Khatami Web Sites Filtered
February 23rd, 2009 — Bruce EtlingAccording to the Associated Press, a number of pro-Khatami Web sites have been filtered in Iran. It appears that the authorities in Iran have increased filtering efforts of late, possibly in an attempt to thwart the Khatami campaign just as it gets started. Even religious authorities are striking out against religious bloggers that are not officially sanctioned, warning that they may be dangerous to society. The two blocked Khatami sites, Yari News and Yari , were set up last summer in anticipation of Khatami’s run, although his official campaign site is still visible.
However, the filtering does not see to have phased Khatami supporters. Majid Ansari told AP:
Reformist opponents assume they can block the path of people’s understanding but people are wise enough to judge these actions. Blocking sites won’t stop Khatami from challenging (Ahmadinejad).
As you can see from last year’s Iranian blogosphere map, the relative location of Khatami’s Web site and Amidinijad’s blog show how reformists and conservatives are set across from each other in contentious political dialog. The position of these two groups on the network map indicates that they are linking to the same sources and talking about the same issues, but not as much as they link to those in their own group.
This is not dissimilar from the US political blogosphere, where conservatives and liberals cluster up into two large network formations set across from one another. For those of you that couldn’t make it all the way through our paper, we plan to release an interactive Iranian blogsphere map in the coming weeks with an updated map (that you can see here) as well as sample ‘mock blogs,’ popular links and media preferences for the different clusters in the blogosphere.
Hat Tip: Hamid Tehrani
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February 23rd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
It would be very cool if folks confirmed/denied from their respective locations via Herdict Web: http://www.herdict.org.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Great idea. I was just thinking the same thing. I just went to the Herdict web site and it’s visible from cambridge–but we need some folks from inside Iran to check it is visible there, and to report through http://www.herdict.org.
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
a user inside iran confirms via herdict that yarinews is blocked.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
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