Internet filtering – like the medium itself – may be a relatively new phenomenon, but all through history, states across the world have typically sought to restrict or otherwise control the kind of information that is available to their people.
Here in Iran, where the traditional media are under heavy state control and yet a sizeable online community exists, the issue of internet filtering is keenly debated. Many commentators see filters as being inconsistent with the right of freedom of information.
Responding to a question from reformist member of parliament Akbar Alami on the country’s internet policy during a January 17 debate in the Majlis, Mohammad Soleimani, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology argued that filtering was “a matter of global security and an established fact in many countries”.
The issue does not just concern the reformists and their allies. Baztab, a conservative news website close to the Revolutionary Guard was blocked in February on the basis of a decree issued three months earlier by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, SCCR, a group established by the late Ayatollah Khomeni to promote and protect the influence of Islamic culture in society.
While the SCCR has been engaged on the issue of filtering for several years, it had hitherto mostly been concerned about pornography and sites regarded as extremely political sensitive. The decree it handed down in November, however, publicly reminded Iranians that sites that published “false information”, “violated the constitution”, invaded ”privacy” or otherwise affected “the unity of the country” would be banned.
Coming as it did at a time of increasing state-sponsored debate on censorship, the decree met with some opposition, with a number of public officials, institutions and non-government organisations arguing that the SCCR was not a legislative body and therefore had no right to act in this way.
The then chairman of the SCCR, former president Mohammad Khatami, hit back at these critics, insisting that there “should be a centre that has final authority over cultural issues, so that each organisation knows what is expected of it, and so that… laws [sic] ratified by the SCCR are upheld”.
Khatami acknowledged that while the internet was a ”necessity”, there was “concern that powerful [forces] will exploit technologies such as internet and satellite to adversely influence our national culture”. He underlined that the SCCR was “determined to protect the culture of our society”.
Since the decree was issued, the Responsible Committee for Distinguishing Illegal Web Activity, a body set up five years ago under the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, has begun blocking an increasing number of websites and blogs deemed anti-constitutional, immoral or otherwise undesirable.
State officials have gone on the offensive against individuals accused of cooperating with the newly banned websites, or republishing material on their own private web-logs. On January 1 this year, owners were given two months to either register their sites or shut them down.
But many communication and internet experts in Iran are critical of what they see as inept and over-prescriptive filtering. According to one professor at Tehran University who did not want to be identified, “Filtering is an insult to the common sense of users and reduces them to the level of infants in need of guardianship… mass banning or total restrictions on a site are basically an insult to the intelligence of the users. By doing this, we are telling the users they have no understanding of right and wrong, so we are going to decide and make choices for them.
“This is fundamentally in contradiction with the basic rationale of internet, which has defined itself as an unlimited data centre. And no matter how active and effective the filtering is, users will still get to where they want to be by using the latest anti-filtering software to stay one step ahead.
Kazem Motamed Nejad, professor of communication sciences at Allameh Tabatabai University and widely held to be the father of IT science in Iran, similarly maintains that “in principle, there is no justification for filtering in the context of freedom of information”.
Younes Shokr-Khah, a writer, translator and the head of Hamshahrionline, argues that “from the point of view of technology, blocking the internet is irrelevant… the user is always searching for more sources, and will stop at nothing to do so. In virtual reality, restrictions have no meaning, and the user cannot be deprived of information”.
A communications expert himself, Shokr-Khah maintains that the policy of the Ministry of Communications is misguided in that it focuses on the “worst offenders”, and uses them to shape the criteria for action.
“So everybody is paying for the behaviour of a particular and limited group,” he says. “And the filtering method is simplistic and naive.”
Shokr-Khah is critical of an approach which he says pre-judges the user as guilty. “In my view, the deterrent approach is not logical. The same system of penalties used for publications would be adequate for the internet as well, based on monitoring and reviewing information post-publication and issuing reprimands when offences are committed,” he says.
He also believes the current approach to dealing with this issue entirely contradicts the communication legislation that has been debated and agreed in the Majlis. “In my view, the actions of the Responsible Committee for Distinguishing Illegal Web Activity has many negative aspects and implications.”
Dr Mehdi Mohsenian-Rad, a faculty member at Imam Sadeq University, is also critical of the methods currently in force, saying, “Software control cannot be the right way to deal with moral matters in cyberspace.”
Mohsenian-Rad believes that instead of investing in this filtering technology, it would be better to educate people about how to use the latest information and communication systems so that they themselves can consciously impose the same restrictions on themselves. Current filtering software may seem impenetrable, but it is not very resilient and from the moment it is introduced, many capable internet users will find their way around these programmes to get to the sites they want to see.
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This article is an abridged and translated version of the full original text published on the Farsi pages of Mianeh, with editorial adjustments agreed with the writer made to provide clarity for English-language readers.