This week the Iranian regime announced that it was about to launch a crackdown against "decadent" satellite television dishes.
...It didn't take long for them to get cracking!
The Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia also tried to ban satellite dishes in the early 90s but business in the end prevailed. Infidelicious programs like Baywatch and beauty pageants were a big hit in the Kingdom.
The Iranian campaign, however, is aimed more towards information control. The jailing of bloggers attests to that:
"It shows their paranoia," said Derakhshan, who helped ignite the Iranian blog boom in 2001 by posting simple instructions to create sites in Farsi. "They fear these sites and blogs could someday become a way for protesters to communicate and organize. They are trying to control the Internet before it can control them."
2 comments:
There is some speculation going on that the regime is preparing a news blackout in advance of some big events on the horizon.
What do you think, Isaac?
There has been a lot of speculation about August 22.
Though, if it were really a big event, then communication from the outside world would still be possible via email and telephone.
So, even if the Iranian regime is trying to clamp down on news, then it won't succeed. At best it might delay the spread of the big news by a few hours.
It's more likely that this is a case of, "what they can't control, they destroy".
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