Can't stop the signal - Updated


Here come the Iranian bloggers
Like I said, the internet is the last, best hope for freedom. Just watch Iran.

She and hordes of other Iranian bloggers are pushing the envelope of the permissible. Technorati, a Silicon Valley search engine for blogs, said in October that Farsi has moved into the top 10 languages worldwide for bloggers. Most estimates put the number of active blogs in Iran at 70,000 to 100,000, and growing fast.

Iran has a long tradition of controlling the airwaves and the print media, banning papers and jailing journalists who criticize official policies.

But Iran's online activists have proved harder to quash. They have used fast-changing Web addresses, proxy sites, and other technological tricks to get around the restrictions.

"They block us and we evade the blocks," Samiei said. "It goes on every day. They code, we decode."

The Ministry of Information periodically sends lists to Internet service providers saying which keywords to filter out so that users can't get access to websites or blogs that contain them. The government contends that the principal target is pornography and other morally offensive material. The word "sex" is among those blocked.

Imagine, a black market of ideas and speech in one of the most repressive nations on the planet. The one thing they can't control is thought, and it looks thoughts are bursting out all over.

UPDATE - If you haven't read it already, try my entry on Liberty, the internet, and the free market. One of my better efforts.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - December 18, 2006 at 04:08 PM  Tag


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