Our Observer in Tehran lifts the lid on Web censorship

Iranian Internet has slowed down massively over the last ten days, and is down to 5Kb/s. More and more websites and social networking sites (Facebook, etc) are filtered. One of our Observers, Sara M. (pseudo), a student in Tehran, managed to send us a short video in which she shows how state censorship works on the Web and on text-messaging services.

To find out more about censorship of the Web, we recommend this article in the Wall Street Journal. It explains how filtering technologies used in Iran were developed by European companies Siemens and Nokia.

Comments

"To find out more about

Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Thu, 25/06/2009 - 17:01.

"To find out more about censorship of the Web, talk to France24 theyre experts !

Unregistered user

Tor info searches from Iran

Submitted by Ian (not verified) on Tue, 23/06/2009 - 22:36.

I have been getting hits on my blog post about using Tor in Iran from people actually in Iran but it hasn't been a whole lot. We need to help spread the word and bring down the Iran Curtain.

Unregistered user

Nothing Happend!

Submitted by Shideh (not verified) on Tue, 23/06/2009 - 23:13.

Tor is also filtred in Iran but the main problem now is the speed, it takes 2-3 min to open a web page and with this speed using proxy and anti-filters is very difficult or impossible, but thanks for your kind help!

Unregistered user

Tor FTW!!!

Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Tue, 23/06/2009 - 23:07.

I used Tor when I was living in China. They have the same kind of internet filtering over there. Tor is great, but really slow. But when you are craving information, slow is better then none!

Unregistered user

She will most likely get

Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Tue, 23/06/2009 - 22:20.

She will most likely get identified then put to death after the Iranian government sets up the court system to track down people. Poor girl I hope she gets out in time but I doubt it.

Unregistered user

Harsh Censorship

Submitted by Omid Habibinia on Tue, 23/06/2009 - 19:50.

Since 11 days ago, Islamic Republic officials have started a harsh incompararable censorship to repress any protest and also filtering all source of information, from sending parasite to BBC Persian Sat. TV to blocking SMS system and also cutting off mobile network where demonstrations or rally take place.
They also decreased internet speed to about 5 kb to make it impossible to upload videos or to get the news, almost all of news websites are filtered, so many people find themselves stuck in a big jail.

Omid Habibinia

Switzerland
Media Researcher & Journalist

Use this tool

Submitted by Unregistered user (not verified) on Tue, 23/06/2009 - 21:39.

Hello. To filtert contents use this tool: its a proxy server and leads the traffic through a proxy in usa so the services like facebook dont see where you come from. this might help. the name of the tool is "hotspot shield" google it.

Unregistered user