Cutting Internet in Iran

[Hack-Hook]

Well I wonder why people think you can't bypass china firewall?
By the way some suggestion here remained me of some famous dystopian literature of last century.

 

[Aryzin]

So another great chinese firewall?

So how long before the iranian members here get cut off?

Seems like a lot of the mullah supporters are leaving in the totalitarian and decadent west. The regular Iranians won’t be having the same luxuries of free societies afforded to the ones outside Iran. Sad day when you want to oppress your own people while they have the hated western freedoms all for themselves.

 

[gambit]

The burden is actually on you to provide evidence as to how China or the DPRK are being threatened in their existence by the supposed treachery of government employees making filtered internet content available to local masses. That was indeed the starting point of your attempted counter.

All governments have self preservation interests to all aspects of itself.

Contestant authorities ALWAYS result in a civil war. As an American, I point you to the US Civil War where the cause was slavery. One side, or authority, want to preserve slavery. The other side, or authority, want to abolish it. The result is a civil war. An anti-government movement always have an intellectual beginning. Somewhere. Somehow. Some times the reigning authority find out. Often times, not. So it behooves the reigning authority to 'nip it in the bud', as Americans say, whenever possible.

Authoritarian governments is always fearful of information and the most knowledgeable of verboten knowledge is the government itself, ie: government employees. All the way up to the top dog.

The fact that authoritarian governments like China, NKR, the Soviet Union, the GDR, et al, always tries to keep their government employees under control by way of generous benefits and punishments are evident enough that authoritarian governments FEELS threatened. A civil war is always started from the inside. The intellectual foundation may have external influences, but it is always up to the natives to produce that anti-government movement.

So now you're actually arguing that China is achieving safety and stability in the face of western soft war-type destabilization attempts, but that it is doing so through other means than actual control of western disinformation, which according to you is impossible? As long as there are means to neutralize these western efforts, whether through the control of information or otherwise, the result remains unchanged.

But such controls IS impossible. China is considerably more permissive than NKR, aka the 'Hermit Kingdom', but even as tightly controlled the NKR-eans, many of them still somehow managed to know more than their fellow citizens, and annually, many of them risked their lives trying to escape the country.

How the Chinese government remains in control are multitudes. The allowance of the practice of capitalism is the majority successful. The Chinese people are too busy trying to 'get rich' to worry about being revolutionaries. On the other hand, the HK Chinese have been free for a few generations and HK is nearly a contestant authority on mainland China. The missing ingredient is the military: none. So the only challenge they can pose to the Chinese government is on the moral plane, which can be easily ran over by PLA tanks.

Taiwan is the true and credible contestant authority. Free and armed. Not counting the world's most powerful country (US) as a political ally and %90 a military ally, which China definitely do not want. For now, mainland Chinese are sufficiently nationalistic and patriotic for the government to have a maintenance program and not an active house-to-house repressive response on the people.

That said, I very much doubt that China would enjoy similar levels of societal peace if the bulk of its population had direct access to subversive western media. The ways in which this subversive content currently enters China on the one hand, and actual exposition to a broad propaganda apparatus as Iranians are experiencing on the other hand, just do not have the same level of impact. Which is why western regimes and their mouthpieces aren't exactly happy about any talk of more effective internet regulation by Iran, quite the contrary.

<snipped>

Yes, I would be happy to live in Iran.

Let us take what you said in post 141.

...they would certainly benefit a lot if their benevolent state authorities finally proceeded to regulating the internet in such a manner as to neutralize much of the dangerous subversiveness ensuing from the incomparably massive propaganda and social engineering campaign which hostile regimes have been subjecting them to.​

​

'they' = the Iranian people
'benevolent state authorities' = Mr. SalarHaqq

As for the 'benevolent state authorities', the word 'benevolence' implies at least one desirable character from many characters: kindness.

There are two types of kindness: maternal and paternal.

The maternal kindness is momentary, close, and immediate. When the child had a fall, the mother takes charge. Clean up the wound and the tears, and calm the child. The paternal kindness is remote and visionary. The father is not cruel in any way. He is just as loving as the mother. But he understand that as long as the child recovers, the lesson is that life can be hard and that is the vision the child must learn.

You are clearly the better wordsmith than I. English is my 3rd language so at least I have an excuse for that inferiority. Nevertheless, I am no stranger to theoretical and philosophical speech so I will distill out what you said.

You want the Iranian government is to be that benevolent paternalistic authority.

- I know better than you.​

- I have seen the Internet.​

- Many Iranians are strong.​

- Many Iranians are weak.​

So because of item four, access to the Internet must be controlled and allowed contents must be filtered BEFORE those contents get to the masses. Because of the weak among the strong, I must treat ALL citizens as the lowest common denominator.

Substitute 'Internet' for anything that is non-Iranian and non-Islamic. Substitute 'Iranians' for any nationality. Then look at history and see that what you want for Iran have been done before. Done and failed. The four reasons I listed have served as the same unitary justification for all authoritarian governments. Nothing new.

 

[Bahram Esfandiari]

Seems like a lot of the mullah supporters are leaving in the totalitarian and decadent west. The regular Iranians won’t be having the same luxuries of free societies afforded to the ones outside Iran. Sad day when you want to oppress your own people while they have the hated western freedoms all for themselves.

If you think that the west is free than you are a total idiot!

 

[OldTwilight]

Israel has Hasbra ,
ISI has Afsaran ...

 

[SalarHaqq]

You want tonight ideas with restriction that will always fail.
If your ideology can't compete with foreign one and let say a problematic foreign ideology then there must be some serious flaws in your ideology

No, not necessarily. It's just that those in charge of formulating and publicizing your ideology have much less material means at their disposal to do so than your mortal enemies. Hence, it is perfectly fair and necessary to even the playing field through corrective measures.

Whether in the economy or in politics, when there's no real equality of chances, competition makes no sense and is mainly a hoax, instrumentalized ex post by ruling oligarchies to legitimize their position as "perfectly merited" or "democratic" / "popular" etc.

The problem is that the list change on hourly base and also the website won't belong to you and the data sent there will be encrypted so those website can act as gateway to the real Internet

Url's of websites don't change on an hourly basis. The model I proposed is not compromised by data encryption. If a VPN allows for it, so can a nation-wide central exchange point.

__________

All governments have self preservation interests to all aspects of itself.

Contestant authorities ALWAYS result in a civil war. As an American, I point you to the US Civil War where the cause was slavery. One side, or authority, want to preserve slavery. The other side, or authority, want to abolish it. The result is a civil war. An anti-government movement always have an intellectual beginning. Somewhere. Somehow. Some times the reigning authority find out. Often times, not. So it behooves the reigning authority to 'nip it in the bud', as Americans say, whenever possible.

Authoritarian governments is always fearful of information and the most knowledgeable of verboten knowledge is the government itself, ie: government employees. All the way up to the top dog.

The fact that authoritarian governments like China, NKR, the Soviet Union, the GDR, et al, always tries to keep their government employees under control by way of generous benefits and punishments are evident enough that authoritarian governments FEELS threatened. A civil war is always started from the inside. The intellectual foundation may have external influences, but it is always up to the natives to produce that anti-government movement.

This is an ideologically, almost religiously tainted simplification of political and social mechanisms, processes and factors.

Truth is that the most oppressive regimes in the world, those which restrict individual freedoms to the highest degree, are so-called western liberal democracies. In order to achieve that, they do not resort to coercive measures but to two key instruments: indirect control through economic monopolization of the means of information production, which are in the hands of an oligarchic elite itself linked to occult and unelected power centers and networks (from international zionism to freemasonry); propaganda, but even worse, social engineering via said means of communication, social engineering being the most underhanded, sneaky form of collective brainwashing and behavioral manipulation in existence.

But such controls IS impossible. China is considerably more permissive than NKR, aka the 'Hermit Kingdom', but even as tightly controlled the NKR-eans, many of them still somehow managed to know more than their fellow citizens, and annually, many of them risked their lives trying to escape the country.

One, control of information in liberal so-called "democracies" is total and absolute, it suffers no exception whatsoever, insofar as the system is perfectly tailored to make only one outcome possible and rule out all others, despite its pluralistic outer shell. So such control is perfectly possible indeed.

Two, it doesn't matter at all if token amounts of citizens in free nations such as China and Korea get intoxicated by disinformation campaigns of western regimes, in spite of the ingenious and succesfull protective measures their state authorities instituted to shield them from the destructive effects of said campaigns. As a matter of fact, Chinese and North Korean policies in this area have successfully neutralized western capacity to conduct "colored revolutions", as well as several other destabilization techniques including certain terrorist ones. This is remarkable, and this is what Islamic Iran ought to replicate instead of continuing to jeopardize its security and that of the Iranian nation and people because of its current permissive internet policies.

How the Chinese government remains in control are multitudes. The allowance of the practice of capitalism is the majority successful. The Chinese people are too busy trying to 'get rich' to worry about being revolutionaries. On the other hand, the HK Chinese have been free for a few generations and HK is nearly a contestant authority on mainland China. The missing ingredient is the military: none. So the only challenge they can pose to the Chinese government is on the moral plane, which can be easily ran over by PLA tanks.

There's no concrete proof for this. It's not as if western regimes have failed to destabilize capitalist and/or prosperous societies through soft power means in the past.

Capitalism or nor, the one criterion behind China's resilience in fending off western destabilization attempts through means of weaponized information, is and has been its salutary internet and media regulation policies.

In Hong Kong, western social engineering and political brainwashing has ravaged people's spirits for over a hundred years. Plus, Hong Kong has been exposed to western propaganda more than mainland China even after it was returned to its rightful owner.

Taiwan is the true and credible contestant authority. Free and armed. Not counting the world's most powerful country (US) as a political ally and %90 a military ally, which China definitely do not want. For now, mainland Chinese are sufficiently nationalistic and patriotic for the government to have a maintenance program and not an active house-to-house repressive response on the people.

China's position vis a vis the US is only strengthening as time goes by. That's what has been taking place for the past decades, and there's no reversal in sight.

Let us take what you said in post 141.

...they would certainly benefit a lot if their benevolent state authorities finally proceeded to regulating the internet in such a manner as to neutralize much of the dangerous subversiveness ensuing from the incomparably massive propaganda and social engineering campaign which hostile regimes have been subjecting them to.​

​

'they' = the Iranian people
'benevolent state authorities' = Mr. SalarHaqq

You seem to have experienced a slight comprehension issue here.

Benevolent authorities = the Islamic Republic of Iran, or more precisely, the revolutionary core of the IR, not the infiltrated liberal fifth column which acts to serve western-zionist interests.

As for the 'benevolent state authorities', the word 'benevolence' implies at least one desirable character from many characters: kindness.

There are two types of kindness: maternal and paternal.

The maternal kindness is momentary, close, and immediate. When the child had a fall, the mother takes charge. Clean up the wound and the tears, and calm the child. The paternal kindness is remote and visionary. The father is not cruel in any way. He is just as loving as the mother. But he understand that as long as the child recovers, the lesson is that life can be hard and that is the vision the child must learn.

There are many other forms of kindness, but that's off topic.

You are clearly the better wordsmith than I. English is my 3rd language so at least I have an excuse for that inferiority.

English happens to be my fourth language in chronological order and in terms of how closely related I am to the sources through which I learnt it (although probably my third in terms of mastery).

You want the Iranian government is to be that benevolent paternalistic authority.

- I know better than you.​

- I have seen the Internet.​

- Many Iranians are strong.​

- Many Iranians are weak.​

So because of item four, access to the Internet must be controlled and allowed contents must be filtered BEFORE those contents get to the masses. Because of the weak among the strong, I must treat ALL citizens as the lowest common denominator.

Let me reformulate this to better reflect my point: the western and zionist regimes are experts at not just propaganda and collective brainwashing, not just to intensive psy-ops, but also at social engineering and at inflicting definitive change to collective behavioral patterns. These measures they have been subjecting the Iranian nation to.

Not just in a limited way. No, to the contrary, the propaganda campaign Iranians have been exposed to is absolutely unprecedented in human history - be it in its scope, in its intensity, in its sophistication, in the means allocated to it, or in its plain nefariousness.

One of its distinct and immediately visible features to well versed observers, is its propensity to promote a depression-inducing and collective mass-suicidal type of mindset among the Iranian people. This is very obvious in the "reporting" of media managed by western intelligence services such as the MI6-linked BBC Farsi.

For the goal of said campaign is indeed the obliteration of the Iranian nation and civilization. In line with the general policy project of the zio-American empire, which has resulted in the utter destruction of a multitude of other countries of the region over the past few decades (from Iraq and Syria to Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and Afghanistan). And Iran is actually their top target.

Because, and this explains the massiveness of the propaganda efforts enacted by Iran's existential enemies, the Islamic Revolution is in its very essence a popular movement which has mobilized the extreme majority of Iranians, since it is a reflection of their culture, their beliefs, convictions and aims. Because, the revolutionary core of the IR is very apt at working in the interest of the people (and not just the Iranian people).

Therefore, and considering that they lack a (politically, socially if not economically) cost-effective and fool proof military option to achieve their objectives, Iran's enemies see themselves forced to concentrate on the propaganda, psy-ops and social engineering .

A liberal, permissive response to this mortal threat is not going to be effective, and worse, is putting at risk the continued existence of Iranians as a society and a unified nation, and even in the physical sense.

Simply because in information warfare, mass and amount are key. Sophistication and quality of content matter as well, but not quite as much. Joseph Goebbel's famous axiom has indeed a deep dose of truth to it, and this is documented in practice throughout modern history in every corner of the world. Asymmetrical resistance in the realm of information wars does not produce the results that it achieves on the hard power level. Iran's material means to counter western propaganda are virtually non-existent and nill, compared to her enemies' practically unlimited resources. Parity cannot be achieved in this domain anytime soon.

Despite all this, the Iranian nation has weathered all storms stemming from her enemies' propaganda warfare waged against her. But the threat always looms large, and the threat is of an existential nature. Hence, if greater peace of mind and a higher insurance in this regard are desired, there is no other way than a more effective regulation of the instruments used by the enemy to conduct its propaganda, psy-ops and social engineering warfare against Iran and the Iranian people.

Substitute 'Internet' for anything that is non-Iranian and non-Islamic. Substitute 'Iranians' for any nationality. Then look at history and see that what you want for Iran have been done before. Done and failed. The four reasons I listed have served as the same unitary justification for all authoritarian governments. Nothing new.

As explained, things are far more complex than an imagined binary opposition between supposedly "authoritarian" and supposedly "democratic" types of governance. And control measures have shown to be effective at preserving social peace and stability in the face of western-waged soft war.

 

[SalarHaqq]

A technocracy. I think the Soviets and the Maoist Chinese tried it. You might want to look up the consequences.

I wasn't talking about forms of government.

The true leap here is the assertion that the Iranian people will be better off under government control of access to the Internet.

That's factual, much rather than a leap.

Of which those of us steeped in applied principles of any kind have difficulties accepting.

Social scientists would differ.

What you are proposing is only one degree, or two at best, away from ordinary lives, down to what we can eat and . The closer the application of said proposal to my life, the more I want to know if you ever lived that potential life. You are not talking living on Mars or the debate between Freud and Nietzsche. Esoteric issues that would remain on my bookshelf 364 or maybe 363 days out of the yr. You are asking all of us to restrict our daily intellectual consumption, even if just for entertainment purposes, all because you claimed to know what is better for us than we for ourselves. So yes, it is human nature to ask if you ever lived that life, what was it like, would you live it again, and how would you apply it today.

Western-zionist propaganda has nothing really "intellectual" to it. On the contrary, one of its objectives is dumbing down and mentally conditioning the masses.

Judging from a few responses, seems convincing enough.

Responses from whom? Resident zionist activists hostile to Iran? An American-Iranian who hardly ever posts and whose views are in the minority among Iranian users? Assorted Pakistani members with either a bias against Iran, or strong secularist views, who are automatically attracted by topics like these even though they too represent a minority among their compatriots? That's not really a faithful reflection of the local Iranian community.

YOU have. Indirectly.

No.

So there we have it: You are a believer in the idea of a benevolent dictatorship. Of which, do not have a successful record in governance. Quite bloody, actually.

Benevolent because that's what they actually are. Not as a descriptive adjective for a form of government I advocate. By the way, Iran would remain democratic even if my proposal was put into effect. As for bloody, let's not even get into the body count caused by so-called liberal democracies throughout time.

The funny part here is that you brought on 'Western totalitarianism' where we allowed a two-way street of information flow, confident that our ideological beliefs will withstand comparison to alternatives made by our citizens.

No, they allow it because the production of information is monopolistic or oligopolistic at best, as far as its economic ownership is concerned, and because the elites which eternally reproduce themselves at the top of this structure are by definition loyal to the system, which they themselves constitute.

Any and all dissident flow of information existing in such a system is calibrated from the outset to serve as an alibi for the illusion of "freedom", not to pose a serious and credible challenge to the regime. Or, it is not really dissident but made of nuances which are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Iranians do not need to see your life experience to reject what you are proposing.

Or to actually subscribe to what I am proposing. Yes indeed, personal stories aren't relevant here.

 

[BHAN85]

with or without laws..

The only country who can effectively make Internet censorship is China.
Because they have their own internet services.

e.g.: Cuba in the last protests can't censorship internet, and they just cut whole internet in the island. Because they have no technology to cut only a part.

 

[SalarHaqq]

So another great chinese firewall?

So how long before the iranian members here get cut off?

No, no such thing is planned. Unfortunately. Why not read proper sources before postulating things?

 

[gambit]

...which are in the hands of an oligarchic elite itself linked to occult and unelected power centers and networks (from international zionism to freemasonry)...

Am done. There are plenty of Iranians who believe in this line of...ahhh...'reasoning'...so this is pretty much a clarion call to unify behind your arguments. Good luck, sir. Same to all Iranians, on/off the Internet.

 

[Hack-Hook]

No, not necessarily. It's just that those in charge of formulating and publicizing your ideology have much less material means at their disposal to do so than your mortal enemies. Hence, it is perfectly fair and necessary to even the playing field through corrective

I'm sorry but I can't agree that they have less tools for inside Iran maybe for outside yes but inside Iran no

 

[sammuel]

~

Iranians fear new bill will restrict internet even further

By MEHDI FATTAHI and ISABEL DEBRE yesterday

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — For Ali Hedieloo, a 40-year-old making wooden furniture in Iran’s capital, Instagram is more than just a surfeit of glossy images. Like an estimated 1 million other Iranians, it’s how he finds customers, as the app has exploded into a massive e-commerce service in the sanctions-hit country.

But now, the social media platform has come under threat. Iran moved last week toward further government restrictions on Instagram and other apps, as hard-line lawmakers agreed to discuss a bill that many fear will undermine communication, wipe out livelihoods and open the door to the banning of key social media tools.

“I and the people working here are likely to lose our jobs if this bill becomes effective,” said Hedieloo from his dimly lit workshop in the southern suburbs of Tehran, where he sands bleached wood and snaps photos of adorned desks to advertise.

The bill has yet to be approved by Iran’s hard-liner dominated parliament, but it is already stirring anxiety among young Iranians, avid social media users, online business owners and entrepreneurs. Iran is a country with some 94 million internet devices in use among its over 80 million people. Nearly 70% of Iran’s population uses smartphones.


Over 900,000 Iranians have signed a petition opposing the bill. The protest comes at a tense time for Iran, with Ebrahim Raisi, the former judiciary chief and hard-line protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, assuming the country’s highest civilian position this week. Journalists, civil society advocates and government critics have raised the alarm about the possible increase of social repression once he takes office.

The draft legislation, first proposed this spring by conservative lawmakers, requires major foreign tech giants such as Facebook to register with the Iranian government and be subject to its oversight and data ownership rules.

Companies that host unregistered social media apps in Iran would risk penalties, with authorities empowered to slow down access to the companies’ services as a way to force them to comply. Lawmakers have noted that the crippling U.S. sanctions on Iran make the registration of American tech companies in the country impossible, effectively ensuring their ban.

The law would also criminalize the sale and distribution of virtual private networks and proxies — a critical way Iranians access long-blocked social media platforms like Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and YouTube. It also would bar government officials from running accounts on banned social media platforms, which they now use to communicate with citizens and the press. Even the office of the supreme leader has a Twitter account with over 890,000 followers.


And finally, the bill takes control of the internet away from the civilian government and places it under the armed forces.

The bill’s goal, according to its authors, is to “protect users and their rights.” Hard-liners in the government have long viewed social messaging and media services as part of a “soft war” by the West against the Islamic Republic. Over time, Iran has created what some have called the “halal” internet — the Islamic Republic’s own locally controlled version of the internet aimed at restricting what the public can see.

Supporters of the bill, such as hard-line lawmaker Ali Yazdikhah, have hailed it as a step toward an independent Iranian internet, where “people will start to prefer locally developed services” over foreign companies.

“There is no reason to worry, online businesses will stay, and even we promise that they will expand too,” he said.

Internet advocates, however, fear the measures will tip the country toward an even more tightly controlled model like China, whose “Great Firewall” blocks access to thousands of foreign websites and slows others.

Iran’s outgoing Information Technology Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, whom the hard-line judiciary summoned for prosecution earlier this year over his refusal to block Instagram, warned that the bill would curtail access to information and lead to full-blown bans of popular messaging apps. In a letter to Raisi last month, he urged the president-elect to reconsider the bill.

Facebook, which owns Instagram, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Social media is a highly contested space in Iran, where the government retains tight control over newspapers and remains the only entity allowed to broadcast on television and radio. Over recent years, anti-government protesters have used social media as a communication tool to mobilize and spread their message, prompting authorities to cripple internet services.

During the turmoil in the fall of 2019, for instance, the government imposed a near-complete internet blackout. Even scattered demonstrations, such as the recent protests over water shortages in Iran’s southwest, have seen disruptions of mobile internet service.

But many ordinary Iranians, reeling from harsh American sanctions that have severed access to international banking systems and triggered runaway inflation, remain more preoccupied with the bill’s potential financial fallout.

As the coronavirus ravages Iran, a growing number of people like Hedieloo have turned to Instagram to make a living — tutoring and selling homemade goods and art. Over 190,000 businesses moved online over the past year.

Although much about the bill’s fate remains uncertain, experts say it already has sent a chill through commerce on Instagram, where once-hopeful users now doubt they have a future on the app.

“I and everyone else who is working in cyberspace is worried,” said Milad Nouri, a software developer and technology analyst. “This includes a teenager playing online games, a YouTuber making money from their channel, an influencer, an online shop based on Instagram.”

He added: “Everyone is somehow stressed.”

___

Iranians fear new bill will restrict internet even further

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — For Ali Hedieloo, a 40-year-old making wooden furniture in Iran's capital, Instagram is more than just a surfeit of glossy images.

apnews.com

 

[SalarHaqq]

I'm sorry but I can't agree that they have less tools for inside Iran maybe for outside yes but inside Iran no

Well, once you install a parabolic antenna, you get access to between 80 and 90 foreign-based satellite TV broadcasters, ranging from the odd low budget one-man enterprise to major networks that are either directly state-sponsored or state-owned, all of which participate in propaganda or social / cultural engineering against Iran in one way or another.

IRIB doesn't have 80 channels. They have at most 20 or so, including regional ones.

And then there's the internet, which has no less than 40 million users in Iran. Remove very young children as well as the very old, and these 40 million represent a clear majority of the relevant population. Also, one internet line can be used by several people. And given the relative laxity of the current control architecture, accessing filtered websites is very much child's play, seeing how it can be done through simple VPN services, which are extremely easy to get hold of anywhere across Iran. It can be assumed that all citizens who want to access filtered websites, are doing so already. The VPN certainly reduces connection speeds, but with general network standards constantly getting faster, at one point this will no longer be much of an issue.

Now when it comes to the internet, I believe there's no need to remind how biased this platform is when it comes to information on Iranian affairs. Quantity-wise, Iran simply stands no chance to neutralize the propaganda its enemies are flooding the internet with. Quality-wise, Iran still has a very long way to go in order to be able to challenge them.

This is in addition to the fact - which I could already have used as an argument at earlier stages of the discussion, that western regimes and major interactive websites managed by western-based companies practice political censorship on a noticeable scale themselves... and guess who their main victim is? Indeed, official Iranian media as well as private pro-IR users on so-called "social media". Just observe how Instagram, YouTube, Twitter et al. are harassing and silencing prominent pro-Iran activists on a regular basis in all sorts of ways (from downright shutting down their accounts to slapping age restrictions on their input, their methods are manifold).

And then the main search engine that is Google, a central tool for most internet users, will practice indirect censorship by burying any search result susceptible of conveying a message favorable to Iran, beneath tons of links exhibiting the obligatory anti-Iran or at least anti-IR bias. In fact this is a method Google has put into practice with increasing force, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed this: whatever Google search you launch about contemporary Iranian politics, the first results displayed will almost exclusively originate from western or affiliated mainstream media, often with zionist ones in pole position. And shockingly enough, they even adjusted search results for queries made in Farsi, or for topics more or less exclusive to the domestic Iranian press: indeed, when conducting this sort of a search, Iranian media known to be close to the reformist and/or moderate factions (such as Shargh, Hamshahri etc) will quasi monopolize the initial results! Media more related to the revolutionary or principlist camps will appear much further down, if at all.

Good luck for Iran trying to set up internet tools such as search engines, video hosting sites or "social media" capable of competing with their western equivalents on a purely technical level. This is by no means an easy thing to achieve and requires massive amounts of know-how and experience. It's almost like asking Iranian cinema to be able to rival Hollywood in terms of soft power directed at general audiences. Although I agree that the sooner Iran commits itself to the task, and the more resources it allocates to it, the better. But it's not as if reformists or moderates really had much interest in pursuing these projects in the first place. I hope the upcoming administration will do more in this regard.

Plus, beyond the biased practices of major websites, there is in fact direct censorship of Iranian media by western authorities. How many times was Press TV for instance taken off air by regimes such as the UK? "Dot com" domains of Iranian media seized, like Washington has recently done? And they expect Iran to allow their propaganda effort, which is historically unprecedented in scale and intensity, to reach Iranian households freely and without any hurdles... Whereas in fact, the mere principle of reciprocity does entitle Iran to contain this propaganda.

Last but not least, the western regimes' Farsi-language mouthpieces happen to spread certain content, the kind of which not a single western liberal "democracy" would actually tolerate, given how it runs counter to basic universally valid norms.

An example would be the legitimization of separatist discourse, of separatist organizations and figureheads by these western-controlled anti-Iran media. Many liberal "democracies" such as Spain have repeatedly resorted to coercive measures to rein in and stop in their tracks separatist movements in their country (see how the government in Madrid squashed the referendum on independence organized by Catalan separatists, and how separatist politicians enjoying a local electoral mandate were prosecuted by the Spanish judiciary). Now it could be argued that some western regimes have not dealt with this kind of issue in a similarly heavy handed manner as Spain.

But then, western-sponsored media targeting Iran have gone even farther than that. Namely, by seeking to legitimize terrorist grouplets which use violence against Iran and the Iranian people. Do you remember Voice of America's infamous interview with Abdol Malek Rigi, ringleader of the so-called "Jondollah" terrorist grouplet? In that interview, the official US foreign language service introduced him as an "armed opponent" or even "resistance fighter" or something along those lines - I don't remember the exact terminology, but it was pretty much designed to whitewash the activities of what was clearly a terrorist organization, one which deliberately bombed mosques (including through the use of suicide bombers) and other gatherings of civilians in Iran.

Now this - the attempted legitimization of terrorist entities, or giving them a voice, is something no western regime would tolerate, not even the most "liberal" one. Yet, it is precisely what these Persian-language media based in the west are trying to brainwash the Iranian people with. There can be no tolerance for these types of media, and Iran will be in its right to censor them more efficiently than before on its own territory.

 

[Hack-Hook]

Well, once you install a parabolic antenna, you get access to between 80 and 90 foreign-based satellite TV broadcasters, ranging from the odd low budget one-man enterprise to major networks that are either directly state-sponsored or state-owned, all of which participate in propaganda or social / cultural engineering against Iran in one way or another.

IRIB doesn't have 80 channels. They have at most 20 or so, including regional ones.

And then there's the internet, which has no less than 40 million users in Iran. Remove very young children as well as the very old, and these 40 million represent a clear majority of the relevant population. Also, one internet line can be used by several people. And given the relative laxity of the current control architecture, accessing filtered websites is very much child's play, seeing how it can be done through simple VPN services, which are extremely easy to get hold of anywhere across Iran. It can be assumed that all citizens who want to access filtered websites, are doing so already. The VPN certainly reduces connection speeds, but with general network standards constantly getting faster, at one point this will no longer be much of an issue.

Now when it comes to the internet, I believe there's no need to remind how biased this platform is when it comes to information on Iranian affairs. Quantity-wise, Iran simply stands no chance to neutralize the propaganda its enemies are flooding the internet with. Quality-wise, Iran still has a very long way to go in order to be able to challenge them.

This is in addition to the fact - which I could already have used as an argument at earlier stages of the discussion, that western regimes and major interactive websites managed by western-based companies practice political censorship on a noticeable scale themselves... and guess who their main victim is? Indeed, official Iranian media as well as private pro-IR users on so-called "social media". Just observe how Instagram, YouTube, Twitter et al. are harassing and silencing prominent pro-Iran activists on a regular basis in all sorts of ways (from downright shutting down their accounts to slapping age restrictions on their input, their methods are manifold).

And then the main search engine that is Google, a central tool for most internet users, will practice indirect censorship by burying any search result susceptible of conveying a message favorable to Iran, beneath tons of links exhibiting the obligatory anti-Iran or at least anti-IR bias. In fact this is a method Google has put into practice with increasing force, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed this: whatever Google search you launch about contemporary Iranian politics, the first results displayed will almost exclusively originate from western or affiliated mainstream media, often with zionist ones in pole position. And shockingly enough, they even adjusted search results for queries made in Farsi, or for topics more or less exclusive to the domestic Iranian press: indeed, when conducting this sort of a search, Iranian media known to be close to the reformist and/or moderate factions (such as Shargh, Hamshahri etc) will quasi monopolize the initial results! Media more related to the revolutionary or principlist camps will appear much further down, if at all.

Good luck for Iran trying to set up internet tools such as search engines, video hosting sites or "social media" capable of competing with their western equivalents on a purely technical level. This is by no means an easy thing to achieve and requires massive amounts of know-how and experience. It's almost like asking Iranian cinema to be able to rival Hollywood in terms of soft power directed at general audiences. Although I agree that the sooner Iran commits itself to the task, and the more resources it allocates to it, the better. But it's not as if reformists or moderates really had much interest in pursuing these projects in the first place. I hope the upcoming administration will do more in this regard.

Plus, beyond the biased practices of major websites, there is in fact direct censorship of Iranian media by western authorities. How many times was Press TV for instance taken off air by regimes such as the UK? "Dot com" domains of Iranian media seized, like Washington has recently done? And they expect Iran to allow their propaganda effort, which is historically unprecedented in scale and intensity, to reach Iranian households freely and without any hurdles... Whereas in fact, the mere principle of reciprocity does entitle Iran to contain this propaganda.

Last but not least, the western regimes' Farsi-language mouthpieces happen to spread certain content, the kind of which not a single western liberal "democracy" would actually tolerate, given how it runs counter to basic universally valid norms.

An example would be the legitimization of separatist discourse, of separatist organizations and figureheads by these western-controlled anti-Iran media. Many liberal "democracies" such as Spain have repeatedly resorted to coercive measures to rein in and stop in their tracks separatist movements in their country (see how the government in Madrid squashed the referendum on independence organized by Catalan separatists, and how separatist politicians enjoying a local electoral mandate were prosecuted by the Spanish judiciary). Now it could be argued that some western regimes have not dealt with this kind of issue in a similarly heavy handed manner as Spain.

But then, western-sponsored media targeting Iran have gone even farther than that. Namely, by seeking to legitimize terrorist grouplets which use violence against Iran and the Iranian people. Do you remember Voice of America's infamous interview with Abdol Malek Rigi, ringleader of the so-called "Jondollah" terrorist grouplet? In that interview, the official US foreign language service introduced him as an "armed opponent" or even "resistance fighter" or something along those lines - I don't remember the exact terminology, but it was pretty much designed to whitewash the activities of what was clearly a terrorist organization, one which deliberately bombed mosques (including through the use of suicide bombers) and other gatherings of civilians in Iran.

Now this - the attempted legitimization of terrorist entities, or giving them a voice, is something no western regime would tolerate, not even the most "liberal" one. Yet, it is precisely what these Persian-language media based in the west are trying to brainwash the Iranian people with. There can be no tolerance for these types of media, and Iran will be in its right to censor them more efficiently than before on its own territory.

parabulic antenna get you nothing but interference and headache and the channels you may get worth shit , I have been there and decided to throw away the equipment.
the number of channels matter not , its their quality that matter and sadly you put all IRIB channel together you may be able to put one or two quality channel together the rest are shit and waste of money . they simply must eat the frog and instead of wasting our national resources on them allow private sectors to enter this area .

about intenet we boast about the most powerful ideology but fail to deliver it to our young and reach the conclusion because foreigner can talk better well let not allow our young hear them . i only result in s become weaker , it result in us not being able to defend what we preach.it result in our next generation throw's the gauntlet away and surrender.

about the bold part participate in their discussion and break their logic not try to silence them . or in this matter deafen your people .
at the end sword will never conquer pen, learn to wield pen

 

[Aramagedon]