Internet massacre by the Supreme Council of Cyberspace
The internet massacre by the Supreme Council of Cyberspace is underway. They say parts of the protection plan, titled the duties, powers, and composition of the Supreme Commission for the Regulation of Cyberspace in the country, have been approved by the Supreme Council of Cyberspace and issued for implementation. A commission that Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, the former Minister of Communications, was strongly opposed to forming, and as long as he was in office, he prevented its implementation. However, with the arrival of Raisi’s government and the new minister, it has been easily approved.
In his interview with the Seke podcast, Azari Jahromi pointed out that members of councils like the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution or the Supreme Council of Cyberspace are seasoned and experts in the topics they decide on and make policies about issues they neither master nor are accountable to the people. He said, no matter how much the minister shouts that the work is wrong, it’s useless. In the meetings of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace in the previous government, we even got into physical altercations with some individuals, but it was of no use because, in the end, a resolution comes out of that meeting that the minister cannot be accountable for.
That real member is not accountable at all. When you say that given the market situation, your decision is wrong, you are tolerated for a while, but after some time, you become an undesirable element in that group, most of whom have been appointed, not elected. On the other hand, you see this policymaker body has entered the area of regulation and execution.
The structure and powers of this body have gone in a direction to reduce the government’s powers. The government does not have authority but is accountable. He points out that bodies like the Supreme Council of Cyberspace have serious conflicts of interest and friction with development programs. He says you don’t see an economist in the Supreme Council of Cyberspace.
Elimination of stakeholders
Following the recent resolution of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, we will witness the formation of a commission that will act as the regulator of regulators in cyberspace. This was perhaps the most important and main part of the controversial protection plan. The regulator of regulators, which has now been redefined with this resolution, is prepared to take on this key role. The absence of experts, knowledgeable individuals, and representatives of the private sector in a council that is supposed to be at the forefront of regulation and governance in the country is the most significant change made in the current composition of the Supreme Commission for Regulation.
The most important change in the composition of the commission members is that in the previous resolution, four real members were selected from among specialists and experienced individuals upon the proposal of the head of the National Cyberspace Center and the approval of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace. But in the current resolution, while reducing the number of these members to two, the condition of being members of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace has also been considered for these members, and the presence of knowledgeable individuals or representatives of the private sector in the commission’s meetings will be without voting rights.
The removal of voting rights from these individuals indicates the minimal influence of the council’s decisions and resolutions from knowledgeable individuals and private sector representatives. The possibility of having 4 real members who could previously be present in this council with voting rights among specialists and experienced individuals has been completely eliminated. In other words, the presence of these individuals in the council is not mandatory, it is optional, and it only matters in terms of advisory discussions.
Azari Jahromi said in that podcast that what had been done within the government was to let the private sector choose these three knowledgeable members. We said let the IT guild introduce these three members themselves. They wanted to create a regulatory body for us, which I stopped and said we already have this commission. Now, with Jahromi gone, the hands of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution have been freed to eliminate the stakeholders of this plan.
Internet massacre
Azari Jahromi pointed out that the goals of the internet massacre are hidden within the protection plan. He says the first criticism of this plan is that it reduces the people’s right to have a say in major decisions. People vote for the government to create and implement policies, but with such plans, you weaken the foundation of democracy, meaning decisions that the government should make are handed over to a commission that is not derived from the people’s vote.
The Supreme Council of Cyberspace should remain a policymaker and leave the role of regulation to the government. But now it has entered the realm of regulation without being derived from the people’s vote. Independence from the government means involving stakeholders, not handing the work over to oligarchs. According to Azari Jahromi, the people in this policymaker body have powers that do not match their responsibilities. People who vote expect changes in certain policies, but the government is not the active player in these bodies and does not have the majority in voting. It is only the head of this body, and in the end, the people’s votes have less impact on determining policies.
IRIB behind the scenes of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace
Azari Jahromi criticized the performance of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, saying put the members of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace and the Cultural Revolution together. The multiplicity of decision-making bodies and their authority in approving documents is such that they are a single entity. They sit in the morning session of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution and make one decision, and in the afternoon session of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, they make another decision.
When we wanted to develop 5G, we faced an attack in the Supreme Council of Cyberspace meeting, questioning why we did this. It is against the policies not to increase the bandwidth. He adds that the majority in this council are individuals who have not been appointed through an elective mechanism, and you even realize that an entity like IRIB plays a significant role there. The IRIB’s perspective is inherently opposed to the development of cyberspace, thinking that all of cyberspace is media.
He says they believed that because the content domain is slow, communications should slow down as well. Our argument was that if we slow it down, many other sectors will collapse. There is a correlation between the growth of bandwidth in the country and the growth of GDP. Our goal as the Ministry of Communications is the economic growth of the country. You can’t create competition in all areas but create an enclave in content production and say it should be under the supervision of IRIB, which itself faces numerous problems in its daily affairs.
