadinejad are regret for their decision when they see how he treats to demonstrators.”

But 19-year-old amirlashkari22 (pictured above) says he thinks the violence against protesters in his country was necessary to prevent further chaos: “If they don’t [shoot protesters] you ppl would fire much more stores, supermarkets, banks and buses.”

Many of the participants of the discussion are Iranian, but people from around the world frequently chime in and give their thoughts. Sali, a 27-year-old Algerian is disappointed to see Iran come undone, because she looks up to the nation. “We are prouvd of iran as mulim and devloped country,” she says

English, baby! is glad to provide a place where people from all countries can share their thoughts on this crisis in a common language. We hope our site continues to evade censorship in Iran.

All last week, the world watched the news unfold about Iran’s election and the subsequent protests over the results. But with traditional reporters on lock down in hotel rooms, social media sites have become the main source on this story. With more than 10,000 of our one million members based in Iran, Ebaby! has seen several forums pop up complete with Iranian voices from all sides of the issue.

Kristian Foden-Vencil, a reporter for Oregon’s NPR affiliate, OPB, took interest in the increased political activity on our site and stopped by the office on Thursday for about an hour. He spoke with Ebaby! CEO John Hayden as well as our resident English teacher, Alexis Nelson, about how the site work helps people learn English and is home to some very unique dialog on Iran. The four-minute piece (which contains a clip from our latest episode of EXTREME English, baby!) aired several times yesterday.

To join the discussion about the Iranian election or see what our global user base has to say, take a look at the forum mentioned in the story as well this one, the longest one on the topic on our site. English, baby! is glad to provide a place where people from all countries can share their thoughts on the situation in Iran in a common language.