[Air-L] Shifts in Persian Cyberspace and Social Networking in Iran

[Laura Henderson]

The Iran Media Program (http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en) announces two
new reports that might be of interest to AoIRists:

*Whither Blogestan: Evaluating Shifts in Persian Cyberspace:
http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en/research/download/1607

Between 2002 and 2010, the Persian blogosphere exploded in size and became
the topic of numerous reports, essays, videos and books. However, global
interest in this emerging trend seemed to decrease during the second
presidential mandate of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This report is aimed at
providing an answer to whether Blogestan itself has faded in size, activity
and influence, since 2009. The report includes an audience survey of
Persian blog readers, a web crawling analysis of the Iranian blogosphere,
and a series of interviews with 20 influential bloggers living inside and
outside of Iran.

*Liking Facebook in Tehran:Social Networking  in Iran:
http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en/research/download/1609

This report, based on an online survey of Iranian Facebook users,
contributes to a small but growing body of scholarship on social and new
media use in Iran. Our findings offer new insights into the Iranian
Facebook ecosystem, including patterns of Facebook usage among Iranians,
why and how Iranians are using Facebook, what types of content they are
sharing, as well as perceptions of privacy and security associated with
using Facebook. In addition, the survey addresses the key question of
whether Facebook is being used as a tool for political engagement and civic
activism among Iranian internet users, as initial assessments suggested.

AoIRists might also be interested in these other publications from the IMP:

*Citation Filtered: Iran's Censorship of Wikipedia:
http://cgcsblog.asc.upenn.edu/2013/11/07/citation-filtered/

Using proxy servers in Iran, researchers scanned 800,000 Persian language
Wikipedia articles. Every blocked article was identified and blocked pages
were divided into ten categories to determine the type of content to which
state censors are most adverse. The report is accompanied by an
infographicdetailing blocking mechanisms and types of filtered content.

*Internet Censorship in Iran: An infographic:
http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/sites/default/files/research/pdf/1363180689/1385/internet_censorship_in_iran.pdf

This infographic illustrates the constellation of bodies currently involved
in internet censorship in Iran. It attempts to show the complexity of
Iran's internet governance system by mapping the relationship between the
different policy-making and enforcement bodies involved in internet
censorship and filtering, spotlighting four new bodies-the Supreme Council
on Cyberspace, the Committee Charged with Determining Offensive Content,
the Cyber Army, and the Cyber Police-that have emerged since 2009 as key
institutions responsible for controlling the flow of online communications,
both within Iran and betweenIranians and the global cybersphere.

*Finding a way - How Iranians reach for news and information:
http://www.iranmediaresearch.org/en/research/pdffile/990

This study details the results of an online questionnaire among young,
metropolitan, educated and technologically savvy Iranians, and was aimed at
illustrating the extent to which these youth employ new media for political
purposes over a year after the contested Iranian elections and during the
Tunisia, Egypt and Libya uprisings. The prevalence of Internet use, online
activities, and speed of access was assessed, as was the use of and
engagement with certain platforms such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter. The
surveys also examined the use of circumvention tools as well as the extent
to which Iraniansthink citizens can be empowered through the use of new
media.

*Dimming the Internet: Detecting Throttling as a Mechanism of Censorship in
Iran:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.4361

In the days immediately following the contested June 2009 Presidential
election, Iranians attempting to reach news content and social media
platforms were subject to unprecedented levels of the degradation, blocking
and jamming of communications channels. Rather than shut down networks,
which would draw attention and controversy, the government was rumored to
have slowed connection speeds to rates that would render the Internet
nearly unusable, especially for the consumption and distribution of
multimedia content. Since, political upheavals elsewhere have been
associated with headlines such as "High usage slows down Internet in
Bahrain" and "Syrian Internet slows during Friday protests once again,"
with further rumors linking poor connectivity with political instability in
Myanmar and Tibet. For governments threatened by public expression, the
throttling of Internet connectivity appears to be an increasingly preferred
and less detectable method of stifling the free flow of information. In
order to assess this perceived trend and begin to create systems of
accountability and transparency on such practices, we attempt to outline an
initial strategy for utilizing a ubiquitous set of network measurements as
a monitoring service, then apply such methodology to shed light on the
recent history of censorship in Iran.

*The Hidden Internet of Iran: Private Address Allocations on a National
Network:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.6398

While funding agencies have provided substantial support for the developers
and vendors of services that facilitate the unfettered flow of information
through the Internet, little consolidated knowledge exists on the basic
communications network infrastructure of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In
the absence of open access and public data, rumors and fear have reigned
supreme. During provisional research on the country's censorship regime, we
found initial indicators that telecommunications entities in Iran allowed
private addresses to route domestically, whether intentionally or
unintentionally, creating a hidden network only reachable within the
country. Moreover, records such as DNS entries lend evidence of a 'dual
stack' approach, wherein servers are assigned a domestic IP addresses, in
addition to a global one. Despite the clear political implications of the
claim we put forward, particularly in light of rampant speculation
regarding the mandate of Article 46 of the 'Fifth Five Year Development
Plan' to establish a "national information network," we refrain from
hypothesizing the purpose of this structure. In order to solicit critical
feedback for future research, we outline our initial findings and attempt
to demonstrate that the matter under contention is a nation-wide phenomenon
that warrants broader attention.


Laura Schwartz-Henderson
Research Project Manager
Center For Global Communication Studies
Annenberg School for Communication
University of Pennsylvania
215-898-9727