Iran systematically filters political websites

August 19, 2004 7:48 PM

Iran systematically filters political websites: In contrast with what the Iranaian President had said in the UN summit on Information Technology last year, the OpenNet Initiative, in its latest bulletin, concludes that "Iran is indeed engaged in extensive Internet content filtering beyond just pornography, including many political, religious, social, and blogging websites.
"Most of these censored websites are Iran-specific; very little non-pornographic, "global" content is filtered from Iranian users. "
posted by hoder (8 comments total)

Thank you, hoder, for a post that gives good perspective for the rest of us, and refreshingly has nothing to do with america...
posted by moonbird at 8:39 PM on August 19, 2004

finally ! a reason to attack iran .
posted by mishaco at 9:01 PM on August 19, 2004

Well, they could be censoring their net traffic so we don't find out about the preemptive attack they are preparing against us...
posted by rushmc at 9:02 PM on August 19, 2004

what if they're just planning a suprise party?
posted by Satapher at 10:08 PM on August 19, 2004

Satapher wins!
posted by solistrato at 11:40 PM on August 19, 2004

Australian tv's Foreign Correspondent program recently featured a story called Iran - Cyber Dissidents, which delved into Iranians' relationship with the internet. It started off with an interview of a 24-year-old dissident Iranian blogger whose day job is the running of a government website! Here's the transcript and there's a few links of interest in the synopsis page linked above.
posted by Onanist at 12:52 AM on August 20, 2004

engaged in extensive Internet content filtering beyond just pornography, including many political, religious, social, and blogging websites.

Can you say "China?"
posted by scarabic at 2:52 AM on August 20, 2004

Wait, so an oppressive dictatorship is censoring the internet? Now I'm pissed!
posted by jpoulos at 5:02 AM on August 20, 2004