Will the filtering be removed?
Will the filtering be removed in the fourteenth government with a flood of technological demands of the people and numerous electoral promises coming into play, and tomorrow the first session of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace in this government will be held, and it remains to be seen whether addressing the people’s demands, with the removal of filtering at the forefront, will be on the agenda of tomorrow’s session or not.
Tomorrow, on the ninth of Mehr 1403, the first session of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace in the fourteenth government will be held with the presence of Masoud Pezeshkian, the former president. This session is being held less than three months after the formation of the fourteenth government, while the technological demands of the people have skyrocketed.
The virtual session of the Supreme Council with the presence of the new ministers of the fourteenth government will be held tomorrow. It remains to be seen whether the first virtual session of the Supreme Council will have a significant achievement in response to the technological demands of the people. The Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the head of the Judiciary, the head of the IRIB, the Minister of Communications, Sattar Hashemi, the Minister of Science, the Minister of Education, and the Deputy for Science, Technology, and Knowledge-Based Economy, as well as the President’s Chief of Staff, Hossein Afshin Azad, are among the legal members of this council. Seyyed Mohammad Aghamiri is the secretary of this council, and Hojatoleslam Seyed Saeedreza Ameli, Reza Taqipour, Rasoul Jalili, Seyed Ezzatollah Entezami, and Mohammad Hossein Entezari are also among the actual members of this council.
Lifting internet restrictions and a fundamental review of filtering policies have always been among the top demands of the people in recent years. It is worth mentioning that the latest survey by the Student Opinion Polling Center of Iran, ISPA, indicates the failure of filtering in the country and the preference for foreign platforms over Iranian ones, despite nearly 6 years of Telegram filtering and 2 years of extensive filtering of Instagram, WhatsApp, and other foreign platforms.
Masoud Pezeshkian is working on removing filtering frameworks.
Masoud Pazhakian announced in his first press conference among journalists that the removal of filtering frameworks is on the agenda of the administration. He also mentioned that work is underway regarding filtering programs to eliminate existing frameworks. The issue of cyberspace is on the agenda, and we will discuss it in the Security Council for implementation. The President also mentioned that efforts are being made to implement the removal of filtering as soon as possible.
Promises of Seyed Sattar Hashemi, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, regarding filtering.
The current situation is deemed acceptable due to the use of circumvention tools. The Minister of Communications and Information Technology of the Fourth Government, in his first encounter with journalists, considered the issue of filtering and communication quality as people’s concerns. He stated that we understand the people’s demands, and the current situation is unacceptable due to the use of circumvention tools based on expert evidence. This issue needs to be redesigned and reviewed, and efforts should be made through persuasion, socialization, and agreement to address the filtering problem.
We address the issue of filtering through consensus-building and persuasion. Mr. Hashemi had stated in his first encounter with reporters that our approach in dealing with the issue of filtering will be an active one, and we consider ourselves obligated in this regard. Due to the nature of the services provided by the Ministry of Communications to the public, we are in direct contact, and we must carry out expert work. We need to engage in consensus-building and negotiation about the filtering situation to provide the appropriate solution to the policy-making layer. These points should be pursued in full alignment with a principled persuasive, expert approach, and free from emotional context.
We hope that new openings will be created. We also believe that the current methods are not responsive to the needs of governing the virtual space. However, as policy implementers, we are obligated to summarize the feedback and present it in the form of a detailed and defensible expert work for policymaking. We hope that new opportunities will be created. Furthermore, in response to the question of where the review should start, Stara Hashemi said, ‘The first thing we should do in the review is to invite all stakeholders to come together with a professional perspective and using the capacity of the country’s elites to reach a conclusion. Our emphasis is that this review should be conducted persuasively and professionally. These are the issues that we need to brainstorm in the expert space.’
Hossein Afshin opposes the stratified internet.
One of the dilemmas that extensive filtering has brought in recent years is the emergence of a stratified internet in society layers. An unrestricted and unfiltered internet has been available to some users since the second half of 2022 after restrictions were imposed on some foreign platforms. Although officials in the field of communications and information technology denied this issue at that time.
In recent months, the issue of tiered internet and filtering has become hot again with the news of internet restriction being implemented in Pardis Technology Park. Recently, Hossein Afshin, in his recent remarks, stated in reaction to this incident, ‘In my opinion, implementing tiered internet in Pardis Technology Park is inappropriate for some technologists and companies, and such a thing should not be announced at all. Personally, I do not agree with tiered internet.’
Now, it remains to be seen whether in tomorrow’s meeting of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, which will be attended by new members including Masoud Pezeshkian, Seyed Sattar Hashemi, and Hossein Afshin, references will be made to filtering and its consequences, including the emergence of tiered internet. As of the writing of this report, the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace has not been published, and it is yet to be seen whether addressing the issue of filtering will be on the agenda of this council tomorrow or not.
