Iranians Protest Leads To The Return Of Gmail

from the but-still-no-youtube dept

Wed, Oct 3rd 2012 7:55pm — Timothy Geigner

As the fervor over the hateful Innocence Of Muslims movie is beginning to die down, you may have heard that in response to that film the Iranian government blocked access to Gmail. There has been much postulation over why Gmail suddenly became a target, including what seems to be a ridiculous claim from the Iranian Telecommunications Ministry that they were simply trying to put a heavy block on YouTube (it's been blocked since long before this movie showed up). But, as most of us probably expected, Gmail is back on.

Regardless of whether or not the block on Gmail was intentional, the obstruction to one of the world’s most popular email services resulted in many complaints from Iran officials. Legislator Hossein Garousi reportedly threatened to summon Iran’s telecommunications minister Reza Taqipour for parliamentary questioning if the service was not unblocked.

Iran continues to block any site or network that expresses “anti-government views,” including sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, which helped rally citizens and circularize the massive protests following the questionable re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Now, the blocking of such sites probably doesn't shock any of us anymore. It's unfortunate, but they're doing it. Hell, Iran has previously announced plans to build their very own internet. The good news is that Iranian citizens aren't simply rolling over at their government's heavy-handed censorship of the internet. They know how to use technology to get around the filters too.

Even though YouTube was previously blocked in Iran before the film was released and Gmail access was barred, Reuters reports on the ability of Iranian citizens to “circumvent Internet restrictions” using virtual private network (VPN) software, which makes it appear as if the computer accessing the content is located in another country.

So best of luck to you, Iranian government, because you're going to need it if you think that suppressing thought and the freedom to access an unfettered internet is going to work out for you in the long term. At least you can rest easy knowing that your citizens can't play online roleplaying games. We've got that covered from our end.

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Filed Under: email, gmail, internet, iran, protests
Companies: google

15 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 3 Oct 2012 @ 8:28pm

If sanctions lead US sites to block Iran from roleplaying games, shouldn't the US compel google to block Iran from gmail as well? The economic importance of gmail to Iran may exceed that of WoW.
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Roman, 3 Oct 2012 @ 9:05pm

In other, probably-soon-to-be news
In other, probably-soon-to-be news, Iran has blocked Techdirt.
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pyro, 3 Oct 2012 @ 9:59pm

If it wasn't already, I would say that Techdirt.com is now a blocked site in Iran as well :D
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Grant, 3 Oct 2012 @ 10:05pm

horrible video
I decided to look up the video that is causing all this controversy and I was incredibly surprised at how horrible it is. By horrible I mean it has a bad script and awful production value. My 9 year old niece made a better, easier to watch short video. I honestly don't think anybody would have watched or heard of this video if crazy fanatics weren't making such a big deal of everything.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Oct 2012 @ 10:18pm

Re:
It's more useful to spy on their email than their WoW session.
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Grant, 3 Oct 2012 @ 10:20pm

horrible video
I decided to look up the video that is causing all this controversy and I was incredibly surprised at how horrible it is. By horrible I mean it has a bad script and awful production value. My 9 year old niece made a better, easier to watch short video. I honestly don't think anybody would have watched or heard of this video if crazy fanatics weren't making such a big deal of everything.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Oct 2012 @ 11:38pm

Re:
Did nobody besides me get that this comment is a joke?
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Oct 2012 @ 11:40pm

Re: Re:
IOW, the economic significance of Gmail is so insignificant to them that a good comparison is the economic significance of WOW.
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Zakida Paul (profile), 4 Oct 2012 @ 1:28am

Re: horrible video
"crazy fanatics weren't making such a big deal of everything."

http://en.avaaz.org/783/muslim-rage-protests-newsweek-salafists

Read that.

Big surprise, the vast majority of Muslims are simply exercising their right to peaceful protest but Western media only show the minority causing violence.
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Ninja (profile), 4 Oct 2012 @ 4:23am

Re: horrible video
Reminds of the Buddhist temples they burned because of a single guy that published a picture of a burned Koran.

These types of people are just plain animals. If we burned down their temples every time an extremist blew up something they'd be all burnt by now. Except that most of us know that those morons don't represent the totality of the Muslims around the world (even though there are quite a few leaning towards fundamentalism). If every single religion was that poisoned by extremism as the Islam is I'm fairly sure we'd have reached extinction by destroying each others.

So much for something that advocates peace and understanding in its origins.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2012 @ 4:46am

Cute cat theory
I see the Cute Cat Theory is still working fine.
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Laroquod (profile), 4 Oct 2012 @ 10:47am

"complaints from Iranian officials" ≠ "Iranians protest"

I would never have come here to read this article if the headline hadn't implied falsely that ordinary Iranian citizens had mounted a protest. Which means that essentially you tricked me into loading this page.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2012 @ 6:05pm

Re: horrible video
Heard you the first time.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Oct 2012 @ 6:17pm

Because we all give a crap what sites are blocked in Iran.
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nospacesorspecialcharacters (profile), 14 Mar 2013 @ 8:05am

Re: Re: horrible video
Even bigger surprise, vast majority of muslims around the world didn't even notice or care.

Want a litmus test of how prejudiced Western media is against non-western culture? A few muslims somewhere in Iran protest America - IRAN PROTESTS AGAINST AMERICA!

It's a bit if Westboro Baptists were to protest a gay funeral and media around the world reported AMERICA PROTESTS AGAINST HOMOSEXUALS!

It's about time the media stopped treating isolated groups of individuals as though they speak for the whole country or region. Brown people are capable of individual thought and disagreement with their government too!
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