Global Voices Online

Iran: When the Internet is Viewed through a Filter

Hamid Tehrani · 22:22 · Middle East & North Africa

lingua → nl · it · fr · bn

Iran has a vital online community of around 60,000 active blogs and up to 20 million people connected to the internet. As the Iranian cyber world is dynamic, so is government filtering of what content is accessible to Iranian citizens.

Beyond pornography websites, Iranian authorities target many political and social blogs and websites, depriving many from receiving information and expressing their ideas. The Iranian government does not have well-defined red lines, and it changes its filtering policies often, “giving” or “taking” virtual lives at will.

Iranian internet users are met with this image if they attempt to access content that is filtered

In this post we will discuss several issues related to filtering and try to clarify some common misunderstandings.

- Astronomic numbers:

Iranian officials in 2006 reported that 10 million websites and blogs had been filtered and 90 percent of them contained “immoral” content. A few months ago, another report said 5 million websites and blogs had been blocked. A judiciary official also said at the end of last year, that an additional $5 million (US) will be invested in a new ‘filtering system'. Faced with these astonishing numbers, Bruce Etling from the Berkman Center's ‘Internet and Democracy Project' blog at Harvard School of Law was not entirely pessimistic writing that the Iranian government claims are overblown, and that their own study shows that only a fraction of the Iranian blogosphere is blocked.

- Top filtering priorities:

Persian news websites such as BBC Persian, AmirKabir, a student news publication, and Balatarin, a popular citizen media portal.
Women's rights activists, student movements, anti-government, political, anti-filtering and human rights blogs: We4change, a women's activist blog/website, has been filtered more than 20 times. In reality, no website or blog is immune to filtering.
Social networking: Flickr and Orkut are currently blocked, BUT in last two months Iranians have been able to access Facebook and YouTube, although they were also blocked before. Iranians also have access to MySpace and Twitter.

The Iranian state's change of policy regarding Facebook and YouTube again shows the changing nature of its filtering policy. The reasons for this change of policy have not been announced and people are left to speculate. Some think the government became ‘more gentle and open' because the presidential elections will are coming up in the summer. Others are more pessimistic and think security forces want to watch people's of the social networking websites to learn ‘who is who' on the internet.

- What about English news sites?:

Iranians have access to most international news media such as the New York Times or Israeli news websites. It may be surprising for some to learn that anti-Bush and anti-Iraq war publications such as the Huffington Post or Informed Comment where many demands for the US government to engage with Iran have been filtered from the public for a long time.

- Are Islamist websites filtered too?

The answer is yes. Fatemeh Rajabi, is the wife of the Iranian government's spokesman and a strong supporter of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Still, her site/blog was filtered. She used to insult many other high-ranking Iranian politicians. Websites that favour the former president, Mohammad Khatami, such as Yari News, get filtered too.

- Who does the filtering?

An official filtering committee is composed of members of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the Intelligence Ministry, National TV and Radio. Their orders are executed by the Iranian Ministry of Telecommunication. It is rumoured that police forces, wish to send a member to this committee too.

- Testimonies and stories:

A first-hand testimony, interview with Jomhour an Iranian blogger.
A few Global Voices roundups about Iranian challenges, from collective filtering to the feelings of a filtered blogger.
I know many bloggers share Freekeybord's opinion that filtering is really stupid. He claims his blog was filtered two months ago, but he now gets more visitors than before..

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South Africa: Glad to be a Girl is Best African Weblog

Ndesanjo Macha · 16:10 · Sub-Saharan Africa

lingua → nl · es

The 2009 Bloggies has declared Glad to be a Girl the Best African Weblog. Glad to be a Girl is a blog by a Johannesburg-based blogger who goes by the name of Phillygirl. Her profile reads: Sift through my insanity and revel in my genius! Modesty drips off me in buckets ;) Sarcasm is my weapon of choice. Christians, Muslims & Jews only believe in one more God than I do.

Other blogs that were nominated in the Best African Weblog category are Being Brazen (South Africa), Appfrica, West Africa Wins Always (Cote d'Ivoire) and Scarlett Lion (Liberia).

Phillygirl got the good news from White African's twitter stream. In a post titled, International Bloggebrity Coming Thru, she celebrates the good news:

OMG! I think I won. The official site hasn't yet been updated (slackers!) but, I've had heaps of hits, a comment on yesterday's post congratulating me on my award and I found this on @whiteafrican's twitter stream:

Could it be true? So I sadly can't seem to access Twitter's search tool but I did do some browsing online and found it on the Gossip Rocks Forum too. I think it might be true. YAY.

Wow. Still in shock. This is truly awesome. And yeah, I know, I'm not really the best African Blogger, or even the best South African Blogger, but hell yeah, I'll take what I can get :) Welcome to all the new readers who'll be hitting my site for the first time after this award, you're why the win (and even just being a finalist) is important. Exposure. That's what it's all about … the awards I mean, not why I blog in general.
Wow. Still in shock. This is truly awesome. And yeah, I know, I'm not really the best African Blogger, or even the best South African Blogger, but hell yeah, I'll take what I can get :)

In another post, Choosing an award reward, she asks for suggestions on how to treat herself:

Wow, yesterday was quite an awesome day :) Am still amazed by the award. But am thrilled with the support it has brought … since mostly what I was expecting was a bit of a backlash about how can I be the Best African Blog blah blah. But I'm grateful not to have read any of those posts yet. The back of my mind (the part that is trying to kill me) is still waiting for them tho, the other shoe, so to speak. But for now, it seems that South African's can't help but be happy for a fellow South African :) I got a wonderful mention on SA Rocks and a featured headline article on BizCommunity.

Updated 09h02: And I just found there is also a mention on News24 :) A friend of mine msged me to congratulate me after she'd read about it there! Unbelievable :)

Now how to celebrate. Since I missed the awards ceremony (being in Texas and all), and there is no award other than the prestige and status (and kajillion million new first-time visitors), I figure I need to treat myself somehow. I mean say what you like, it's still a pretty momentous thing and I feel I need to do something to acknowledge it for myself. So, do I go ahead and get that personalised number plate I was thinking of a while back (I was sure I'd mentioned this before on the blog but can't for the life of me find the post to link to!)? Anyhoo, I've been pondering the number plate for a while: GLD2BGR L(impopo). But it's a 2 & half grand expenditure … for something I don't really need. I mean it'd be cool and all, but do you see my issue? And having just had a brief browse online, Plates.co.za is still refering to Limpopo as Northern Province (and they're R2500, which is where I got the price from before) but the government website says it's only R1500 for a Limpopo Personalised Plate. I dunno.

In Bits and Bobs she discusses the “media hype”:

Okay so it's been an amazing few days :) After yesterday's “media hype” (haha!) it just continues … I was asked to be the first guest Top 10 reader on The Digital Edge for Monday's new episode and I was interviewed by a newspaper!

Other good things that have happened: my unique site hits went over 1000 yesterday :) Today I expect it'll start going back to normal tho.

Should she go for a tattoo or a personalized number plate to celebrate?:

Oh, and in response to yesterday's post, I'm glad the majority of you seem to agree with me that a personalised number plate is a waste of money ;) Maybe I should finally get that tattoo I've been thinking about. I've always sort of wanted one, but could never decide on what (or where really). I like the idea of getting something meaningful, as I've mentioned before, and I've been thinking about the Glad to be a Girl logo. I designed it and it's now been a meaningful part of my life for a little over 2 years … hmmm, somehow two years doesn't seem significant enough yet … maybe I'll wait for the 5 year mark ;) Hahahahahaha. We'll see.

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