The Daily Clarity

Iran and the brave new world of online censorship

Iran has a checkered history with the Internet. Iran’s government, in the past,  has declared blogs, texting, social networking sites and, more generally, the Internet “destructive,” “tools of media warfare” and more dangerous to the public “than addiction.” Iran is a country that struggles to control the unfettered access to information that the Internet provides,  and resultant opinions of its populace. Oddly though  it is also the country with the third largest number of blogs in the world,  ranking behind the US and China. Iran has an estimated 2.5 million blogs receiving somewhere in the region of 5 Million hits per day. Iran has tried a variety of tactics to control the words of bloggers and their opinions expressed in an effort to manage the international and external perspectives on the country, and particularly its regime.

Iran has been more sophisticated of late in its use of  technology blocking  tools, but in early days if stumbled by using blunt macro filtering attempts. In a Setepmer 2008 article from the US State Department on Internet Freedom, Iran’s attempts at control are outlined in the words of an anonymous Iranian blogger:

“This is only the (Iranian) government’s latest move to control Iran’s active blogosphere.  A string of failed attempts began in 1999 with filtering efforts. After those initial efforts proved unsuccessful, the government began targeting the bloggers themselves in 2002, arresting first those who were also involved with cinema production, and then individuals (like this blogger) who also worked as journalists. “In 2004-2005 they detained about 20 to 30 bloggers and Weblog owners, tortured them, and caused them trouble, so that others would be afraid and think twice,” the blogger said. “However, this issue led to an increase in the number of Weblogs and bloggers.”Stage 3, begun after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president in 2005, saw the Iranian government itself enter the fray with its own Web sites and massive funding for the sites of groups closely allied with its policies. “However, they don’t have anything new to say,” the blogger said. “[Y]ou come and run 10,000 Weblogs where all of them say everything is fine, while the truth out there shows something else. Therefore, they failed on this stage as well.” Next came a mixture of arrests and new filtering technology, with somewhat absurd consequences such as the filtering of the word “woman” while arresting many women bloggers. By using filter breakers, legions of bloggers made it impossible for the government to keep up.

In 2005, the Ministry of Islamic Guidance also announced a plan to register all blogs and Web sites, requiring full names, addresses and telephone numbers.  But after only one month, the ministry admitted that only 5,000 of around 100,000 sites had complied and the official who had proposed the registration was forced to resign. The blogger said Iran’s government is motivated by the desire to ultimately convert the country’s Internet into an Intranet not only to “disconnect communication between inside the country and abroad,” but also to “channelize” access in each region of the country to hinder news of political protests, workers strikes and other problems or developments in the provinces that could motivate others to take action.

“[T]he same is true for women, meaning for example if the women in Tehran are going to have a gathering, they want them to have the gathering and [then] they will suppress it, arrest them, etc. They don’t want there to be a domino effect, and chain reaction” around the country. But the Iranian blogger predicted that the government’s actions against Internet freedom ultimately will fail, and pointed to unsuccessful efforts to stifle other news sources. “[C]onsider radio, consider television, even video that they wanted to confront with in the 80s and they did not succeed,” the blogger said. In 1995, a plan was submitted to the Majlis to confront the threat of satellite television. “Right now they go and collect satellite antennas from people’s houses, but this plan has practically failed because people continue to have their satellites and their numbers are increasing daily.”

 These crude tactics were never going to work  as Iranian bloggers found their way around them. It sent the Iranian government back to the drawing board for a a net set of technology and techniques. We have reported recently how one of these techniques - the alleged complaints to overseas blog web hosts about dissident views by residents of US sanctioned nations -has resulted in the denial of services of several leading Iranian blogs. Ironically, the Iranian Government is allegedly citing complaints under the US OFAC legislation originally intended to prevent US companies doing business with Iran as  a sanction effort. Iran smartly turned the legislation around, allegedly, and used this to drive denial of service orders against Iranian bloggers guilty of expressing dissident views on foreign web hosts. The Iranian regime has not stopped there though apparently.

The Iranian Government in the last few weeks has eased access to social media sites such as Facebook, but the early indications are that this is an attempt to catch Iranian residents in supposedly ‘dissident’ attacks, potentially identify their sources, hijack their online identities and use them to their advantage, or at least these are the allegations made by Iranian bloggers.  A recent  article by Iranian blogger / journalist, Omid Habibinia,  outlines the Iranian government tactics.

“Last week, by chance, I noticed there is another Omid Habibinia on Facebook who has not only added my close friends and colleagues, but also my little sister. Strangely, the fake ID holder added a Swiss girl who I have spoken with and has contacted her several times to know if she can play in a docudrama about a Swiss girl who has an online friend from Iran. I am also aware that fake ID holders have contacted other friends and asked some “strange questions.” Facebook makes an ideal platform for intelligence agents in Iran to infiltrate social networks, where they can hack information, locate events, addresses and monitor their subjects.

I have learned that my Gmail account has previously been accessed without my permission, and the persons responsible knew every contact, place and idea that I shared with others, including the re-launch of a well-known Web site that was put online about five years ago called Freedom of Expression (Azadi e Bayan). It was the first site to support Ahamad Batebi, who was kidnapped during his leave from jail after his meeting in Tehran with Ambeyi Ligabo, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ special rapporteur on freedom of expression in November 2003. The site also supported all journalists, artists, intellectuals and bloggers who were facing danger within the Islamic Republic.

Another kind of attack was recently perpetrated by “special hackers” against Balatarin, the Persian version of Digg.com. The hackers stole the owners’ IDs of this popular site, including a well-known news source in Iran. The information gleaned was used to try and hack into their bank accounts. At the same time, Balatarin was ordered to reformat their servers, making it more difficult to discover the identities of the hackers. This Web site draws more than 250,000 pageviews per day and is used as a source for following news, even among journalists.

During recent weeks, many Iranian journalists and prominent bloggers have claimed that their IDs were closed by Facebook, due to being reported for insulting or even pornographic content. The same trick has also been used on other bloggers. Some, who use providers outside of Iran, are reported on by agents and requests are made to the blog providers for closure or to have a warning sign placed before a visitor can access the content. The complaint is that these blogs are an insult to religion or pornographically offensive. I know some bloggers who only post their usual poems on their blogs, which most of the time are neither blasphemies or erotic, but have still incurred an online warning message.”

The attempts to deny freedoms are not only limited to Facebook, similar techniques have been reported by Iranians in relation to postings made on You Tube:

“The same thing is happening on Youtube. Many demonstrations and protests in Iran are captured by mobile phones and shared on the video-sharing site. However, some of the videos have been removed because of the pressure placed on Youtube through the report of supposed insults. Some gaffs by Iranian leaders or by TV presenters are also sometimes removed by Youtube. It is clear when in a two-day period, 200 reports are received asking for the removal of certain videos, that site administrators might follow suit.  However, it seems obvious that most of these e-mails and reports came from a specific place in Tehran.”

How can these systemic attacks on freedom of speech be protested from cyberactivits outside of Iran? There are a few ways to help. You can write to the web hosts reported to be denying service to Iranian bloggers,  and express your disapproval. You can lobby your own web host to make sure they are not supportive of the service denial strategies but will promote free speech opportunity instead. You can be alert online to approaches, either by email or on social media sites,  purporting to be from Iranian bloggers and make sure you verify their identity carefully before communicating. You can pass on articles such as this to others to help inform the online community, or report on the issue yourself for your readers. You can also support any Government initiatives that are focussed on the issue. The US State Department, for example, created in 2006 , Global Internet Freedom Task Force. It has a multi-faceted approach to the issue of Internet freedom, namely:

• Monitoring Internet freedom, reporting the findings in the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, and detailing the means and mechanisms by which governments attempt to restrict online activity.

• Responding to Internet repression with a greater push for freedom on the world stage and in multilateral organizations. The State Department took a step in this direction in January 2007 by hosting a conference on combating Internet censorship around the globe. Over 120 representatives of corporations, socially responsible investment firms, NGOs, foreign embassies, and congressional offices participated.

• Expanding access to the Internet with greater technical and financial support for increasing availability of sophisticated international communication technologies in the developing world.

These are government strategies in the international sphere that do have value and can use support. Online freedom of speech is the censorship issue of this age. The Internet was conceived to be the vehicle for the instant communication, the free exchange of ideas,  and a global tool for discussion of concepts. There are some governments threatened by this potential for global collaboration. However has history has repeatedly shown, improvements in the underlying economic prosperity of a populace combined with tools to express concepts of actualization and thought are  the greatest catalysts for freedom. In terms of global liberation, it is on that front, not the military front, that the issue of freedom will finally be decided.